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Breaking Babe Ruth: Baseball's Campaign Against Its Biggest Star
Rather than as a Falstaffian figure of limited intellect, Edmund Wehrle reveals Babe Ruth as an ambitious, independent operator, one not afraid to challenge baseball’s draconian labor system. To the baseball establishment, Ruth’s immense popularity represented opportunity, but his rebelliousness and potential to overturn the status quo presented a threat. After a decades-long campaign waged by baseball to contain and discredit him, the Babe, frustrated and struggling with injuries and illness, grew more acquiescent, but the image of Ruth that baseball perpetuated still informs how many people remember Babe Ruth to this day. This new perspective, approaching Ruth more seriously and placing his life in fuller context, is long overdue.
304 pages, Hardcover
Published May 31, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 14, 2018
I have read virtually everything written about the Babe. When this book came out I almost passed on it. I am so glad I didn’t. The book looks at many of the well known Babe stories through a different paradigm. It’s well researched and it presents a detailed logical path to its conclusion; the Babe posed such a threat to the sport he saved that the baseball establishment plotted against its own Golden Goose. I loved that many of the old Babe “myths” were challenged. Thanks to Edmund Wehrle I will rethink everything I’ve heard and read about the Babe!
March 4, 2020
This isn't a biography of Babe Ruth. You won't find here an attempt to analyze the soul of the man, the psyche that fueled a legend.
This is a history of how Babe Ruth was perceived in his own time and the way that the baseball establishment sought to tear him down out of fear that he might usurp them. Babe Ruth was such a potent symbol over a twenty year period that he became the enemy of the ownership class, even as he made the Yankees the premier team in the country and helped elevate the game to new levels.
Wehrle does a good job of illustrating the disconnect between Ruth's own statements and how he was reported on by baseball beat writers (then subsidized by owners). He also shows which issues prevented Ruth from being included in the group of baseball elites where he justifiably felt he belonged. Ultimately, Ruth was never given a shot at real power in baseball because of his class, his sympathy for unionized labor, his willingness to call out unfairness by the owners, his independent streak, his Catholic identity, rumors about his race, and the fact that his wife had the audacity to speak publicly and confidently on his behalf.
Perhaps what Wehrle does best is counter the persistent picture we hold of Ruth as a lovable buffoon. By quoting Ruth extensively, he shows just how ahead of his time Ruth often was. It's true that Ruth loved children and often preferred their company, that does not make him a child. Who can blame him, when so many adults tried to take advantage of his popularity. And is it unreasonable to say that someone who was abandoned by his family and raised as an orphan would not be immediately mature in every respect as a suddenly-rich teenage baseball star? Does that mean that he had the brain of a perpetual adolescent? Many in baseball's power structure tried to make sure people felt that way, and to our loss, the image stuck.
There are some points early on where things drag a bit and the academic style makes for slow going. But once you get into the book, it's quite rewarding. I also wish that Wehrle had used somewhat more advanced baseball analysis to contradict some of the quotes about Ruth's performance from his own time. For example, when he talks about Ruth being in decline in 1929, that the Yankees didn't want the "risk" of giving him a multi-year deal, it should be acknowledged that Ruth still accrued nearly 9 fWAR that year and hit 84% better than the average big leaguer. Similarly, it should be noted how absurd it is that Ruth was unceremoniously released after the 1934 season when, as a 39 year-old, he still accrued over 5 fWAR. Relying on the ups and downs of batting average doesn't really tell the whole story statistically.
I learned a lot, and while Ruth remains a legend, he is also a tragic figure. He did so much despite being harassed and demonized by his own employer over decades. Imagine what he might have done if they'd been willing to see him as a partner, not an enemy?
This is a history of how Babe Ruth was perceived in his own time and the way that the baseball establishment sought to tear him down out of fear that he might usurp them. Babe Ruth was such a potent symbol over a twenty year period that he became the enemy of the ownership class, even as he made the Yankees the premier team in the country and helped elevate the game to new levels.
Wehrle does a good job of illustrating the disconnect between Ruth's own statements and how he was reported on by baseball beat writers (then subsidized by owners). He also shows which issues prevented Ruth from being included in the group of baseball elites where he justifiably felt he belonged. Ultimately, Ruth was never given a shot at real power in baseball because of his class, his sympathy for unionized labor, his willingness to call out unfairness by the owners, his independent streak, his Catholic identity, rumors about his race, and the fact that his wife had the audacity to speak publicly and confidently on his behalf.
Perhaps what Wehrle does best is counter the persistent picture we hold of Ruth as a lovable buffoon. By quoting Ruth extensively, he shows just how ahead of his time Ruth often was. It's true that Ruth loved children and often preferred their company, that does not make him a child. Who can blame him, when so many adults tried to take advantage of his popularity. And is it unreasonable to say that someone who was abandoned by his family and raised as an orphan would not be immediately mature in every respect as a suddenly-rich teenage baseball star? Does that mean that he had the brain of a perpetual adolescent? Many in baseball's power structure tried to make sure people felt that way, and to our loss, the image stuck.
