★ 07/30/2018
Sportswriter Leavy (Sandy Koufax) energetically narrates Ruth’s larger-than-life story in an entertaining and colorful biography. Troubled by their son’s misbehavior, Ruth’s parents sent the seven-year-old Ruth to St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys, across town from their home in Baltimore. There, Ruth developed his baseball skills thanks to Brother Matthias, who showed Ruth how to hit. Ruth joined the Baltimore Orioles in 1914, was sold to the Boston Red Sox a few years later, and a year later was traded to the Yankees. In his career Ruth had 2,873 hits, 714 home runs, and a lifetime batting average of .342, and as Leavy points out, Ruth lived as hard as he played; he “imbibed whatever life had to offer.” Ruth’s accomplishments and his appetites for drink and women (he had several extramarital affairs) coincided with the rise of sports journalism and marketing, and his manager, Christy Walsh, was instrumental in creating his public image. In 1927, Ruth slammed his 60th home run of the season, led the Yankees to a four-game sweep of the Washington Senators in the World Series, and embarked on a publicized three-week barnstorming tour of the country with Lou Gehrig to celebrate. Leavy’s captivating biography reveals Ruth as a man who swung his bat with the same purposeful abandon that he lived his life. (Oct.)
The Big Fella: Babe Ruth and the World He Created
Narrated by Jane Leavy, Fred Sanders
Jane LeavyUnabridged — 22 hours, 46 minutes
The Big Fella: Babe Ruth and the World He Created
Narrated by Jane Leavy, Fred Sanders
Jane LeavyUnabridged — 22 hours, 46 minutes
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Overview
From Jane Leavy, the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Boy and Sandy Koufax, comes the definitive biography of Babe Ruth—the man Roger Angell dubbed "the model for modern celebrity."
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.
Editorial Reviews
Magnificent.... All this is only to touch on the wealth of research, detail and astuteness of observation that make up The Big Fella. Some of it is sad.... But the winning side of the Babe’s life predominates in these pages and in history.” — Wall Street Journal
“Captures Ruth’s outsize influence on American sport and culture.... Leavy’s conceit allows her to stake out some untrod turf. But she also makes a compelling case that to appreciate the adulation Ruth soaked up in October 1927 is to understand his contribution to American life in full.” — New York Times Book Review
“An editor of mine once told me that each generation deserves its own biography of a historic figured, and we now have ours for Babe Ruth…Offers depth and nuance to the Bambino’s character….Leavy convincingly shows how Ruth embodied the Jazz Age, rebelling against all constraints both on and off the field while serving as the precursor to Michael Jordan, LeBron James, and the other athletes who would become multimedia conglomerates.” — Boston Globe
“Jane Leavy writing a book about Babe Ruth is the biggest thing that has happened in my life since Santa Claus visited my classroom in the second grade. This is Babe Ruth off the diamond and out of uniform, a very flawed human being but still very much a hero, a man who could lift an army of beggars and wannabes onto his back and carry them to their dreams.” — Bill James, Baseball Writer
“Does the world need another biography of Babe Ruth? If it’s this one, then the answer is an emphatic yes.” — Kirkus (starred review)
“Engaging.... Sifts through the myths.... Leavy shines light on Ruth’s place in American cultural history. She paints a sensitive and humorous portrait of a flamboyant figure who exploited technological transformations, public appetites and his athletic prowess to forge a new sporting celebrity.” — Washington Post
“Leavy’s newest masterpiece ... delivers all the goods again. Meticulously researched over eight years and richly detailed, it’s as close as we’ll ever come to meeting the legend and watching him in action. The Big Fella is a must-read for Babe Ruth fans, baseball history buffs, and collectors. Above all, it is a major work of American history by an author with a flair for mesmerizing story-telling. — Forbes
“There have been numerous books written about the enormous life of Babe Ruth.... Jane Leavy, though, manages to mine new material in her wonderful book.... Ultimately, Leavy provides a different perspective of a man who consistently broke the mold in sports and society.” — Chicago Tribune
“Fascinating…reveals Ruth’s pioneering role in modern celebrity.” — The Guardian
“The Big Fella, beyond being the premiere biography about the King of Crash, is a book for all history buffs, not just fans of the New York Yankees, baseball, or sports in general.” — Philadelphia Inquirer
“Monumental.... Leavy writes lovely, lively sentences and, as in her other big baseball biographies, of Sandy Koufax and Mickey Mantle, coordinates her head with her heart. Her research is thorough, and she works the material hard. She knows the score. She likes her subjects sometimes despite it, or comes to like them, or to feel sympathy for them.... As Nick Carraway is to Jay Gatsby, Jane Leavy is to Babe Ruth, who represents everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. She persuaded me to cut him some slack.” — National Review
“What sets ‘The Big Fella: Babe Ruth and the World He Created’ apart from earlier attempts to identify the true essence of the man is an unprecedented look back into Ruth’s long-neglected childhood and a magnified focus on how his tremendous popularity helped birth the cult of personality in America.” — Peter Schmuck, Baltimore Sun
