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Babe: The Legend Comes to Life
"I swing big, with everything I've got. I hit big or I miss big. I like to live as big as I can." -- Babe Ruth
Babe Ruth is without a doubt the most famous character ever produced by the sport of baseball. A legendary player, world-famous for his hitting prowess, he transcended the sport to enter the mainstream of American life as an authentic folk hero.
In this extraordinary biography, noted sportswriter Robert W. Creamer reveals the complex man behind the sports legend. From Ruth's early days in a Baltimore orphanage, to the glory days with the Yankees, to his later years, Creamer has drawn a classic portrait of an American original.
Babe Ruth is without a doubt the most famous character ever produced by the sport of baseball. A legendary player, world-famous for his hitting prowess, he transcended the sport to enter the mainstream of American life as an authentic folk hero.
In this extraordinary biography, noted sportswriter Robert W. Creamer reveals the complex man behind the sports legend. From Ruth's early days in a Baltimore orphanage, to the glory days with the Yankees, to his later years, Creamer has drawn a classic portrait of an American original.
448 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
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About the author
Robert W. Creamer
25 books28 followersRobert Watts Creamer was an American sportswriter and editor. A longtime staffer at Sports Illustrated, he was among the first people hired for the magazine and he worked as a senior editor until 1984.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 124 reviews
October 18, 2021
This is thought of as the definitive biography of Babe Ruth’s. A little too much “box score” baseball in places, but overall a really good biography and very well-written.
I knew that Ruth played for the Red Sox before he became a Yankee icon, but I always thought the Sox had traded him away not knowing what he would become, making a terrible mistake. In reality, even if Ruth retired after his career with the Sox he would have probably still ended up in the HOF. Before he ever put on the pinstripes he was a superstar, a World Series winner, the best left-handed pitcher in the game, and the first player to ever be great at pitching and hitting.
I bring that up because this was very interesting to listen to in 2021 - the season Shohei Ohtani breaks out as one of the best pitchers AND hitters in baseball. Ruth did it first, and the only reason he stopped was because he just didn’t want to pitch anymore.
Creamer is a great writer and he provides not only great color to Ruth’s era, but also great context. He dips you into the world Ruth played and lived in, highlighting and clarifying the baseball culture of that time. Creamer busts the legends and never papers over any of Ruth’s faults, but you come away from the book understanding why he still looms in our culture 90 years later.
I knew that Ruth played for the Red Sox before he became a Yankee icon, but I always thought the Sox had traded him away not knowing what he would become, making a terrible mistake. In reality, even if Ruth retired after his career with the Sox he would have probably still ended up in the HOF. Before he ever put on the pinstripes he was a superstar, a World Series winner, the best left-handed pitcher in the game, and the first player to ever be great at pitching and hitting.
I bring that up because this was very interesting to listen to in 2021 - the season Shohei Ohtani breaks out as one of the best pitchers AND hitters in baseball. Ruth did it first, and the only reason he stopped was because he just didn’t want to pitch anymore.
Creamer is a great writer and he provides not only great color to Ruth’s era, but also great context. He dips you into the world Ruth played and lived in, highlighting and clarifying the baseball culture of that time. Creamer busts the legends and never papers over any of Ruth’s faults, but you come away from the book understanding why he still looms in our culture 90 years later.
April 20, 2015
True to its title, this book brought Babe Ruth to life for me. Before this book, the Babe was merely a caricature based upon stories and legends.
George Herman Ruth consumed expensive cars, cigars, massive quantities of food and liquor, and countless loose women. He was loud, controversial, argumentative, hot-headed, greedy, difficult, overweight, a poor husband, and often undependable. Yet he was kind to children, the product of a difficult childhood, friendly, a great tipper, fun-loving, the life of the party, smiley, funny, earthy, willing to sign autographs for hours, extremely athletic, and, without a doubt, one of the greatest baseball players ever. He was a superb hitter (especially of the long ball), a great pitcher, and good fielder, and one who was willing to take chances in the game. He lived big, and in life and baseball always swung for the fences. He struck out a lot, but always came roaring back, bat swinging.
