This book rediscovers all the 200+ postseason games Babe Ruth played from 1914-1935 in the continental United States and Canada. Anywhere the money offered satisfied Ruth, he would go. It made no difference if the place was Oil City or Sleepy Eye or Pratt--or Denver of Seattle or Kansas City. The extensive research using local newspapers at each stop show Ruth to be an enthusiastic showman, including stealing bases during the games and giving exhibitions before. He accepted the hospitality in towns by going to dances, eating dinner at the homes of local people. This story has never been told before. in all of the Ruth books before or now in 2018. My other Ruth book, Babe Ruth and the Creation of the Celebrity Athlete, looks at a few barnstorming games, but examines Ruth as brand, while dealing with Ruth as a commodity to be sold to the public.
A Country Doctor and Ex-Ballplayer Save "The Bambino" from Thugs, the Baseball Commissioner, and Himself in the Historical Fiction Novel, The Babe Ruth Conspiracy, from Author David O. Stewart --New York City, 1920-21-- In 1920, Babe Ruth--larger than life on the ball field and off--is enjoying a record-breaking season in his first year as a New York Yankee when his 1918 World Series win falls under suspicion of being "fixed." Then rumors start that his silent movie, Headin' Home, was bankrolled by the top aide to gambling kingpin, Arnold Rothstein. Ruth turns to Speed Cook--a professional ballplayer before the game was segregated and who now promotes Negro baseball--for help. If anyone knows the dirty underbelly of America's favorite pastime, it's Cook. Cook enlists the help of a long-time friend, Dr. Jamie Fraser, whose new wife, Eliza, coproduced the Babe's silent film. While Cook, Fraser, and Eliza dig for the truth, protecting the oftentimes-reckless Ruth from thugs and the new baseball commissioner proves even more dangerous when they come face-to-face with hidden power-hitters who are playing for keeps. Publisher's Note: The Fraser and Cook Historical Mystery Series will be enjoyed by fans of American history and period mystery novels. Free of graphic sex and with some mild profanity, this series can be enjoyed by readers of all ages. "Within these pages, he ushers us into the randy, gritty, wanton world of Babe Ruth, just arrived in New York from Boston, where he would power the Yankees—hell, the whole damn city—for the next decade. It is a world filled with molls and toughs, crooked pols and bootleggers, gamblers and righteous cops, not to mention Stewart’s beloved characters, Speed Cook, the wise head and former Negro Leaguer, and Dr. Jamie Fraser, who have teamed up before in previous fictions. The texture of the city is rendered with precision and believability. When Stewart describes the new impediment at the corner of 42nd and Fifth Avenue, the city’s first traffic tower, a reader can see the snarl of horse-drawn wagons, bicycles, pedestrians and oh so many automobiles—“machines” in the argot of the Twenties--clogging the street. Even the Babe had to stop for that. The book is full of such knowing details like the Thomas splint, an invention of World War I medicine, that saves Jamie Fraser’s daughter from losing her leg. Larger-than-life Ruth is made palpable through a mosaic of small but unassailable images. Ruth, resplendent in a red satin dressing gown worn over a pair of green and white diamond pajamas, earns “a low whistle” from Cook when he is admitted to the Babe’s sumptuous apartment in the Ansonia Hotel. It earns something more important from the reader: a belief in narrative plausibility and in the characters that inhabit it. So, when Stewart writes of the Babe that getting angry at him was a waste of time, “like losing your temper at a thunderstorm,” you know he knows what he’s talking about. The book is grand. Just like the Babe." ~Jane Leavy, Author of The Big Fella: Babe Ruth and the World He Created The Fraser and Cook Historical Mystery Series The Lincoln Deception The Paris Deception The Babe Ruth Deception
In the summer of 1932, at the beginning of the turbulent decade that would remake America, baseball fans were treated to one of the most thrilling seasons in the history of the sport. As the nation drifted deeper into the Great Depression and reeled from social unrest, baseball was a diversion for a troubled country--and yet the world of baseball was marked by the same edginess that pervaded the national scene. On-the-field fights were as common as double plays. Amid the National League pennant race, Cubs' shortstop Billy Jurges was shot by showgirl Violet Popovich in a Chicago hotel room. When the regular season ended, the Cubs and Yankees clashed in what would be Babe Ruth's last appearance in the fall classic. After the Cubs lost the first two games in New York, the series resumed in Chicago at Wrigley Field, with Democratic presidential candidate Franklin Roosevelt cheering for the visiting Yankees from the box seats behind the Yankees' dugout. In the top of the fifth inning the game took a historic turn. As Ruth was jeered mercilessly by Cubs players and fans, he gestured toward the outfield and then blasted a long home run. After Ruth circled the bases, Roosevelt exclaimed, "Unbelievable!" Ruth's homer set off one of baseball's longest-running and most intense debates: did Ruth, in fact, call his famous home run? Rich with historical context and detail, The Called Shot dramatizes the excitement of a baseball season during one of America's most chaotic summers.
In an unprecedented look at Babe Ruth's amazing batting power, sure to inspire debate among baseball fans of every stripe, one of the country's most respected and trusted baseball historians reveals the amazing conclusions of more than twenty years of research. Jenkinson takes readers through Ruth's 1921 season, in which his pattern of battled balls would have accounted for more than 100 home runs in today's ballparks and under today's rules. Yet, 1921 is just tip of the iceberg, for Jenkinson's research reveals that during an era of mammoth field dimensions Ruth hit more 450-plus-feet shots than anybody in history, and the conclusions one can draw are mind boggling.
Think you know how the game of baseball began? Think again. Forget Abner Doubleday and Cooperstown. Did baseball even have a father--or did it just evolve from other bat-and-ball games? John Thorn, baseball's preeminent historian, examines the creation story of the game and finds it all to be a gigantic lie. From its earliest days baseball was a vehicle for gambling, a proxy form of class warfare. Thorn traces the rise of the New York version of the game over other variations popular in Massachusetts and Philadelphia. He shows how the sport's increasing popularity in the early decades of the nineteenth century mirrored the migration of young men from farms and small towns to cities, especially New York. Full of heroes, scoundrels, and dupes, this book tells the story of nineteenth-century America, a land of opportunity and limitation, of glory and greed--all present in the wondrous alloy that is our nation and its pastime.--From publisher description.
The most famous baseball player in history, and the most enduring legend, Babe Ruth is remembered for his dramatic heroism not only on the baseball diamond but also in his life. Kal Wagenheim illustrates this larger than life athlete in his book Babe Ruth: His Life and Legends, and describes him as both a product of his childhood in Baltimore and of his formative years as a New York Yankee. Ruth struggled desperately with the dramatic contrast between the poverty of his youth and the glamour and stardom that his famed career brought him, and although his name became synonymous with wooing women and abusing alcohol, nothing could prevent him from becoming one of history’s greatest athletes.
Just in time for baseball season! Babe Ruth came from a poor Baltimore family and, as a kid, he was a handful. It was at a reform school that Babe discovered his talent for baseball, and by the age of nineteen, he was on his way to becoming a sports legend. Babe was often out of shape and even more often out on the town, but he had a big heart and an even bigger swing! Kids will learn all about the Home Run King in this rags-to- riches sports biography. With black-and-white illustrations throughout, a true sports legend is brought to life.
The Crowley Millers were the talk of minor league baseball in the 1950s, with crowds totaling nearly 10 times Crowley’s population and earning Crowley the nickname of “The Best Little Baseball Town in the World.” The Best Little Baseball Town in the World: The Crowley Millers and Minor League Baseball in the 1950s tells the fun, quirky story of Crowley, Louisiana, in the fifties, a story that reads more like fiction than nonfiction. The Crowley Millers’ biggest star was Conklyn Meriwether, a slugger who became infamous after he retired when he killed his in-laws with an axe. Their former manager turned out to be a con man, dying in jail while awaiting trial on embezzlement charges. The 1951 team was torn to pieces after their young centerfielder was struck and killed by lightning during a game. But aside from the tragedy and turmoil, the Crowley Millers also played some great baseball and were the springboard to stardom for George Brunet and Dan Pfister, two Crowley pitchers who made it to the majors. Interviews with players from the team bring to light never-before-heard stories and inside perspectives on minor league baseball in the fifties, including insight into the social and racial climate of the era, and the inability of baseball in the fifties to help players deal with off-the-field problems. Written by respected minor-league baseball historian Gaylon H. White, The Best Little Baseball Town in the World is a fascinating tale for baseball fans and historians alike.
