The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth
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Reichler, Joe (editor). The Baseball Encyclopedia. 7th edition. New York: MacMillan Publishing, 1988.
Reisler, Jim. Babe Ruth: Launching the Legend. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004.
(editor). Guys, Dolls, and Curveballs: Damon Runyon on Baseball. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2005.
Rice, Grantland. The Tumult and the Shouting: My Life in Sport. New York: A. S. Barnes & Co., 1954.
Ritter, Lawrence S. The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It. New York: Macmillan & Co., 1966.
Robertson, John G. The Babe Chases 60: The Fabulous 1927 Season, Home Run by Home Run. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 1999.
Rubin, Louis D., Jr. Babe Ruth’s Ghost and Other Historical and Literary Speculations. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996.
Ruth, Babe (as told to Bob Considine). The Babe Ruth Story. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1948.
Ruth, Babe, Mrs. (with Bill Slocum). The Babe and I. New York: Avon Books, 1959.
Ruth, George Herman. Babe Ruth’s Own Book of Baseball. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1928.
Smelser, Marshall. The Life That Ruth Built: A Biography. New York: Quadrangle/New York Times Books, 1975.
Smith, Mortimer. My School the City. Washington, D.C.: Regnery/Gateway, 1980.
Smith, Robert. Babe Ruth’s America. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1974.
Sobol, Ken. Babe Ruth and the American Dream. New York: Ballantine Books, 1974.
Stevens, Julia Ruth. Major League Dad: A Daughter’s Cherished Memories. Chicago: Triumph Books, 2001.
Stevens, John D. Sensationalism and the New York Press. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961.
Stout, Glenn, and Richard A. Johnson. Red Sox Century. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2000..
Yankees Century. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2002.
Terkel, Studs. Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression. New York: Pantheon Books, 1970.
Trachtenberg, Leo. The Wonder Team: The True Story of the Incomparable 1927 New York Yankees. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1995.
Wagenheim, Kal. Babe Ruth: His Life and Legend. New York: Henry Holt, 1974.
Walsh, Christy. Adios to Ghosts. New York: Self-published, 1937.
Weldon, Martin. Babe Ruth. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1948.
Werber, Bill. Circling the Bases with Bill Werber. Self-published.
(with C. Paul Rogers III). Memories of a Ballplayer: Bill Werber and Baseball in the 1930s. Cleveland: Society for American Baseball Research, 2001.
Wilson, Nick. Voices from the Pastime: Oral Histories of Surviving Major Leaguers, Negro Leaguers, Cuban Leaguers and Writers, 19201934. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 2000.
Wood, Allan. Babe Ruth and the 1918 Red Sox. Lincoln, Neb.: Writers Club Press, 2000.
WEB SITES
A Note About Web Sites
The Web brings an entirely new dimension to book research. A few taps of the fingers instantly can bring up facts ranging from the spelling of a middle name to the life story of, say, New York mayor Jimmy Walker. Any list of the Web sites visited during this project would be incomplete. Following are some notable ones.
www.baseballlibrary.com
www.highbeam.com (Sports Illustrated, etc.)
www.baseball-links.com
www.paperofrecord.com (Sporting News, etc.)
www.indiejournal.com (The Baseball Tragedy of 1920 by Jeff Youngblood)
www.angelfire.com/pa/1927 (the unofficial 1927 New York Yankees home page)
www.stevesteinberg.net (Miller Huggins, Urban Shocker)
www.asms.k12.ar.us/armem/richter/index.htm (Hot Springs, Ark.)
www.sfsu.edu/~mpmott (Making the World Safe for Baseball by Michael Mott)
www.sabr.org
www.aafla.org (Baseball magazine)
www.geocities.com/flapper_culture (the Jazz Age)
www.yankeeclassic.com/miskatonic
www.violetville.org/neighborhoodhistory
www.irishlegends.com (Knute Rockne)
www.celiatan.com
www.wikipedia.com
www.xroads.virginia.edu (The Babe Ruth Times)
www.thedeadballera.com
www.rauchway.ucdavis.edu/altercations.htm (The Red Sox Curse by Eric Rauchway)
www.firstworldwar.com
The search engine ProQuest, accessed through membership in the Society for American Baseball Research, was invaluable. ProQuest was the entry to the back pages of the New York Times, Boston Globe, Atlanta Constitution, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, and Chicago Defender.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THANKS AGAIN to Bob Creamer, Kal Wagenheim, and Jerome Holtzman. Thanks, too, to the late Marshall Smelser. The raw material from four books is not a bad start in writing one book. The generosity and encouragement from these writers, who followed the trail of the Babe when it still was reasonably fresh, was a wonder.