I really appreciated the way this biography tried to evoke many different sides of Babe, including the good and bad, the large and small, the public and personal. This is not a one-sided portrayal; not a hagiography. Too many biographies render the subject as someone to whom the reader cannot relate, as someone to whom the reader cannot connect. When I analyze myself, I realize that my actions and decisions and character and beliefs are based on a complex and lengthy series of events and people and decisions from the time I was a baby, not to mention the lot I was born into. I am sometimes worse than I appear, sometimes better. Life is difficult and complex. The Babe's life was no different.
Rather than removing Babe from a pedestal, as I feared this book might, this book has given me an even greater appreciation for what Babe Ruth accomplished, despite his background and personality and struggles and character flaws. He was so essentially American, and as a fellow American I cannot help but love something about him, warts and all. This book made me love baseball even more, and appreciate more than ever what this amazing ballplayer did for baseball and America. Go Yankees!
George Herman Ruth consumed expensive cars, cigars, massive quantities of food and liquor, and countless loose women. He was loud, controversial, argumentative, hot-headed, greedy, difficult, overweight, a poor husband, and often undependable. Yet he was kind to children, the product of a difficult childhood, friendly, a great tipper, fun-loving, the life of the party, smiley, funny, earthy, willing to sign autographs for hours, extremely athletic, and, without a doubt, one of the greatest baseball players ever. He was a superb hitter (especially of the long ball), a great pitcher, and good fielder, and one who was willing to take chances in the game. He lived big, and in life and baseball always swung for the fences. He struck out a lot, but always came roaring back, bat swinging.
I really appreciated the way this biography tried to evoke many different sides of Babe, including the good and bad, the large and small, the public and personal. This is not a one-sided portrayal; not a hagiography. Too many biographies render the subject as someone to whom the reader cannot relate, as someone to whom the reader cannot connect. When I analyze myself, I realize that my actions and decisions and character and beliefs are based on a complex and lengthy series of events and people and decisions from the time I was a baby, not to mention the lot I was born into. I am sometimes worse than I appear, sometimes better. Life is difficult and complex. The Babe's life was no different.
Rather than removing Babe from a pedestal, as I feared this book might, this book has given me an even greater appreciation for what Babe Ruth accomplished, despite his background and personality and struggles and character flaws. He was so essentially American, and as a fellow American I cannot help but love something about him, warts and all. This book made me love baseball even more, and appreciate more than ever what this amazing ballplayer did for baseball and America. Go Yankees!
March 23, 2023
Athletes usually win fame through their talents in their field of competition, and some of them are successful enough to become celebrities in their sport. Yet only a select few transcend that identification to become national icons. Among the first, and perhaps the most legendary of those who did so, was George Herman “Babe” Ruth. At a time when baseball was cementing its status as the premier sport in America, Ruth emerged as its greatest player, and at his peak was paid a higher salary than the president of the United States. Ruth more than earned his money through his performance on the field, which filled stadiums and set records that stood for decades. Such was his fame that, as Robert Creamer notes at the start of his biography of Ruth, that his very name became synonymous with outstanding achievement, as to be called “the Babe Ruth” of something was for generations the highest accolade a person could earn.
That Ruth’s name remains familiar nearly a century after he last played in a professional baseball game is evidence of his continuing relevance to American culture. People today still discuss the various tales about his activities both on and off the diamond, from his controversial “called shot” in the 1932 World Series to his appetite for both food and sex. Much of this reflected the larger-than-life personality that made him a favorite with the press and his many fans, both of whom he always accommodated affably. Yet much of the stories surrounding Ruth are distortions or even outright inventions of the writers of the era, many of whom were not above a little embellishment. Perhaps the greatest challenge that Creamer faced in writing this book was in sorting out the facts from the many fictions that have encrusted around his life, a challenge that was even more difficult given the limited amount of reliable information about many aspects of it.