There are some points early on where things drag a bit and the academic style makes for slow going. But once you get into the book, it's quite rewarding. I also wish that Wehrle had used somewhat more advanced baseball analysis to contradict some of the quotes about Ruth's performance from his own time. For example, when he talks about Ruth being in decline in 1929, that the Yankees didn't want the "risk" of giving him a multi-year deal, it should be acknowledged that Ruth still accrued nearly 9 fWAR that year and hit 84% better than the average big leaguer. Similarly, it should be noted how absurd it is that Ruth was unceremoniously released after the 1934 season when, as a 39 year-old, he still accrued over 5 fWAR. Relying on the ups and downs of batting average doesn't really tell the whole story statistically.
I learned a lot, and while Ruth remains a legend, he is also a tragic figure. He did so much despite being harassed and demonized by his own employer over decades. Imagine what he might have done if they'd been willing to see him as a partner, not an enemy?
May 17, 2019
Very interesting account of MLBs smear campaign against its greatest player. Unable to control the man who saved and then revolutionized how baseball is played, ushering in the high scoring, home run happy modern game, baseball owners, executives and sportswriters set out to control the one player they feared who was becoming bigger than the game itself. Team owners paid the majority of local sportswriters salaries so it was easy for baseball owners to control what was written in the papers, swaying public opinion from the Uber popular Ruth over to the wealthy owners thus giving them complete control over their employees. A fascinating book that never gets dull or repetitive and will educate even the most diehard baseball fan. "Breaking Babe Ruth" finally gives baseball's best player a chance at telling his side of the story, the story the owners, executives and sportswriters tried, and for the most part succeeded in convincing baseball fans that their hero was nothing more than an infantile man-child who didn't deserve their adoration.
May 15, 2023
This is a must read for Babe Ruth and baseball fans. I've read so many books about the Babe but this one takes things in a different direction. The sports writers of the day, 1920s, were working for the baseball magnates and they did what they were told to do by the owners of the NL and AL. They were in bed together as it were. They opposed labor unions and were not looking out for the players. They wrote what the owners wanted them to write. Propaganda!
We've got a lot of bad actors here. Ruppert, Barrow, and Landis for starters. Joe Vila and other dishonest and nasty sportswriters. There are others as well. Babe was an awesome player, he knew how to negotiate, and the owners/managers didn't like it. He challenged authority and these folks did what they could to destroy Babe. He always wanted to manage but that never happened. In this book, you understand a little bit more why all this happened and the ugly truth of sports. It's about the money-always, and power and control. You'll learn a little about 'the reserve clause,' free agency (1976), and when agents were allowed (1970). As fans we don't think about the legal aspects of the game but it's important. Babe was blackballed. Today's sports are heading back to where we were 100 years ago with gambling, throwing games, and the owners getting a piece of it, etc. Well done Mr. Wehrle!
We've got a lot of bad actors here. Ruppert, Barrow, and Landis for starters. Joe Vila and other dishonest and nasty sportswriters. There are others as well. Babe was an awesome player, he knew how to negotiate, and the owners/managers didn't like it. He challenged authority and these folks did what they could to destroy Babe. He always wanted to manage but that never happened. In this book, you understand a little bit more why all this happened and the ugly truth of sports. It's about the money-always, and power and control. You'll learn a little about 'the reserve clause,' free agency (1976), and when agents were allowed (1970). As fans we don't think about the legal aspects of the game but it's important. Babe was blackballed. Today's sports are heading back to where we were 100 years ago with gambling, throwing games, and the owners getting a piece of it, etc. Well done Mr. Wehrle!
June 23, 2019
Excellent book, Gives you an entirely different perspective of the Bambino. Makes you wonder what would have happened if he truly used the vast power he held for a while. And makes you wonder why he didn't use his leverage more in contract negotiations. Sad story in the end.
May 29, 2019
Good biographies do two things; they allow us to make sense of the subject and of the subject’s world, giving insight to a life and using that life to tell a wider story, even when the subject has been the focus of extensive biographical writing. This engaging biography of Babe Ruth does both of those things well. Much as is possible given the absence of personal papers we have painted for us an insightful account of one of sports’ most famous figures. Equally that account debunks much of the received version, as much by unpacking the socio-cultural forces at play in making that account, and recasts its subject through a lens of celebrity (never explicitly articulated, however) to present a wider analysis of cultural politics of Major League baseball in the 1920s.
There can be no doubt, Ruth was a major celebrity figure: he fits the criteria by almost any measure. He was baseball’s biggest star who seems to have had a direct effect on audience numbers and generated commentary within and beyond the sport. In Wehrle’s convincing account he was also a threat to the baseball establishment that was trying to recast the game as respectable, orderly and safe entertainment, casting off the image of riotousness, gambling and corruption that beset the game at the end of the 1910s. Ruth, in this process, was essential to the financial security of the game, while transforming it from ‘scientific’, tactically subtle play to the spectacle of the slugger making the game more appealing to those less engaged with its nuances; he was, in this analysis, also a challenge to the discipline the owners sought to impose on the game, not because of his famed excess but because he did not meekly fall into line. Well aware of his importance, he demanded and secured salaries well beyond any other player and he was willing to give his support to efforts to unionise players; on both these fronts and more he challenged the image of the benevolent owner giving his players the best possible deal.