Thanks to Jeff Idelson, Claudette Burke, and Jeremy Jones at the Baseball Hall of Fame. Thanks to Faigi Rosenthal and Scott Browne at the library at the New York Daily News, and to Luisa Tuite at the Boston Globe library. Thanks to the staff at the Boston Public Library, the Winthrop, Massachusetts, Public Library, the Enoch Pratt Free Library, the library at the University of Notre Dame, the libraries at the Baltimore Sun, the Society for American Baseball Research, and assorted other libraries. Thanks to writers Harry Rothgerber, Paul F. Harris Sr., Jonathan Eig, Chris Martens, Matthew Crenson, Allan Wood, and Wayne Coffey. Thanks to Marty Appel, Esther Newberg, Jenny Choi, and Jason Kaufman.
Also, Clarke Booth, Kevin Connolly, Tommy Shea, Ian Thomsen, Mark Linehan, Kevin McGonagle, Paul Doyle, all members of the Garden Street Athletic Club; my son, Leigh, and my daughter, Robin Moleux, and her husband, Doug. And thanks to anyone else who helped, held my hand, and/or listened to me talk about all this stuff that happened long ago.
ALSO BY LEIGH MONTVILLE
Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero
At the Altar of Speed: The Fast Life and Tragic Death of Dale Earnhardt
Manute: The Center of Two Worlds
Why Not Us?: The 86-Year Journey of the Boston Red Sox Fans from
Unparalleled Suffering to the Promised Land of the 2004 World Series
PHOTO INSERT
The only known photo of Ruth’s mother. The baby in her lap is the Babe.
The recreation yard at St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys. Where it all began.
The 16-year-old baseball apprentice at St. Mary’s. The athlete.
Can a team win with a left-handed catcher? The Red Sox, St. Mary’s champs, could with this catcher (standing, left).
Providence, R.I., 1914. The journey into the outside world has begun.
The best left-handed pitcher in baseball. Fastballs and a good curve.
Boston. The pitcher becomes a hitter. He can see what his future should be.
The famed St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys band always had room for an alumni addition. The Babe was always willing to pose.
Signed contract, 1918. (L–R) Red Sox manager Ed Barrow, the Babe, Harry Frazee, and new first baseman Stuffy McInnis finish business dealings prior to the World Championship season.
Cover boy. In October 1920, the erstwhile pitcher revealed “My Secrets of Batting.” As the season unfolded, he showed that these were pretty good secrets.
The Babe and Miller Huggins. The big man and the little man were not always this close.
Col. Tillinghast L’Hommedieu Huston. He once flipped a coin to settle a contract dispute with the Babe.
Psychological tests in 1921 established that Babe Ruth was a pretty darn good baseball player. It was not a surprising conclusion.
Walter Johnson vs. the Babe. The Big Train had problems with the Big Bam, but gets him to foul this pitch.
The well-dressed fisherman.
The Sudbury farmer. Maybe the log will be shaped into a bat.
Injured (d
ate unknown). Whenever he was hurt on the field, the Babe brought true drama to the situation.
President Warren G. Harding meets the Babe, 1922. The Babe, no doubt, had something to say.
The swing was never subtle or tentative.
He always said he could hit .600 if he only tried for singles.
He didn’t want to try for singles.
The famous face, a photographer’s dream.
Celebrity. He drew a crowd no matter where he stood.
George Ruth and George Ruth. The Babe and his father at his father’s Baltimore bar.
The Bellyache Heard Round the World. The Babe is taken from the ambulance in his famous 1925 distress.