This is especially true for Ruth’s childhood. The son of a saloonkeeper, Ruth grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Baltimore. His unsupervised upbringing made him so unruly that at the age of seven his parents sent him to a Catholic-run reformatory school, where he lived for the next twelve years. It was there that he displayed his burgeoning skill as a baseball player, distinguishing himself as a pitcher in the various local and regional leagues in which the school’s team played. Even before he was discharged from the reformatory after his 19th birthday Ruth had already signed a contract with the minor league Baltimore Orioles, and less than six months later was playing in the majors with the Boston Red Sox.
Once away from the gates of the reformatory Ruth eagerly indulged in all of the things that had been denied him during his time there. This was enabled by a rapidly-growing income, which earned him more money than he imagined and which enabled his gargantuan zest for living. Creamer portrays Ruth as an exuberant man-child who embraced all that life had to offer. His appetite for food soon became legendary, and though he married a coffee shop waitress soon after arriving in Boston, his vows of fidelity to her did nothing to inhibit his womanizing. It wasn’t long before he faced struggles with his weight, which soon created the famous Ruth form: the bulbous torso that made his muscular legs look spindly in comparison, and which only added to his visibility.
Yet Ruth’s lifestyle proved no obstacle to his achievements as his player. This is the main focus of Creamer’s book, as he details both Ruth’s performance and his relationships with the teams on which he played. Though his goodwill and inability to hold a grudge made him popular among most of his teammates, managers struggled with their star’s willfulness and desire to play the game on his own terms. This was reflected in his growing determination to move from pitching towards fielding and hitting, which Ruth undertook just as the “dead ball” era of defensive performance was replaced by the “live ball” era of batters knocking the ball as far as they could. And nobody could do it better than Ruth. Though Creamer leaves unexplored the question of whether his success as a batter helped bring the dead ball era to an end, he benefited from the changes that resulted, lofting his home run totals each season to ever-greater heights.
Ruth’s pitching and bat helped propel the Red Sox to three World Series championships between 1915 and 1918, yet his increasing salary demands and the financial straits of the team’s new owner, Henry Frazee, led him to sell Ruth to the New York Yankees in 1919. It was with the Yankees that Ruth cemented his image as “the Sultan of Swat,” filling the stadium with fans who came to see him play. Frequently he supplemented his income in the off-season by touring and playing in exhibition games, in which he earned almost as much as he did in salary. This became one of his many sources of conflict with management and the emerging national baseball leadership, who resorted to suspensions in an effort to bring Ruth to heel. These succeeded in no small measure because of Ruth’s love of playing, which always proved greater than the disciplinary issue.
When Ruth joined the Yankees, his salary of $52,000 was over three times greater than that of the next-highest-paid player on the team. He soon proved he was worth it, though, as his batting continued to improve. Ruth’s years with the Yankees take up the majority of his book, as Creamer details each season with a focus on Ruth’s performance in it. Though the Babe had his downs as well as his ups, he dominated the game throughout the 1920s and led the team to seven World Series appearances, four of which they won. By 1933, however, the economic travails of the Great Depression and Ruth’s own declining performance led him to take his first salary cut. Aware that his time as a player was coming to an end, Ruth hoped to become a major league manager, only for the unwillingness of owners to trust their teams to such a famously undisciplined person leaving him in retirement waiting for a call that would never come.
Even before his premature death from cancer in 1948 Ruth had enshrined his place in the hearts of baseball fans everywhere, ensuring that he would be remembered long after most of his contemporaries were forgotten. Among the merits of Creamer’s book is his interviews with many of the latter, in which he captured their recollections of Ruth and employed them in his efforts to sort the truth from the legend. While the absence of source notes diminishes the scope of this achievement, it’s a relatively minor complaint for such an accomplished work. In it, Creamer manages the challenging feat of providing a reading experience that is both entertaining and insightful, one that captures Ruth’s life while resisting the powerful temptation to lean into the sensationalism that surrounded it. It is for these reasons why it continues to endure as one of the best, if not the best, biography of Ruth available.