Constructing the narrative around cycles of hero worship, fall and come-back Wehrle shows how sports writers, often financially beholden the sport establishment, aligned themselves with the games’ owners both to construct the mediated imaginary and to construct a discourse of Ruth as the wild-man-child whose excess needs to be disciplined (by mangers/owners), helping to sustain a managerial system of control and profits. Overall it is a compelling case, with Werhle marshalling convincing evidence that the de facto orphan from Baltimore might have blown off excess in the early years of his career, but that he quickly settled into a mainly responsible personal life and while not a spendthrift can be seen as financially and social restrained and responsible. This is not the image that baseball’s managers needed – so they continually sought of manufacture situations where Ruth could be cast as inept, infantile and disruptive. In doing so, it was the cartel against one man: he was fated to lose out in what seems like a class war that was cultural as much as it was financial.
As compelling as the argument is, it suffers from a problem of cohesion. This is not to say that there is evidence that Werhle misreads, ignores or fails to account for (I am not enough of an expert in the era to know that), but a compelling exercise in the analysis of social and industrial Power, as mediated through the image of one celebrity figure that bind together the first half of the book abates for much of the second half. It might be that this is because, to all intents and purposes, the forces and key figures are all in place by the mid-1920s and that for the most part the second half of Ruth’s playing career was a continuation of the struggles of the first. This possibility is sustained by the revival of the richness of analysis in the penultimate, and final substantive, chapter dealing with the ousting of Ruth from the game as his playing career ended, and the successful efforts by the game’s leaders to block his efforts to manage. Whatever the reason, the second round of fall and redemption lacks the power and coherence of the first.
That said, this contains great insight into the era and the cultural politics of baseball, demands that we rethink an icon, and provides a solid case study of the significance of celebrity, both in their time and to analysts. It builds a compelling and coherent argument that I hope makes it a staple of scholarly work on sport and social and cultural histories of the 1920s.
There can be no doubt, Ruth was a major celebrity figure: he fits the criteria by almost any measure. He was baseball’s biggest star who seems to have had a direct effect on audience numbers and generated commentary within and beyond the sport. In Wehrle’s convincing account he was also a threat to the baseball establishment that was trying to recast the game as respectable, orderly and safe entertainment, casting off the image of riotousness, gambling and corruption that beset the game at the end of the 1910s. Ruth, in this process, was essential to the financial security of the game, while transforming it from ‘scientific’, tactically subtle play to the spectacle of the slugger making the game more appealing to those less engaged with its nuances; he was, in this analysis, also a challenge to the discipline the owners sought to impose on the game, not because of his famed excess but because he did not meekly fall into line. Well aware of his importance, he demanded and secured salaries well beyond any other player and he was willing to give his support to efforts to unionise players; on both these fronts and more he challenged the image of the benevolent owner giving his players the best possible deal.
Constructing the narrative around cycles of hero worship, fall and come-back Wehrle shows how sports writers, often financially beholden the sport establishment, aligned themselves with the games’ owners both to construct the mediated imaginary and to construct a discourse of Ruth as the wild-man-child whose excess needs to be disciplined (by mangers/owners), helping to sustain a managerial system of control and profits. Overall it is a compelling case, with Werhle marshalling convincing evidence that the de facto orphan from Baltimore might have blown off excess in the early years of his career, but that he quickly settled into a mainly responsible personal life and while not a spendthrift can be seen as financially and social restrained and responsible. This is not the image that baseball’s managers needed – so they continually sought of manufacture situations where Ruth could be cast as inept, infantile and disruptive. In doing so, it was the cartel against one man: he was fated to lose out in what seems like a class war that was cultural as much as it was financial.
As compelling as the argument is, it suffers from a problem of cohesion. This is not to say that there is evidence that Werhle misreads, ignores or fails to account for (I am not enough of an expert in the era to know that), but a compelling exercise in the analysis of social and industrial Power, as mediated through the image of one celebrity figure that bind together the first half of the book abates for much of the second half. It might be that this is because, to all intents and purposes, the forces and key figures are all in place by the mid-1920s and that for the most part the second half of Ruth’s playing career was a continuation of the struggles of the first. This possibility is sustained by the revival of the richness of analysis in the penultimate, and final substantive, chapter dealing with the ousting of Ruth from the game as his playing career ended, and the successful efforts by the game’s leaders to block his efforts to manage. Whatever the reason, the second round of fall and redemption lacks the power and coherence of the first.
That said, this contains great insight into the era and the cultural politics of baseball, demands that we rethink an icon, and provides a solid case study of the significance of celebrity, both in their time and to analysts. It builds a compelling and coherent argument that I hope makes it a staple of scholarly work on sport and social and cultural histories of the 1920s.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews