What If the Babe Had Kept His Red Sox?: And Other Fascinating Alternate Histories from the World of Sports

by Bill Gutman

What if Babe Ruth had not been sold to the Yankees in 1920 and instead played his entire career in Boston? What if Muhammad Ali had lost or quit in his first fight against Sonny Liston? What if the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants had never moved to the West Coast? What if Vince Lombardi had become head coach of his hometown Giants instead of heading to Green Bay? How would sports history, and our perception of it, be different today? These are some of the questions asked and answered in this entertaining book of alternate history, the first book of its kind in the field of sports. It is sure to appeal to every thoughtful sports fan.

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Whether you are a New York Yankees fan or hail from Red Sox nation; whether you are a die-hard Green Bay Packers or Dallas Cowboys fan; whether you root for the Kentucky Wildcats, Louisville Cardinals, UCLA Bruins, or Kansas Jayhawks; whether you route for the Boston Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, or Los Angeles Kings; we have a book for you. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to publishing books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked by other publishers and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Genres: Baseball, Alternate History, Sports

304 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2008

About the author

Bill Gutman is the author of more than two hundred books for both children and adults in a writing career that has spanned some five decades. His first book was an adult-level biography of former basketball star Pistol Pete Maravich, and since then he has written children's and young adult biographies and profiles of many prominent sports stars such as Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Shaquille O'Neal, Ken Griffey, Jr., Bo Jackson, Brett Favre and many others.

Some of his adult books include a biography of former football coach Bill Parcells, Parcells: A Biograpy; When the Cheering Stops, interviews with some 25 former baseball players from the 1940s through the 1960s on life after baseball; Won For All: The Inside Story of the New England Patriots' Improbable Run to the Super Bowl, written with former linebacker and then Patriots assistant coach Pepper Johnson; Twice Around the Bases, written with former big league manager Kevin Kennedy; The Giants Win the Pennant! The Giants Win the Pennant! which was the story of the 1951 pennant race between the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers, written with home run hero Bobby Thomson; Miracle Year, Amazing Mets, Super Jets, the story of both New York teams winning championship in 1969; Being Extreme, interviews with 22 of the most daring, high risk athletes in the world of mountain climbing, BASE jumping, ski diving, big wave surfing rock climbing, extreme skiing and snowboarding. Of more recent vintage is What if the Babe Had Kept His Red Sox: And Other Fascinating Alternate Histories from the World of Sports, a book of What Ifs. His most recent sports book is a young adult biography of Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge called All Rise: The Aaron Judge Story.

Bill's current passion is The Mike Fargo Mysteries, a series of novels and novellas about a tough detective working in the New York City of the 1920. The novel, Murder on Murderer's Row is available as both an ebook and in paperback on Amazon, an ebook on other venues. The novellas, Death of a Flapper, Murder on Broadway, Seven Days to Murder and The Grab-A-Cab Murder are currently available as ebooks. A sixth book, Roaring Twenties Cop, Mike Fargo's Own Story is told in Fargo's words and serves to bring the lead character of the series to life, as he talks about his childhood on Staten Island, the reason he became a cop, the New York City of the 1920s and some of his cases. The book serves as an introduction to the series and is available for free on the Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, Kobo and Smashwords websites.

And hopefully there is much more to come.

Reviews

[Bobby Panichella · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not Bad but its not all about the Babe he has other what if stories about a lot of other players and also teams.I started the thinking it was all about the babe but I read it anyway.So if you want to know what would happened to all the other people & teams read it but I really don't recommend it.

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like alternative history. One of my favorite books I've ever read was one in which certain points in history are taken with alternative outcomes such as William the Conqueror being defeated at Hastings and becoming instead William the Nice Try or Stonewall Jackson surviving his wound at Chancellorsville. A scenario in which Genghis Khan does not of his own volition turn around and retreat back to Mongolia thus saving all of Europe the same fate as the rest of Eurasia is particularly scary. So thus it was that I started Bill Gutman's book of alternative sports history. Gutman looks at some intriguing scenarios - Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson integrating baseball in the 1930's, Vince Lombardi returning to his home in New York to coach the Giants in the early 1960's, Muhammad Ali losing to Sonny Liston in their first fight, and yes, Babe Ruth remaining with the Red Sox throughout his career. He makes a very good case for the possibilit y of each one occurring - essential in writing about alternative history - and traces the potential consequences. Each one leaves the reader wondering about the inches that make up sports (2 inches to the right or left and the line drive does not hit Dizzy Dean's foot - essentially ending his effectiveness). Some of Gutman's conclusions, however do not seem to make sense, even within the realm of the alternative scenario. He spends an entire chapter convincing us that Lombardi's system might not have worked with the personnel on the Giants, that both the Packers and the Giants would have slipped into mediocrity and then concludes by saying that it still would have been the outcome that Lombardi would have been a Hall of Fame coach. Huh? Lastly, Gutman has the habit, which drives me crazy, of being informal in his writing - like he's sitting next to you at a bar talking to you rather than writing a book the reader is supposed to take seriously. If he had referred to Dennis Eckersley as "The Eck" one more time, I would have strangled him if he had been in the room. There is also a difference between someone being an "All-American" and an "All-America" that someone who writes about sports for a living should know. Perhaps these are just pet peeves of mine, but I feel better having vented.

[Claire Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recent years have seen a surge in the popularity of the "what if" genre of historical fiction. Suppose the Nazis had won World War II? Or John F. Kennedy had not been assassinated? How would the world be different? In this collection, Bill Gutman applies the what-if question to the world of professional sports.

The scenarios are intriguing. Imagine a New York City where the baseball Giants and Dodgers never left. Imagine a young Cassius Clay failing to take the heavyweight boxing championship from Sonny Liston. Imagine Vince Lombardi leaving the Green Bay Packers to become head coach of the New York Giants. Imagine a healthy Willis Reed leading the New York Knicks to a whole string of NBA titles in the 1970s. And of course, as the title suggests, imagine a world with no Curse of the Bambino--a world where the Boston Red Sox never traded Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees. Gutman explores these scenarios (and several more) in a series of chapters that feature solid research and lively writing. Recommended for any sports fan.