That Ruth’s name remains familiar nearly a century after he last played in a professional baseball game is evidence of his continuing relevance to American culture. People today still discuss the various tales about his activities both on and off the diamond, from his controversial “called shot” in the 1932 World Series to his appetite for both food and sex. Much of this reflected the larger-than-life personality that made him a favorite with the press and his many fans, both of whom he always accommodated affably. Yet much of the stories surrounding Ruth are distortions or even outright inventions of the writers of the era, many of whom were not above a little embellishment. Perhaps the greatest challenge that Creamer faced in writing this book was in sorting out the facts from the many fictions that have encrusted around his life, a challenge that was even more difficult given the limited amount of reliable information about many aspects of it.
This is especially true for Ruth’s childhood. The son of a saloonkeeper, Ruth grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Baltimore. His unsupervised upbringing made him so unruly that at the age of seven his parents sent him to a Catholic-run reformatory school, where he lived for the next twelve years. It was there that he displayed his burgeoning skill as a baseball player, distinguishing himself as a pitcher in the various local and regional leagues in which the school’s team played. Even before he was discharged from the reformatory after his 19th birthday Ruth had already signed a contract with the minor league Baltimore Orioles, and less than six months later was playing in the majors with the Boston Red Sox.
Once away from the gates of the reformatory Ruth eagerly indulged in all of the things that had been denied him during his time there. This was enabled by a rapidly-growing income, which earned him more money than he imagined and which enabled his gargantuan zest for living. Creamer portrays Ruth as an exuberant man-child who embraced all that life had to offer. His appetite for food soon became legendary, and though he married a coffee shop waitress soon after arriving in Boston, his vows of fidelity to her did nothing to inhibit his womanizing. It wasn’t long before he faced struggles with his weight, which soon created the famous Ruth form: the bulbous torso that made his muscular legs look spindly in comparison, and which only added to his visibility.
Yet Ruth’s lifestyle proved no obstacle to his achievements as his player. This is the main focus of Creamer’s book, as he details both Ruth’s performance and his relationships with the teams on which he played. Though his goodwill and inability to hold a grudge made him popular among most of his teammates, managers struggled with their star’s willfulness and desire to play the game on his own terms. This was reflected in his growing determination to move from pitching towards fielding and hitting, which Ruth undertook just as the “dead ball” era of defensive performance was replaced by the “live ball” era of batters knocking the ball as far as they could. And nobody could do it better than Ruth. Though Creamer leaves unexplored the question of whether his success as a batter helped bring the dead ball era to an end, he benefited from the changes that resulted, lofting his home run totals each season to ever-greater heights.
Ruth’s pitching and bat helped propel the Red Sox to three World Series championships between 1915 and 1918, yet his increasing salary demands and the financial straits of the team’s new owner, Henry Frazee, led him to sell Ruth to the New York Yankees in 1919. It was with the Yankees that Ruth cemented his image as “the Sultan of Swat,” filling the stadium with fans who came to see him play. Frequently he supplemented his income in the off-season by touring and playing in exhibition games, in which he earned almost as much as he did in salary. This became one of his many sources of conflict with management and the emerging national baseball leadership, who resorted to suspensions in an effort to bring Ruth to heel. These succeeded in no small measure because of Ruth’s love of playing, which always proved greater than the disciplinary issue.
