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The Big Fella: Babe Ruth and the World He Created
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • 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."
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2018
“Leavy’s newest masterpiece…. A major work of American history by an author with a flair for mesmerizing story-telling.” —Forbes
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.
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2018
“Leavy’s newest masterpiece…. A major work of American history by an author with a flair for mesmerizing story-telling.” —Forbes
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.
620 pages, Hardcover
First published October 16, 2018
589 people are currently reading
2228 people want to read
About the author
Jane Leavy
13 books133 followersJane Leavy is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Last Boy, Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy and the comic novel Squeeze Play, which Entertainment Weekly called “the best novel ever written about baseball.” Her latest book is The Big Fella. She was a staff writer at The Washington Post from 1979 to1988, first in the sports section, then writing for the style section. She covered baseball, tennis, and the Olympics for the paper. She wrote features for the style section about sports, politics, and pop culture, including, most memorably, a profile of Mugsy Bogues, the 5’3″ guard for the Washington Wizards, which was longer than he is tall.
Before joining the The Washington Post, she was a staff writer at womenSports and Self magazines. She has written for many publications, including The New York Times, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, The Village Voice, and The New York Daily News. Leavys work has been anthologized in many collections, including Best Sportswriting, Coach: 25 Writers Reflect on People Who Made a Difference, Child of Mine: Essays on Becoming a Mother, Nike Is a Goddess: The History of Women in Sports, Diamonds Are a Girls Best Friend: Women Writers on Baseball, A Kind of Grace: A Treasury of Sportswriting by Women, and Making Words Dance: Reflections on Red Smith, Journalism and Writing.
She grew up on Long Island where she pitched briefly and poorly for the Blue Jays of the Roslyn Long Island Little League. On her parents first date, her father, a water boy for the 1927 New York football Giants, took her mother to a Brooklyn College football game. She retaliated by taking him to Loehmanns after the final whistle. It was a template for their 63-year union. As a child, Jane Leavy worshipped Mickey Mantle from the second-floor ballroom in the Concourse Plaza Hotel where her grandmothers synagogue held services on the High Holidays.
Jane Leavy attended Barnard College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where she wrote her masters essay (later published in The Village Voice) on Red Smith, the late sports columnist for The New York Times, who was her other childhood hero.
She has two adult children, Nick and Emma, and she lives in Washington, DC, and Truro, Massachusetts.
Before joining the The Washington Post, she was a staff writer at womenSports and Self magazines. She has written for many publications, including The New York Times, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, The Village Voice, and The New York Daily News. Leavys work has been anthologized in many collections, including Best Sportswriting, Coach: 25 Writers Reflect on People Who Made a Difference, Child of Mine: Essays on Becoming a Mother, Nike Is a Goddess: The History of Women in Sports, Diamonds Are a Girls Best Friend: Women Writers on Baseball, A Kind of Grace: A Treasury of Sportswriting by Women, and Making Words Dance: Reflections on Red Smith, Journalism and Writing.
She grew up on Long Island where she pitched briefly and poorly for the Blue Jays of the Roslyn Long Island Little League. On her parents first date, her father, a water boy for the 1927 New York football Giants, took her mother to a Brooklyn College football game. She retaliated by taking him to Loehmanns after the final whistle. It was a template for their 63-year union. As a child, Jane Leavy worshipped Mickey Mantle from the second-floor ballroom in the Concourse Plaza Hotel where her grandmothers synagogue held services on the High Holidays.
Jane Leavy attended Barnard College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where she wrote her masters essay (later published in The Village Voice) on Red Smith, the late sports columnist for The New York Times, who was her other childhood hero.
She has two adult children, Nick and Emma, and she lives in Washington, DC, and Truro, Massachusetts.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 254 reviews
January 28, 2019
A phenomenal amount of research went into this one, but it's a little scattered. I enjoyed the parts about Ruth's childhood and the Baltimore that he grew up in most of all. Leavy picked a tough task trying to parse the man and myth.
January 25, 2019
It is Super Bowl prep week and I find myself reading about baseball because I know that the seven weeks between the Super Bowl’s final whistle and baseball’s opening day is my gloomiest time of the year. This time around I wanted to be prepared in advance. I had previously read Jane Leavy’s biography on Sandy Koufax, Jewish pitcher extraordinaire for the Dodgers and was excited by the fact that she would be coming out with the first new biography on Babe Ruth in quite some time. The book had received mixed reviews but presented enough new information and intrigue that we have made it one of our upcoming group reads at the baseball book club. Leavy presents the Babe as a cultural phenomenon, the first modern athlete who placed himself within a larger societal context. In the next ten days as the sports world marvels at the current greatest to play the game (football) and the media circus descending on him and his team, I thought it would be appropriate to go back in time and focus on the first athlete who became a cultural icon.