“Leavy always entertains, injecting necessary context about a sport that was just beginning to become a major advertising and marketing vehicle. She also evokes sympathy for the Babe ... without excusing his sins and excesses. Leavy brings the larger-than-life slugger down to the size of a real human being.” — New York Magazine
“The Big Fella is just amazing. Filled with fabulous tales. Tell me you wouldn’t have wanted to follow the Bambino around on a barnstorming tour in 1927. Now you can!” — Jayson Stark
“Jane Leavy could write the biography of a tube of toothpaste and I’d be first in line to buy it. Jane Leavy on Babe Ruth? Home run! Think you know the Babe? Not a chance—not until you read The Big Fella.” — Jonathan Eig, author of Ali and Luckiest Man
“Leavy has cleared the bases with a compelling account of the game’s greatest, Babe Ruth. Leavy brilliantly describes the complexities that accompany an elite talent and the blessing and curse of stardom while documenting the essential role of an attorney to provide vision, create a protective umbrella, and facilitate the most important goal for a unique athlete: self-understanding.” — Scott Boras, attorney for Major League Baseball Players
“Covers all aspects of Ruth’s massive life, bringing true empathy and impressive depth of knowledge to her complex subject.” — Boston Globe
“Proves conclusively there really was room for another book on Babe Ruth, only because of Leavy’s usual diligent and extensive research.” — Daily News
“Early in her seminal Babe Ruth biography, The Big Fella, Jane Leavy, the gifted storyteller of bygone ballplayers, perfectly encapsulates his place at the intersection of America’s game, Americana and America today.... It’s hard to conceive of a baseball player being the most famous athlete in America, let alone the most famous person. And yet with a clever narrative that tells Ruth’s life story through the lens of his 21-city barnstorming tour with Lou Gehrig, Leavy doesn’t need to do any convincing that it’s true. The facts clearly support the premise.” — Jeff Passan, Yahoo Sports
“If you think you’ve read enough stories about Babe Ruth to last a lifetime, think again. If you haven’t yet read THE BIG FELLA, you’ve got some catching up to do.” — Steven Goldleaf, Bill James Online
“Entertaining and colorful.... Leavy’s captivating biography reveals Ruth as a man who swung his bat with the same purposeful abandon that he lived his life.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review
“The same insight and verve that attracted readers to Leavy’s portraits of Mickey Mantle and Sandy Koufax manifest themselves here as she traces the improbable transformation of the insecure little George into the imposing Sultan of Swat, master of the diamond and unparalleled national celebrity…. An American icon brought to life.” — Booklist, starred review
“Sweeping…. [The Sultan of Swat] comes to life in these pages.” — Newsday
“Simply the best sports biography I have ever read...convincingly makes the case that Ruth put down the template for modern celebrity.... If you want to understand the Kardashians and their effect on our culture, you have to understand Babe Ruth.” — The Progressive
“One rule of thumb personally adopted is I read anything Jane Leavy writes. She’s that good…. Leavy is an exquisite reporter and researcher, which melds with her prose to make for a wonderful gift.” — Detroit News
“Leavy, through dogged reporting and astute analysis, strips away many of the myths and misconceptions surrounding Ruth’s life. ... [She] spent eight years researching and writing her Ruth biography, and her care and diligence surface on every page.” — Christian Science Monitor
“Colorful.... This poignant life story reveals Babe Ruth warts and all.” — The Missourian
“Not only about baseball, but a richly detailed social history of America in the Roaring Twenties.” — The Durham Herald-Sun
“Remarkable…. enlightening and interesting.” — NY Sports Day
Praise for Jane Leavy:“The Last Boy is something new in the history of the histories of the Mick. It is hard fact, reported by someone greatly skilled at that craft...and presented so that the reader and not the author draws nearly all the conclusions.” — New York Times Book Review on The Last Boy
“This is one of the best sports biographies I have ever read. Beautifully written and thoroughly researched, it reveals with stunning insight both the talents and the demons that drove Mickey Mantle, bringing him to life as never before.” — Doris Kearns Goodwin on The Last Boy
“The incomparable and mysterious Sandy Koufax is revealed…. This is an absorbing book, beautifully written.” — Wall Street Journal on Sandy Koufax
“Leavy has hit it out of the park…A lot more than a biography. It’s a consideration of how we create our heroes, and how this hero’s self perception distinguishes him from nearly every other great athlete in living memory… a remarkably rich portrait.” — Time on Sandy Koufax
“An exhaustively researched study that paints an intriguing portrait of the famously reclusive Dodger pitcher.” — Sports Illustrated on Sandy Koufax
“The Last Boy is something new in the history of the histories of the Mick. It is hard fact, reported by someone greatly skilled at that craft...and presented so that the reader and not the author draws nearly all the conclusions.” — The New York Times Book Review on The Last Boy
Fascinating…reveals Ruth’s pioneering role in modern celebrity.