The Bellyache Heard Round the World (recuperation). The true reason for his 1925 hospitalization has never been determined.
The transformation. The sins of 1925 brought about the transformation at Artie McGovern’s Gym that saved the Babe’s career.
Babe with Helen and daughter Dorothy at the 1927 World Series. This was solely for the cameras. Babe and Helen had already split.
Helen’s body is carried from the funeral home in South Boston, Massachusetts, 1929.
Football and fur. The Babe often went to other sporting events, this time with (L–R) Julia, mother-in-law Carrie Merritt, and Claire, everyone dressed for the cold.
Adoption. (L–R) Claire, Dorothy, and Julia watch as Babe signs papers to adopt both girls in 1929.
Artie McGovern rubs down bandleader Paul Whiteman (L). An unidentified attendant rubs down the Babe. John Philip Sousa himself prepares to ring the bell as the combatants get ready for fisticuffs at Artie McGovern’s Gym.
Members of Murderers’ Row. (L–R) Lou Gehrig, Tony Lazzeri, Mark Koenig, and Joe Dugan.
Waite Hoyt. He kept notes on the famous man’s famous deeds.
Jumpin’ Joe Dugan. A fellow traveler after dark.
The Iron Horse and the Big Bam. They were closest on the ball field, a 1–2 combination of unprecedented power.
The finish of The Called Shot in the 1932 World Series. After the commotion from Ruth’s homer died down, Gehrig (no. 4) unloaded on the next pitch.
The House That Ruth Built, bakery version, was served on his 39th birthday in 1933. Actually, it was his 38th birthday.
The finish of the contract dance was always the contract picture. The Babe signs, Claire watches, Col. Jacob Ruppert smiles again.
Lou Gehrig (L) and the Babe played many barnstorming games in many towns. Some were in the West.
The Babe stands near the segregated section at an exhibition game on the trip north from spring training. Racial questions and insults dogged him throughout his career.
Connie Mack (R) had been thinking about signing Babe as manager on the trip to Japan, but by Hawaii had decided against the idea.
Program for the Japan trip by the all-Americans.
Aboard the Empress of Japan. Claire, Babe, and Julia begin their around-the-world trip in 1934.
The Babe in Paris. He was disappointed to find that American kids in France knew little about baseball.
The uniform looks strange. The Colonel has gotten his wish, the Babe out of his hair. The Babe has not gotten his wish.
The Babe whispers information to one of his “ghostwriters.” This was one of his lucrative sidelines, put together by manager Christy Walsh.
The Babe coaching third for the Brooklyn Dodgers, 1938. Riding the elephant.
Early immortals, 1939, Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, N.Y. (L–R) Back row: Honus Wagner, Grover Cleveland Alexander, Tris Speaker, Nap Lajoie, George Sisler, Walter Johnson. Front row: Eddie Collins, George Herman Ruth, Connie Mack, Cy Young.
Babe Ruth Day, April 27, 1947. The similarities to Lou Gehrig’s farewell eight years earlier were in the Babe’s mind.
Filming for Pride of the Yankees, 1942. The Babe lost weight in a hurry for the film, sending him to the hospital.
Final appearance (1). The occasion was the 25th anniversary of Yankee Stadium on June 13, 1948. The number 3 of the first man ever to hit a home run in the stadium was retired. Two months later he was dead.
Final appearance (2). This picture was taken by Nat Fein and won a Pulitzer Prize. It is one of the most famous photographs in American sport.
Mourners of all ages passed the Babe’s coffin as he lay in state for two days at Yankee Stadium.
PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY
Copyright © 2006 by Leigh Montville
All Rights Reserved
Published in the United States by Doubleday, an imprint of The Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Frontispiece photograph courtesy of Transcendental Graphics.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Montville, Leigh.
The Big Bam : the life and times of Babe Ruth / Leigh Montville.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Ruth, Babe, 1895–1948. 2. Baseball players—United States—Biography. I. Title.
GV865.R8M56 2006
796.357092—dc22
[B]
2006042522
www.doubleday.com
eISBN: 978-0-385-51870-3
v3.0