The man, the myth, and the legend all receive print in this biography that is largely not presented in chronological order. Facts are facts, however. George Herman Ruth, Jr was born to George H Ruth, Sr and Katie Ruth on February 6, 1895 in Baltimore, Maryland. In time, young George would be one of two surviving children of his parents who it appears were not equipped to care for children. The Ruths ran a saloon, and the family lived in an apartment over the bar. Part of a large German immigrant community, George always had a bevy of cousins and friends nearby, and the gang played a myriad of sports and games. Yet, with his father increasingly drunk and his mother increasingly ill, by age eight young George had seen brushes with the law and was sent to live at St. Mary’s Catholic Orphanage. So the legend goes, one Brother Matthias, a father figure to Ruth, saw in him a natural talent and taught him the game of baseball. Always big for his age, Georgie played on teams with boys older than him, first catching or playing the outfield but eventually proving his mettle as a pitcher. With impeccable control as well as bat power, he caught the attention of a local Baltimore Orioles scout, who questioned his baby face but could not deny his baseball acumen. By 1913, the new moniker Babe Ruth set in, and by 1914, he was pitching for the Boston Red Sox, who would go on to the World Series. A legend had been born.
The myth continues, Babe Ruth was sold to the rival New York Yankees following the Red Sox 1918 World Series victory because the owner was struggling financially. The Sox would not win again until 2004 due to the perpetuated curse of the Bambino. Ruth rescued baseball from its darkest days and did so on its biggest stage, New York City. He hit home runs with prowess when most years the entire major leagues averaged only 235 homers for an entire season. Ruth’s majestic blasts made him the talk of the town and the Yankees must see theater. By 1923 Yankees owner Colonel Jacob Ruppert foresaw the Babe’s selling power and constructed a modern stadium that would endure until 2008. The Yankee Stadium could only be known as The House that Ruth Built, and the Babe obliged by hitting a home run in the stadium’s inaugural game.
Rather than focus on the Babe’s playing career, Leavy pinpoints a 1927 barnstorming tour where Ruth and teammate Lou Gehrig played organized games against local teams in parts of the country where the major leagues had not yet arrived. Each stop was the event of year complete with civic appearances, banquets, and visits to orphanages. The Babe underneath all the glitz and glamor never forgot his origins and continued to give back to orphanages all over the country during his entire life. He was a marketing machine, perpetuated by his agent Christy Walsh, the first sports agent and an interesting character who deserves his own biography. The Babe’s name was on countless products, and he earned more in endorsement deals than from his Yankee salary. Thanks to radio waves, the Babe was a national hero, and boys all over the country were eager to see him in action. The tour stopped at out of the way places like Sioux City, Iowa and Fresno, California as well as the bright lights of Los Angeles. For the most part the Babe did not disappoint, hitting homers with clout and signing countless autographs at each stop on the tour. These appearances were so meaningful to many people that many of the boys the Babe encountered on this trip enjoyed a relationship with baseball for their entire lives.
Leavy spent nearly a decade researching for this book, and it appeared that in the end she could not decide which direction she ultimately wanted to go in with the Babe’s life. The text jumps from the tour to his childhood in Baltimore to his Yankee playing days and back to the tour. In some parts it almost reads like a tabloid as Leavy discusses the Babe’s parents’ marital infidelities with descendants speaking out on their opinion in the matter. The text would not be complete without talk of the Babe’s own after hours carousing and how he went through cars and women like water. Leavy discusses the tumultuous marriage to Helen Woodford Ruth when the Babe was just out of St. Mary’s and contrasts it to his relationship with second wife Claire Hodgson Ruth and daughter Julia. The Babe was not a family man, but he doted on his adopted daughters Dorothy and Julia; however, each woman later in life viewed their father’s relationship with them differently and spoke out on it. Dorothy detested Claire and Julia, creating a rift in the family that endured past their father’s death. Between the carousing and Christy Walsh lending the Babe’s name to everything imaginable creating this cultural phenomenon, much of the text did read like a tabloid. Perhaps this was Leavy’s aim, showing the Babe in a larger scope, making it difficult to focus on one aspect of his life. As one who appreciates a meaty, chronological biography and enjoyed Leavy’s work about Koufax, this format did not work for me.
Babe Ruth finished his baseball career with 714 home runs and succumbed to cancer on August 18, 1948. He had risen from being an orphan to being an American hero at a time when Americans desperately needed one. A true rags to riches story, the Babe endures to this day as sports pundits continue to debate who the greatest team athlete of all time is. In terms of placing himself in a larger cultural context, I still place the Babe in my top three, regardless of who my sports allegiances lie with today. Despite the jumpy text and the at times tabloids that jumped out at me, I had fun being transported to the 1927 barnstorming tour. While not a definitive work on the Babe, The Big Fella is still a fun, invoking read and should be sure to generate intriguing discussions in the baseball book club next month.
3.5 stars
The man, the myth, and the legend all receive print in this biography that is largely not presented in chronological order. Facts are facts, however. George Herman Ruth, Jr was born to George H Ruth, Sr and Katie Ruth on February 6, 1895 in Baltimore, Maryland. In time, young George would be one of two surviving children of his parents who it appears were not equipped to care for children. The Ruths ran a saloon, and the family lived in an apartment over the bar. Part of a large German immigrant community, George always had a bevy of cousins and friends nearby, and the gang played a myriad of sports and games. Yet, with his father increasingly drunk and his mother increasingly ill, by age eight young George had seen brushes with the law and was sent to live at St. Mary’s Catholic Orphanage. So the legend goes, one Brother Matthias, a father figure to Ruth, saw in him a natural talent and taught him the game of baseball. Always big for his age, Georgie played on teams with boys older than him, first catching or playing the outfield but eventually proving his mettle as a pitcher. With impeccable control as well as bat power, he caught the attention of a local Baltimore Orioles scout, who questioned his baby face but could not deny his baseball acumen. By 1913, the new moniker Babe Ruth set in, and by 1914, he was pitching for the Boston Red Sox, who would go on to the World Series. A legend had been born.