Engaging.... Sifts through the myths.... Leavy shines light on Ruth’s place in American cultural history. She paints a sensitive and humorous portrait of a flamboyant figure who exploited technological transformations, public appetites and his athletic prowess to forge a new sporting celebrity.
Captures Ruth’s outsize influence on American sport and culture.... Leavy’s conceit allows her to stake out some untrod turf. But she also makes a compelling case that to appreciate the adulation Ruth soaked up in October 1927 is to understand his contribution to American life in full.
Jane Leavy writing a book about Babe Ruth is the biggest thing that has happened in my life since Santa Claus visited my classroom in the second grade. This is Babe Ruth off the diamond and out of uniform, a very flawed human being but still very much a hero, a man who could lift an army of beggars and wannabes onto his back and carry them to their dreams.
There have been numerous books written about the enormous life of Babe Ruth.... Jane Leavy, though, manages to mine new material in her wonderful book.... Ultimately, Leavy provides a different perspective of a man who consistently broke the mold in sports and society.
Magnificent.... All this is only to touch on the wealth of research, detail and astuteness of observation that make up The Big Fella. Some of it is sad.... But the winning side of the Babe’s life predominates in these pages and in history.
Leavy’s newest masterpiece ... delivers all the goods again. Meticulously researched over eight years and richly detailed, it’s as close as we’ll ever come to meeting the legend and watching him in action. The Big Fella is a must-read for Babe Ruth fans, baseball history buffs, and collectors. Above all, it is a major work of American history by an author with a flair for mesmerizing story-telling.
The Big Fella, beyond being the premiere biography about the King of Crash, is a book for all history buffs, not just fans of the New York Yankees, baseball, or sports in general.
An editor of mine once told me that each generation deserves its own biography of a historic figured, and we now have ours for Babe Ruth…Offers depth and nuance to the Bambino’s character….Leavy convincingly shows how Ruth embodied the Jazz Age, rebelling against all constraints both on and off the field while serving as the precursor to Michael Jordan, LeBron James, and the other athletes who would become multimedia conglomerates.
The incomparable and mysterious Sandy Koufax is revealed…. This is an absorbing book, beautifully written.
The same insight and verve that attracted readers to Leavy’s portraits of Mickey Mantle and Sandy Koufax manifest themselves here as she traces the improbable transformation of the insecure little George into the imposing Sultan of Swat, master of the diamond and unparalleled national celebrity…. An American icon brought to life.
If you think you’ve read enough stories about Babe Ruth to last a lifetime, think again. If you haven’t yet read THE BIG FELLA, you’ve got some catching up to do.
Remarkable…. enlightening and interesting.
Proves conclusively there really was room for another book on Babe Ruth, only because of Leavy’s usual diligent and extensive research.
Sweeping…. [The Sultan of Swat] comes to life in these pages.
One rule of thumb personally adopted is I read anything Jane Leavy writes. She’s that good…. Leavy is an exquisite reporter and researcher, which melds with her prose to make for a wonderful gift.
