The big fella : Babe Ruth and the world he created / Jane Leavy.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Leavy, Jane, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ruth, Babe, 1895-1948.

Ruth, Babe.

Outfielders (Baseball)--United States--Biography.

Outfielders (Baseball).

Baseball players--United States--Biography.

Baseball players.

United States.

Genre:

Biographies.

Nonfiction.

Physical Description:

xxx, 620 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

Big fellow

Place of Publication:

New York, New York : Harper, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, [2018]

Summary:

He lived in the present tense--in the camera's lens. There was no frame he couldn't or wouldn't fill. He swung the heaviest bat, earned the most money, and incurred the biggest fines. Like all the new-fangled gadgets then flooding the marketplace--radios, automatic clothes washers, Brownie cameras, microphones and loudspeakers--Babe Ruth "made impossible events happen." Aided by his crucial partnership with Christy Walsh--business manager, spin doctor, damage control wizard, and surrogate father, all stuffed into one tightly buttoned double-breasted suit--Ruth drafted the blueprint for modern athletic stardom. His was a life of journeys and itineraries--from uncouth to couth, spartan to spendthrift, abandoned to abandon; from Baltimore to Boston to New York, and back to Boston at the end of his career for a finale with the only team that would have him. There were road trips and hunting trips; grand tours of foreign capitals and post-season promotional tours, not to mention those 714 trips around the bases. After hitting his 60th home run in September 1927--a total that would not be exceeded until 1961, when Roger Maris did it with the aid of the extended modern season--he embarked on the mother of all barnstorming tours, a three-week victory lap across America, accompanied by Yankee teammate Lou Gehrig. Walsh called the tour a "Symphony of Swat." The Omaha World Herald called it "the biggest show since Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey, and seven other associated circuses offered their entire performance under one tent." In The Big Fella, acclaimed biographer Jane Leavy recreates that 21-day circus and in so doing captures the romp and the pathos that defined Ruth's life and times. Drawing from more than 250 interviews, a trove of previously untapped documents, and Ruth family records, Leavy breaks through the mythology that has obscured the legend and delivers the man.

Contents:

Introduction

Prologue: June 13, 1902, Baltimore

October 10, Providence

October 10, aboard the New York Central to Manhattan

October 11, Trenton

October 12, Cityline

October 13, Asbury Park

October 13-14, aboard the Manhattan Limited to Lima

October 15, Kansas City, Missouri

October 16, Omaha

October 17, aboard the Rock Island Line to Des Moines

October 18, Sioux City

October 19, Denver

October 21-22, Bay area

October 23, Bay area II

October 25, Marysville

October 26, San Jose

October 28, San Diego

October 29, Fresno

October 30, Los Angeles

Epilogue.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 582-591) and index.

ISBN:

9780062380227

0062380222

OCLC:

1055765951