The myth continues, Babe Ruth was sold to the rival New York Yankees following the Red Sox 1918 World Series victory because the owner was struggling financially. The Sox would not win again until 2004 due to the perpetuated curse of the Bambino. Ruth rescued baseball from its darkest days and did so on its biggest stage, New York City. He hit home runs with prowess when most years the entire major leagues averaged only 235 homers for an entire season. Ruth’s majestic blasts made him the talk of the town and the Yankees must see theater. By 1923 Yankees owner Colonel Jacob Ruppert foresaw the Babe’s selling power and constructed a modern stadium that would endure until 2008. The Yankee Stadium could only be known as The House that Ruth Built, and the Babe obliged by hitting a home run in the stadium’s inaugural game.
Rather than focus on the Babe’s playing career, Leavy pinpoints a 1927 barnstorming tour where Ruth and teammate Lou Gehrig played organized games against local teams in parts of the country where the major leagues had not yet arrived. Each stop was the event of year complete with civic appearances, banquets, and visits to orphanages. The Babe underneath all the glitz and glamor never forgot his origins and continued to give back to orphanages all over the country during his entire life. He was a marketing machine, perpetuated by his agent Christy Walsh, the first sports agent and an interesting character who deserves his own biography. The Babe’s name was on countless products, and he earned more in endorsement deals than from his Yankee salary. Thanks to radio waves, the Babe was a national hero, and boys all over the country were eager to see him in action. The tour stopped at out of the way places like Sioux City, Iowa and Fresno, California as well as the bright lights of Los Angeles. For the most part the Babe did not disappoint, hitting homers with clout and signing countless autographs at each stop on the tour. These appearances were so meaningful to many people that many of the boys the Babe encountered on this trip enjoyed a relationship with baseball for their entire lives.
Leavy spent nearly a decade researching for this book, and it appeared that in the end she could not decide which direction she ultimately wanted to go in with the Babe’s life. The text jumps from the tour to his childhood in Baltimore to his Yankee playing days and back to the tour. In some parts it almost reads like a tabloid as Leavy discusses the Babe’s parents’ marital infidelities with descendants speaking out on their opinion in the matter. The text would not be complete without talk of the Babe’s own after hours carousing and how he went through cars and women like water. Leavy discusses the tumultuous marriage to Helen Woodford Ruth when the Babe was just out of St. Mary’s and contrasts it to his relationship with second wife Claire Hodgson Ruth and daughter Julia. The Babe was not a family man, but he doted on his adopted daughters Dorothy and Julia; however, each woman later in life viewed their father’s relationship with them differently and spoke out on it. Dorothy detested Claire and Julia, creating a rift in the family that endured past their father’s death. Between the carousing and Christy Walsh lending the Babe’s name to everything imaginable creating this cultural phenomenon, much of the text did read like a tabloid. Perhaps this was Leavy’s aim, showing the Babe in a larger scope, making it difficult to focus on one aspect of his life. As one who appreciates a meaty, chronological biography and enjoyed Leavy’s work about Koufax, this format did not work for me.
Babe Ruth finished his baseball career with 714 home runs and succumbed to cancer on August 18, 1948. He had risen from being an orphan to being an American hero at a time when Americans desperately needed one. A true rags to riches story, the Babe endures to this day as sports pundits continue to debate who the greatest team athlete of all time is. In terms of placing himself in a larger cultural context, I still place the Babe in my top three, regardless of who my sports allegiances lie with today. Despite the jumpy text and the at times tabloids that jumped out at me, I had fun being transported to the 1927 barnstorming tour. While not a definitive work on the Babe, The Big Fella is still a fun, invoking read and should be sure to generate intriguing discussions in the baseball book club next month.
3.5 stars
June 27, 2018
Overall, Just An Average Book!
Having enjoyed Jane Leavy's biographies of Mickey Mantle and Sandy Koufax, plus being a fan of Babe Ruth, I was expecting her newest book to be a "home run" for me.
Unfortunately, my overall opinion of The Big Fella is that it is just an average read and one that, unlike my experience with Leavy's previous books, I found to be very easy to put down -- and not pick up again -- for fairly long stretches of time. This stems mainly from my opinion that Leavy tried to include so many aspects from her research about "The Big Fella" and her thesis of "the world he created" that the book read more like a very long research paper than an attention-holding personal account of The Babe and how he lived his life.
Don't get me wrong. I don't consider The Big Fella to be a bad book. To the contrary, I'm glad I read it, as there are many interesting facts interspersed throughout the book that I learned about Babe Ruth and the influence he had on the times in which he played, as well as after his playing days were over. However, the style in which the book was written kept me from being engrossed enough in the information presented to consider to be more than just an average book.
I received an advance eBook of The Big Fella to review from Edelweiss and the publisher.
Having enjoyed Jane Leavy's biographies of Mickey Mantle and Sandy Koufax, plus being a fan of Babe Ruth, I was expecting her newest book to be a "home run" for me.
Unfortunately, my overall opinion of The Big Fella is that it is just an average read and one that, unlike my experience with Leavy's previous books, I found to be very easy to put down -- and not pick up again -- for fairly long stretches of time. This stems mainly from my opinion that Leavy tried to include so many aspects from her research about "The Big Fella" and her thesis of "the world he created" that the book read more like a very long research paper than an attention-holding personal account of The Babe and how he lived his life.
Don't get me wrong. I don't consider The Big Fella to be a bad book. To the contrary, I'm glad I read it, as there are many interesting facts interspersed throughout the book that I learned about Babe Ruth and the influence he had on the times in which he played, as well as after his playing days were over. However, the style in which the book was written kept me from being engrossed enough in the information presented to consider to be more than just an average book.
I received an advance eBook of The Big Fella to review from Edelweiss and the publisher.
dnf
November 2, 2022Really having a hard time with the fragmented narrative in this one. I know she put a lot of work into it, but it is so incoherent and with no focus on baseball and the Babe, it is hard to stay engaged. I am going to put this aside because it is just too annoying :-/
January 1, 2019
Not the author's best effort. Lacks focus, often confusing and scattered narrative. Overdone with trivia, particularly the Epilog which deals with Ruth's funeral and the litany of celebrities who attended. Often as much a story about his agent (Walsh) as Ruth and the inundation of financial talk that accompanies their relationship. Her books on Koufax and Mantle were much better.
November 12, 2022
The author of a wonderful Mickey Mantle biography, The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood, tries her hand at describing a sports icon and arguably the true GOAT, and not the kind with horns.
What characterizes this best is the loose commitment to chronology. If there’s a structure, it centers around the barnstorming tour the Babe and Lou Gehrig took in 1927, just after sweeping the Pirates in the World Series. That was also the year the Babe hit sixty home runs, daring some other SOB to do that. (Took a while, but other SOBs did.)
It can be frustrating at first. Sometimes I wished we could just hear a direct story about the tour, sometimes I wanted to hear about St. Mary’s, sometimes I wanted to hear about Helen, or Claire, or Dorothy. It all seemed a bit thrown at me, all at once, like facing a pitcher and having no idea what’s coming next (yes, I made a baseball reference: you’re welcome).
That said, I actually learned a few things. I’d read the more dated version by Kal Wagenheim Babe Ruth: His Life and Legend, which by contrast is conventional and good with detail if a little glossy. This gave me a wondrous amount of information about all phases of his life, particularly the early years, and his social and emotional turmoil with the Yankees. There were some descriptions of people in the towns in which he played that were just magical, so heartfelt and earthy. I felt like I was part of his homelife, and sometimes I wished I wasn’t. I had a little more sympathy and understanding. The whole thing smacked of Ron Chernow-like description. Not as long as you might think, although again, the jumping around can seem a little iffy.
Another birthday gift from my friend Bryan Robinson. Big step up from a wrestling champion!
Overall a very good biography of The Babe, just the fresh and up-to-date version we needed.
What characterizes this best is the loose commitment to chronology. If there’s a structure, it centers around the barnstorming tour the Babe and Lou Gehrig took in 1927, just after sweeping the Pirates in the World Series. That was also the year the Babe hit sixty home runs, daring some other SOB to do that. (Took a while, but other SOBs did.)
It can be frustrating at first. Sometimes I wished we could just hear a direct story about the tour, sometimes I wanted to hear about St. Mary’s, sometimes I wanted to hear about Helen, or Claire, or Dorothy. It all seemed a bit thrown at me, all at once, like facing a pitcher and having no idea what’s coming next (yes, I made a baseball reference: you’re welcome).
That said, I actually learned a few things. I’d read the more dated version by Kal Wagenheim Babe Ruth: His Life and Legend, which by contrast is conventional and good with detail if a little glossy. This gave me a wondrous amount of information about all phases of his life, particularly the early years, and his social and emotional turmoil with the Yankees. There were some descriptions of people in the towns in which he played that were just magical, so heartfelt and earthy. I felt like I was part of his homelife, and sometimes I wished I wasn’t. I had a little more sympathy and understanding. The whole thing smacked of Ron Chernow-like description. Not as long as you might think, although again, the jumping around can seem a little iffy.
Another birthday gift from my friend Bryan Robinson. Big step up from a wrestling champion!
Overall a very good biography of The Babe, just the fresh and up-to-date version we needed.
October 29, 2018
Leavy set for herself an almost impossible task: Tell the story of Babe Ruth's life as it's never been told before.
And guess what: She pulls it off, with hardly a glitch along the way. Leavy chose to use a 1927 barnstorming tour - the Bustin' Babes vs. the Larrupin' Lous - as the framework for her narrative, and travels back and forth between the cross-country tour and a (generally) chronological account of Ruth's life. In the hands of almost any author, this simply would not have worked. But in Leavy's hands, it does work. And despite having read innumerable books about the Babe, some of them quite good, I learned all sorts of things I never knew before.
And guess what: She pulls it off, with hardly a glitch along the way. Leavy chose to use a 1927 barnstorming tour - the Bustin' Babes vs. the Larrupin' Lous - as the framework for her narrative, and travels back and forth between the cross-country tour and a (generally) chronological account of Ruth's life. In the hands of almost any author, this simply would not have worked. But in Leavy's hands, it does work. And despite having read innumerable books about the Babe, some of them quite good, I learned all sorts of things I never knew before.
March 5, 2019
Good lord does this woman need an editor. A sublime writer with a larger than life subject and yet she just rambled on. She painted a fantastic picture of turn of the century Baltimore was like - but I doubt that merits 60 pages. And so on. Excellent book to skim. And then pick up her book on Koufax and read every word. Twice.