Praise for Jane Leavy:“The Last Boy is something new in the history of the histories of the Mick. It is hard fact, reported by someone greatly skilled at that craft...and presented so that the reader and not the author draws nearly all the conclusions.
Jane Leavy could write the biography of a tube of toothpaste and I’d be first in line to buy it. Jane Leavy on Babe Ruth? Home run! Think you know the Babe? Not a chance—not until you read The Big Fella.
The Last Boy is something new in the history of the histories of the Mick. It is hard fact, reported by someone greatly skilled at that craft...and presented so that the reader and not the author draws nearly all the conclusions.
This is one of the best sports biographies I have ever read. Beautifully written and thoroughly researched, it reveals with stunning insight both the talents and the demons that drove Mickey Mantle, bringing him to life as never before.
Simply the best sports biography I have ever read...convincingly makes the case that Ruth put down the template for modern celebrity.... If you want to understand the Kardashians and their effect on our culture, you have to understand Babe Ruth.
Not only about baseball, but a richly detailed social history of America in the Roaring Twenties.
Leavy has hit it out of the park…A lot more than a biography. It’s a consideration of how we create our heroes, and how this hero’s self perception distinguishes him from nearly every other great athlete in living memory… a remarkably rich portrait.
The Big Fella is just amazing. Filled with fabulous tales. Tell me you wouldn’t have wanted to follow the Bambino around on a barnstorming tour in 1927. Now you can!
Early in her seminal Babe Ruth biography, The Big Fella, Jane Leavy, the gifted storyteller of bygone ballplayers, perfectly encapsulates his place at the intersection of America’s game, Americana and America today.... It’s hard to conceive of a baseball player being the most famous athlete in America, let alone the most famous person. And yet with a clever narrative that tells Ruth’s life story through the lens of his 21-city barnstorming tour with Lou Gehrig, Leavy doesn’t need to do any convincing that it’s true. The facts clearly support the premise.
An exhaustively researched study that paints an intriguing portrait of the famously reclusive Dodger pitcher.”
Leavy has cleared the bases with a compelling account of the game’s greatest, Babe Ruth. Leavy brilliantly describes the complexities that accompany an elite talent and the blessing and curse of stardom while documenting the essential role of an attorney to provide vision, create a protective umbrella, and facilitate the most important goal for a unique athlete: self-understanding.
Monumental.... Leavy writes lovely, lively sentences and, as in her other big baseball biographies, of Sandy Koufax and Mickey Mantle, coordinates her head with her heart. Her research is thorough, and she works the material hard. She knows the score. She likes her subjects sometimes despite it, or comes to like them, or to feel sympathy for them.... As Nick Carraway is to Jay Gatsby, Jane Leavy is to Babe Ruth, who represents everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. She persuaded me to cut him some slack.
What sets ‘The Big Fella: Babe Ruth and the World He Created’ apart from earlier attempts to identify the true essence of the man is an unprecedented look back into Ruth’s long-neglected childhood and a magnified focus on how his tremendous popularity helped birth the cult of personality in America.”
Leavy always entertains, injecting necessary context about a sport that was just beginning to become a major advertising and marketing vehicle. She also evokes sympathy for the Babe ... without excusing his sins and excesses. Leavy brings the larger-than-life slugger down to the size of a real human being.
Leavy, through dogged reporting and astute analysis, strips away many of the myths and misconceptions surrounding Ruth’s life. ... [She] spent eight years researching and writing her Ruth biography, and her care and diligence surface on every page.
Colorful.... This poignant life story reveals Babe Ruth warts and all.
One rule of thumb personally adopted is I read anything Jane Leavy writes. She’s that good…. Leavy is an exquisite reporter and researcher, which melds with her prose to make for a wonderful gift.
Magnificent.... All this is only to touch on the wealth of research, detail and astuteness of observation that make up The Big Fella. Some of it is sad.... But the winning side of the Babe’s life predominates in these pages and in history.
There have been numerous books written about the enormous life of Babe Ruth.... Jane Leavy, though, manages to mine new material in her wonderful book.... Ultimately, Leavy provides a different perspective of a man who consistently broke the mold in sports and society.
Monumental.... Leavy writes lovely, lively sentences and, as in her other big baseball biographies, of Sandy Koufax and Mickey Mantle, coordinates her head with her heart. Her research is thorough, and she works the material hard. She knows the score. She likes her subjects sometimes despite it, or comes to like them, or to feel sympathy for them.... As Nick Carraway is to Jay Gatsby, Jane Leavy is to Babe Ruth, who represents everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. She persuaded me to cut him some slack.