November 3, 2018
The Big Fella falls short.
At the end of her book in an author's note, Leavy indicates that she originally thought to do a novel of Ruth but that didn't work out so she pursued another effort. The one thing she didn't want to do was write a biography of Ruth. What we are left with and what she wanted to accomplish isn't exactly clear and rather disappointing. She provides you with a lot of information with the appendices at the end of the book with Ruth's baseball stats and his financial portfolio being rather interesting. Apparently as the subtitle suggests the book is about the world Ruth created her aim was to drive home to point that Ruth was the first mega-celebrity. Her focus on Christy Walsh, Ruth's financial manager, and repeatedly pointing out that Ruth made more in the off season through his barnstorming tours with Gehring and other endeavors than playing for the Yankees. It is rather unfortunate as Ruth was "larger than life" but Leavy really gives him no soul and he comes off flat. It is so unfortunate because Leavy's book on Mantle--The Last Boy--was so much better. Ruth as the King of Swat--and numerous other monikers as Leavy laboriously points out--deserves better.
At the end of her book in an author's note, Leavy indicates that she originally thought to do a novel of Ruth but that didn't work out so she pursued another effort. The one thing she didn't want to do was write a biography of Ruth. What we are left with and what she wanted to accomplish isn't exactly clear and rather disappointing. She provides you with a lot of information with the appendices at the end of the book with Ruth's baseball stats and his financial portfolio being rather interesting. Apparently as the subtitle suggests the book is about the world Ruth created her aim was to drive home to point that Ruth was the first mega-celebrity. Her focus on Christy Walsh, Ruth's financial manager, and repeatedly pointing out that Ruth made more in the off season through his barnstorming tours with Gehring and other endeavors than playing for the Yankees. It is rather unfortunate as Ruth was "larger than life" but Leavy really gives him no soul and he comes off flat. It is so unfortunate because Leavy's book on Mantle--The Last Boy--was so much better. Ruth as the King of Swat--and numerous other monikers as Leavy laboriously points out--deserves better.
February 5, 2019
What a huge disappointment this book was. I love a good baseball biography and was looking forward to this one especially since this author wrote a great one on Mickey mantle.
It never really focused on his baseball at all. How can you write a bio in babe Ruth that doesn’t include baseball? The author wanted to focus on this celebrity which was fine but that’s secondary to his skills in the field.
It’s also disjointed and has no flow. It jumps around all
Over the place for no rhyme or reason.
Stay away.
It never really focused on his baseball at all. How can you write a bio in babe Ruth that doesn’t include baseball? The author wanted to focus on this celebrity which was fine but that’s secondary to his skills in the field.
It’s also disjointed and has no flow. It jumps around all
Over the place for no rhyme or reason.
Stay away.
February 26, 2019
Jane Leavy, one of our greatest sports biographers, has taken on the greatest baseball player of them all, Babe Ruth, the Big Fella. Note the subtitle of the book: "Babe Ruth and the World He Created." This is not really a book about baseball. It is a book about baseball as part of the popular culture of the 1920 and 30s and about how the greatest ballplayer of all helped create and dominate celebrity culture. If you are looking for a chronological accounting of Ruth's great baseball deeds, read another book. If you want details about Ruth the pitcher or how he made the decision to play every day look elsewhere. You will find discussions about how Ruth stacks up against the players of today and there is a wonderful chapter about Ruth's hitting philosophy and swing. But overall this is about Ruth the man. It starts with Ruth the boy. Leavy has gone farther into how being abandoned to St Mary's must have affected Ruth. She digs deeper into his psyche, his loneliness, his struggles with authority and shows convincingly that this fact of his personality allowed him to be both a celebrity and a slugger. Leavy's book is only generally chronological. She follows Ruth and Gehrig through October 1927, the best year of Babe's life as his wins the World Series and barnstorms through the United States. He is the biggest star of his generation at the height of his power. Each town in the barnstorming trip becomes a chapter and some story from each town allows Leavy to expound on the many facets of the Big Fella's life or personality. She examines his wealth, his race, his marriages, his desire to please the crowds, his relationships to kids, to authority, to media, to food. All of it is woven throughout the book. For that reason the more you know about Ruth's life the easier it will be to follow. This is truly a new biography. It has a new format, new information, new insights and thus gives us new appreciation for a man who never stops amazing us.
March 3, 2019
I love Jane Leavey’s books but not this one. How could a book on The Babe be somewhat boring?
April 2, 2023
It’s baseball season! It’s also this fan’s first baseball biography, and what an introduction it was!
Jane Leavy’s extensively-researched, unconventional biography, Big Fella was a home run for me (I make no apologies that for that baseball cliché or any other that may follow).
The reader travels with Ruth and Lou Gehrig on their exhibition, barnstorming tour after the 1927 season (the year Babe hit 60). The book can be hard to follow, so I’ll set you up: Each chapter represents a stop on the tour, and each chapter begins and ends speaking to the story of that particular location. The middle of each chapter takes the reader either backward or forward in time (sometimes both), to explore a different period of Ruth’s life. With this format, Leavy’s tale of the 1927 fall tour becomes the cradle-to-grave biography that she didn’t intend to write. Along the way, she presents never-before-told facts about Ruth’s childhood, and utilizes materials that other authors may have barely noticed.
In addition to Ruth’s time at Mary's Industrial School, Leavy details his relationships with both of his wives, his tested friendship with Gehrig, and his slow, unfortunate death. His agent Christy Walsh dominates much of the text, as does Ruth’s financial health thanks in part to Walsh’s advice and management. Of course we also read the details of numbers 60 and 714.
Other readers say this is different from Leavy’s biographies of Sandy Koufax and Mickey Mantle, so keep that in mind when approaching this one. There is a lot of what I call ‘filler material’ – descriptions of people, places, and events that aren’t directly related to Babe Ruth. These things might be footnotes or endnotes in other books, optional for the reader to take in. But these are the kinds of things I LOVE about historic biographies: You can’t really know a person unless you know about the people around them and the times in which they lived. I also love discovering unexpected interconnectedness in otherwise separate historical events. I call Big Fella a grand slam!
Jane Leavy’s extensively-researched, unconventional biography, Big Fella was a home run for me (I make no apologies that for that baseball cliché or any other that may follow).
The reader travels with Ruth and Lou Gehrig on their exhibition, barnstorming tour after the 1927 season (the year Babe hit 60). The book can be hard to follow, so I’ll set you up: Each chapter represents a stop on the tour, and each chapter begins and ends speaking to the story of that particular location. The middle of each chapter takes the reader either backward or forward in time (sometimes both), to explore a different period of Ruth’s life. With this format, Leavy’s tale of the 1927 fall tour becomes the cradle-to-grave biography that she didn’t intend to write. Along the way, she presents never-before-told facts about Ruth’s childhood, and utilizes materials that other authors may have barely noticed.
In addition to Ruth’s time at Mary's Industrial School, Leavy details his relationships with both of his wives, his tested friendship with Gehrig, and his slow, unfortunate death. His agent Christy Walsh dominates much of the text, as does Ruth’s financial health thanks in part to Walsh’s advice and management. Of course we also read the details of numbers 60 and 714.
Other readers say this is different from Leavy’s biographies of Sandy Koufax and Mickey Mantle, so keep that in mind when approaching this one. There is a lot of what I call ‘filler material’ – descriptions of people, places, and events that aren’t directly related to Babe Ruth. These things might be footnotes or endnotes in other books, optional for the reader to take in. But these are the kinds of things I LOVE about historic biographies: You can’t really know a person unless you know about the people around them and the times in which they lived. I also love discovering unexpected interconnectedness in otherwise separate historical events. I call Big Fella a grand slam!
May 5, 2019
This is one of the rare instances in which I wish I had read the reviews before checking this book out of the library. I don't want to be spoiled or be influenced by others biases before I read something which is why I try to avoid reading reviews until after I have either finished or abandoned the book. But if I had read the reviews first, I would have seen that this was a book to skip.
You'd think that a book about Babe Ruth would be fantastic. But this one isn't. It's not a straight forward bio of Babe Ruth, which was what I was looking for. Instead she tries to examine the celebrity impact of Babe Ruth and the world he helped to create. And boy did Jane Leavy create a mess.
I think her goal was to construct a biography that was fun to read based up on the tone she used and the constant inclusions of trivia and gossip. So this was not a book designed for the serious sports fan or historian. But her efforts fell flat because she included so much mindless information. As a result, this turned into a very tedious read. A book that was supposed to be about Babe Ruth really comes off as a book about 1927 America. And you know what? Bill Bryson wrote a much better book exploring the year 1927.
So skip this poorly edited montrosity and read Bill Bryson's One Summer: America, 1927. It's a much shorter read filled with much of the same information Leavy provides here and is more entertaining.
You'd think that a book about Babe Ruth would be fantastic. But this one isn't. It's not a straight forward bio of Babe Ruth, which was what I was looking for. Instead she tries to examine the celebrity impact of Babe Ruth and the world he helped to create. And boy did Jane Leavy create a mess.
I think her goal was to construct a biography that was fun to read based up on the tone she used and the constant inclusions of trivia and gossip. So this was not a book designed for the serious sports fan or historian. But her efforts fell flat because she included so much mindless information. As a result, this turned into a very tedious read. A book that was supposed to be about Babe Ruth really comes off as a book about 1927 America. And you know what? Bill Bryson wrote a much better book exploring the year 1927.
So skip this poorly edited montrosity and read Bill Bryson's One Summer: America, 1927. It's a much shorter read filled with much of the same information Leavy provides here and is more entertaining.
November 24, 2024
First Jane Leavy book I have read and I really enjoyed it. I have read other Ruth biographies that immerse a reader within the baseball on field life. This book complements the other biographies to provide insight into the childhood and adult off field baseball life of Ruth (sports writers, agent representation, baseball growth, etc,). Deeply researched and well written…it does jump a little on chronology but other than that, no complaints.
March 13, 2019
Disjointed and confusing narrative of Babe's youth, barnstorming with Gehrig, the times etc. Poor choice of structure. Disappointing effort from great author of Mantle and Koufax lives. Who was the Editor here ?
January 25, 2019
Enjoyed the new anecdotes about Babe, but did not like the organization of the book.
March 3, 2019
This is a fantastic book. Babe Ruth is a tough subject for biography for a few reasons, including the difficulty of separating myth from fact. This is at least the fifth book about Babe Ruth that I've read as an adult and I was continually impressed by the stories that Leavy uncovered and by her willingness to separate what we know about the man from the record and what we have been told about him through folklore.