Engaging.... Sifts through the myths.... Leavy shines light on Ruth’s place in American cultural history. She paints a sensitive and humorous portrait of a flamboyant figure who exploited technological transformations, public appetites and his athletic prowess to forge a new sporting celebrity.
Early in her seminal Babe Ruth biography, The Big Fella, Jane Leavy, the gifted storyteller of bygone ballplayers, perfectly encapsulates his place at the intersection of America’s game, Americana and America today.... It’s hard to conceive of a baseball player being the most famous athlete in America, let alone the most famous person. And yet with a clever narrative that tells Ruth’s life story through the lens of his 21-city barnstorming tour with Lou Gehrig, Leavy doesn’t need to do any convincing that it’s true. The facts clearly support the premise.
Magnificent.... All this is only to touch on the wealth of research, detail and astuteness of observation that make up The Big Fella. Some of it is sad.... But the winning side of the Babe’s life predominates in these pages and in history.
An exhaustively researched study that paints an intriguing portrait of the famously reclusive Dodger pitcher.”
Leavy always entertains, injecting necessary context about a sport that was just beginning to become a major advertising and marketing vehicle. She also evokes sympathy for the Babe ... without excusing his sins and excesses. Leavy brings the larger-than-life slugger down to the size of a real human being.
There have been numerous books written about the enormous life of Babe Ruth.... Jane Leavy, though, manages to mine new material in her wonderful book.... Ultimately, Leavy provides a different perspective of a man who consistently broke the mold in sports and society.
Magnificent.... All this is only to touch on the wealth of research, detail and astuteness of observation that make up The Big Fella. Some of it is sad.... But the winning side of the Babe’s life predominates in these pages and in history.
In this audiobook, renowned sports writer Jane Leavy offers a fresh look at the life of legendary baseball great Babe Ruth. Leavy provides a warm and spirited reading of the introduction before Fred Sanders takes over as the primary narrator. Sanders immerses the listener in the details of Baltimore circa 1900, where young Babe Ruth grew up. From there, Ruth’s barnstorming tour with teammate Lou Gehrig in October of 1927 is used as a framing device to move through different periods of his life and celebrity. Sanders effortlessly handles this biography’s massive scope. His commanding voice captures Ruth’s larger-than-life status, but careful attention is also paid to the details that make Ruth sound less like a myth or more like real person. A.T.N. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
★ 2018-08-05
Does the world need another biography of Babe Ruth (1895-1948)? If it's this one, then the answer is an emphatic yes.
The ever excellent Leavy (The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood, 2010, etc.) brings her considerable depth of knowledge of sports history to her latest project. She also brings considerable empathy for a man who, though notably boorish, at least made an effort to be civilized. Ruth had reason not to be influenced by the world's niceties. After all, as Leavy writes, he was only 7 when his parents sent him to St. Mary's Industrial School for Orphans, Delinquent, Incorrigible, and Wayward Boys on the outskirts of Baltimore. As an adult, he was "six foot two and 215 pounds when he was in trim and made everyone else in uniform look like the boys who later played in youth leagues named for him." He was also decidedly unsubtle: He smashed and hurled and fielded balls with a giant's force, and he "taught America to think big—expect big." Much of the narrative is a fine you-are-there reconstruction of Ruth's big moments, including the 1927 race in which he smacked 60 home runs, led a Yankees four-game sweep of the World Series, and then went off barnstorming with friend and teammate Lou Gehrig. There's tragic inevitability aplenty in that friendship, but Ruth's end in particular, a terrible death to cancer, is particularly jarring. Fans of the latter-day Yankees should wince, too, at Ruth's excoriation of the designated hitter. After another World Series sweep in 1929, Ruth "was back to offering opinions on things he knew about, expressing his disdain for a proposal to add a tenth hitter to the batting order to hit for the pitcher. He said it would take all the strategy out of the game." A skilled strategist and nearly peerless player, Ruth proves himself worthy of, yes, yet another biography, this one warts-and-all but still admiring.
Sparkling, exemplary sports biography, shedding new light on a storied figure in baseball history.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940173714398 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperCollins Publishers |
| Publication date: | 10/16/2018 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
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