Babe's origins are a lot murkier than most superstars. We know when he was born, although Babe himself was off on that point by a year and a day for most of his life. We know that he lived most of his childhood in an orphanage, even though his parents lived just a mile from the institution. Babe was very reluctant to share the details of that childhood and a lot of the documentary evidence was lost in a fire. But Ms. Leavy does a tremendous job of spelling out what she can and leaving the reader to fill in the crucial blanks.
Ruth was not a complicated or profound man. But his influence on sport and on celebrity is without parallel. He was a rock star two generations before that term existed. And his performance on the baseball field will never be matched, mostly because he was so far ahead of his contemporaries. As of this writing, he is still the all time leader in OPS, a statistic that wasn't even dreamed up until decades after his passing. For good measure, his pitching feats include being 17th on the all-time Earned Run Average and 12th in winning percentage.
The book is a perfect balance of historical rigor, amusing anecdotes and relevant anallysis of what the protagnist means for our time, including detailed analysis of his earnings and investments. That might sound dry but consider that Babe's 1927 income was $26 million dollars in today's dollars, if you adjust for inflation and current tax laws.
The books is more than the biography of one great figure and it covers many subjects beyond old-timey baseball. It was a joy to read.
Babe's origins are a lot murkier than most superstars. We know when he was born, although Babe himself was off on that point by a year and a day for most of his life. We know that he lived most of his childhood in an orphanage, even though his parents lived just a mile from the institution. Babe was very reluctant to share the details of that childhood and a lot of the documentary evidence was lost in a fire. But Ms. Leavy does a tremendous job of spelling out what she can and leaving the reader to fill in the crucial blanks.
Ruth was not a complicated or profound man. But his influence on sport and on celebrity is without parallel. He was a rock star two generations before that term existed. And his performance on the baseball field will never be matched, mostly because he was so far ahead of his contemporaries. As of this writing, he is still the all time leader in OPS, a statistic that wasn't even dreamed up until decades after his passing. For good measure, his pitching feats include being 17th on the all-time Earned Run Average and 12th in winning percentage.
The book is a perfect balance of historical rigor, amusing anecdotes and relevant anallysis of what the protagnist means for our time, including detailed analysis of his earnings and investments. That might sound dry but consider that Babe's 1927 income was $26 million dollars in today's dollars, if you adjust for inflation and current tax laws.
The books is more than the biography of one great figure and it covers many subjects beyond old-timey baseball. It was a joy to read.
August 1, 2025
Jane Leavy is one of the best baseball writers publishing currently. Her earlier bios of Koufax and Mantle are superb, but THE BIG FELLA might be even better--exhaustive and insightful research and reporting and a fascinating story about baseball, Ruth, and how he was promoted and marketed. Should be of interest to baseball fans of all ages and inclinations--and to anyone interested in the study of finances in baseball. Top notch.
August 14, 2024
Excellent biography of Babe Ruth, structured around his 1927 post season nationwide tour. Obviously written with huge affection for Ruth who comes across as an engaging character whose flaws are largely overlooked. An interesting insight on fame in the era. An entertaining and engaging book even if you aren’t a massive baseball fan or like me from the Uk where he is perhaps one of the absolute handful of players anyone has ever heard of.
Lots of nerdy stats at the end if that’s your thing.
Lots of nerdy stats at the end if that’s your thing.
January 22, 2019
For the serious Babe Ruth fan . Leavy takes a unique route in memorializing the Bambino . She follows a barnstorming railway tour featuring Babe and Lou Gehrig after their 1927 battle for the
Home Run King title . Also provides in-depth background on the relationship between Ruth and his sports agent / promoter/ attorney and friend .
Home Run King title . Also provides in-depth background on the relationship between Ruth and his sports agent / promoter/ attorney and friend .
June 12, 2023
I have enjoyed Leavy’s previous biographies about Sandy Koufax and Mickey Mantle, but this one didn’t meet that bar for me. Her format, which alternated between anecdotes from Ruth’s 1927 winter barnstorming tour and important episodes throughout his life, failed to deliver a cohesive or compelling view into his life.
Obviously, writing a biography of someone so well-covered is a tall task. Rather than trying to follow the route others have already done, Leavy (to her credit!) tried to take a different tack with this structure.
Unfortunately, I didn’t find that her approach yielded a new or more nuanced perspective on Ruth’s character or motivations. Instead, I just found the deeper dive into the 1927 barnstorming tour - to put it bluntly - boring. It distracted from my ability to engage in the writing, and detracted from the book’s ability to draw out the important themes and undercurrents of Ruth’s life. Ostensibly, the barnstorming anecdotes are meant to be a narrative structure that reinforce these undercurrents. But in practice, I felt like they just got in the way and made the book harder to get through.
All in all, I can’t reflect on this book as a worthwhile read. The approach just took away a lot more than it added. Bob Creamer’s more traditional bio of the Babe remains my go-to book for anyone who wants to read something about him.
Obviously, writing a biography of someone so well-covered is a tall task. Rather than trying to follow the route others have already done, Leavy (to her credit!) tried to take a different tack with this structure.
Unfortunately, I didn’t find that her approach yielded a new or more nuanced perspective on Ruth’s character or motivations. Instead, I just found the deeper dive into the 1927 barnstorming tour - to put it bluntly - boring. It distracted from my ability to engage in the writing, and detracted from the book’s ability to draw out the important themes and undercurrents of Ruth’s life. Ostensibly, the barnstorming anecdotes are meant to be a narrative structure that reinforce these undercurrents. But in practice, I felt like they just got in the way and made the book harder to get through.
All in all, I can’t reflect on this book as a worthwhile read. The approach just took away a lot more than it added. Bob Creamer’s more traditional bio of the Babe remains my go-to book for anyone who wants to read something about him.
November 15, 2018
This unconventional biography of baseball's most legendary player soars sometimes in ways that make a reader wish every word of it reached those heights. But, hey, even the Babe struck out a lot. It's part and parcel of swinging for the fences.
I admired Leavy's deep research. She came up with some revelations and found truth buried in a landslide of lies.
I also loved that she tried to arrange all of it around a 1927 barnstorming tour that Ruth and Lou Gehrig took after the Yankees won the World Series. It didn't always work, but it was a valiant effort to break the chronological style of nearly every biography.
Mostly, though, I found her book gave me a deeper appreciation for Ruth's place in the American psyche and the era he helped to create, a period that is recognizably our own. I'm still not sure I truly get why it sometimes seems that modern America started somewhere in the Roaring Twenties, but Leavy's book makes it all the more obvious that it did.
We're still living in the Country That Ruth Built. So it helps to understand how we got here a little better.
I admired Leavy's deep research. She came up with some revelations and found truth buried in a landslide of lies.
I also loved that she tried to arrange all of it around a 1927 barnstorming tour that Ruth and Lou Gehrig took after the Yankees won the World Series. It didn't always work, but it was a valiant effort to break the chronological style of nearly every biography.
Mostly, though, I found her book gave me a deeper appreciation for Ruth's place in the American psyche and the era he helped to create, a period that is recognizably our own. I'm still not sure I truly get why it sometimes seems that modern America started somewhere in the Roaring Twenties, but Leavy's book makes it all the more obvious that it did.
We're still living in the Country That Ruth Built. So it helps to understand how we got here a little better.
November 27, 2018
Babe Ruth changed baseball and the meaning of celebrity and did it in a time known as the Roaring Twenties. Jane Leavy, who has penned acclaimed biographies on Mickey Mantle and Sandy Koufax takes on the Babe and his impact on the world. With thorough research over a span of years and a flair for writing about the big fella, the reader is treated to a revelation about a more complex George Herman "Babe" Ruth than we are used to, worts and all. He lived life to the fullest even as his actions caused trouble for those closest around him. Using a barnstorming trip out west with Lou Gerhig after the 1927 world Series, and the year the Big Fella hit 60 homeruns, Leavy introduces us to fans who participated in the exhibition games with the two sluggers as well as Ruth's early background in Baltimore and his later years when a terrible disease ended his life prematurely. Ruth's financial impact on baseball and celebrity is thoroughly covered as well. A must read for Babe Ruth fans of all ages.
October 21, 2018
(1 1/2). This book is interesting and boring at the same time. The overall picture of Babe Ruth, the way he made his living, which was as much as the first real sports celebrity on the planet because of his baseball prowess, is fascinating. But the blow by blow journal of these barnstorming and promotional events is almost numbing. The talent and ability of Christy Walsh, seemingly the first ever sports agent, is the real story here. The Babe's demise is very sad, and it gives this book some cohesion at the end. A little to way too long, but something I had to try as a true Yankee/baseball nut.
February 24, 2019
I had high hopes for this book based on the author's previous one on Mickey Mantle. Unfortunately, I found this one to be disappointing. The book revolves around the barn storming trip that Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig took after the 1927 World Series. Part of each chapter was about one or more of the stops across the country and then some about George Herman Ruth, Jr. and Chris Walsh, his public relations agent. The part about the Babe was not always in chronological order.
This book will work for the casual baseball fan, but serious students of the game will find it somewhat unfulfilling.
This book will work for the casual baseball fan, but serious students of the game will find it somewhat unfulfilling.
November 8, 2018
Leavy hits another one out of the park!
After reading her fabulous books about Koufax and Mantle, I was eagerly awaiting "The Big Fella", and Leavy did not disappoint. An incredible piece of both research and writing style, the book perfectly captured the Babe's era, career, and personal life. I can only hope that Jane continues writing more baseball biographies....maybe Snider, Hodges, Campy, Reese, Durocher next?
After reading her fabulous books about Koufax and Mantle, I was eagerly awaiting "The Big Fella", and Leavy did not disappoint. An incredible piece of both research and writing style, the book perfectly captured the Babe's era, career, and personal life. I can only hope that Jane continues writing more baseball biographies....maybe Snider, Hodges, Campy, Reese, Durocher next?
November 11, 2018
While the use of the 1927 post-season tour of America was an interesting framing device, the book contained numerous lazy editorial errors which I personally found off-putting and a detraction from the narrative.
November 3, 2020
I may have been expecting too much after reading her great biography of Mickey Mantle. I found myself wanting to learn more about his time as a Yankee and less about a single barnstorming trip. It was easy to put it down and move to other things.
March 21, 2021
Returned by Library. A great read not just have Baseball or Yankee fans. As the title Babe Ruth created a new world during his era. Great resource about the era for research and and / or term paper. Enjoy!
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