When Ruth joined the Yankees, his salary of $52,000 was over three times greater than that of the next-highest-paid player on the team. He soon proved he was worth it, though, as his batting continued to improve. Ruth’s years with the Yankees take up the majority of his book, as Creamer details each season with a focus on Ruth’s performance in it. Though the Babe had his downs as well as his ups, he dominated the game throughout the 1920s and led the team to seven World Series appearances, four of which they won. By 1933, however, the economic travails of the Great Depression and Ruth’s own declining performance led him to take his first salary cut. Aware that his time as a player was coming to an end, Ruth hoped to become a major league manager, only for the unwillingness of owners to trust their teams to such a famously undisciplined person leaving him in retirement waiting for a call that would never come.
Even before his premature death from cancer in 1948 Ruth had enshrined his place in the hearts of baseball fans everywhere, ensuring that he would be remembered long after most of his contemporaries were forgotten. Among the merits of Creamer’s book is his interviews with many of the latter, in which he captured their recollections of Ruth and employed them in his efforts to sort the truth from the legend. While the absence of source notes diminishes the scope of this achievement, it’s a relatively minor complaint for such an accomplished work. In it, Creamer manages the challenging feat of providing a reading experience that is both entertaining and insightful, one that captures Ruth’s life while resisting the powerful temptation to lean into the sensationalism that surrounded it. It is for these reasons why it continues to endure as one of the best, if not the best, biography of Ruth available.
January 4, 2018
An excellent biography of the Babe written by Creamer in 1974. Creamer was a long time journalist for Sports Illustrated. Everyone knows the legend as Babe was voted the greatest athlete of the 20th century by several sporting publications. I guess what was so appealing to me with this bio is that there is more actual baseball coverage in this book than any baseball biography that I have read. This was a relief to me given the propensity of the many movies made about the Babe to dwell so much on the excesses of his personal life. This was Creamer’s genius here, while there was plenty of off-the-field drama supplied by Ruth, it is the enormity of his baseball exploits that truly stand out and make this biography special.
As far as the feats that are still notable today, Ruth has the highest career OPS in baseball history and the highest W.A.R., perhaps the the two most important batting metrics as judged by statisticians today. Ruth has the most home runs ever hit in a 154 game season with 60. In 1920 on his own he hit more runs, 54, than every team in the American League. He hit the first home run in Yankee stadium, the first home run in All-Star game history, at the age of 39. He has the second most home runs in World Series history only bested by Mickey Mantle who has nearly twice the number of at bats.
The Babe was also an enormously talented pitcher in his first four seasons while playing for the Boston Red Sox. He held the World Series record with 29 consecutive scoreless innings pitched until Whitey Ford bested it nearly 50 years later. In fact there are some four dozen baseball records that he still holds.
If you are a sports fan, this is a great book. It was written at a time when many of Ruth’s teammates and contemporaries were still alive and many were used as sources and consultants by Creamer.
As far as the feats that are still notable today, Ruth has the highest career OPS in baseball history and the highest W.A.R., perhaps the the two most important batting metrics as judged by statisticians today. Ruth has the most home runs ever hit in a 154 game season with 60. In 1920 on his own he hit more runs, 54, than every team in the American League. He hit the first home run in Yankee stadium, the first home run in All-Star game history, at the age of 39. He has the second most home runs in World Series history only bested by Mickey Mantle who has nearly twice the number of at bats.
The Babe was also an enormously talented pitcher in his first four seasons while playing for the Boston Red Sox. He held the World Series record with 29 consecutive scoreless innings pitched until Whitey Ford bested it nearly 50 years later. In fact there are some four dozen baseball records that he still holds.
If you are a sports fan, this is a great book. It was written at a time when many of Ruth’s teammates and contemporaries were still alive and many were used as sources and consultants by Creamer.
March 2, 2021
Originally published in 1974 Creamer's book was one of the first serious biographies of Babe Ruth. This book focuses on Babe Ruth the baseball player. His awesome hitting power and his statistical brilliance as a pitcher. By the end of his legendary run, Ruth held an insane 56 MLB records. He was the first player to hit 30, 40, 50, and 60 home runs in a season. He also held the record for most career home runs for close to 40 years. This book offers an almost complete play by play of most of Ruth's early games which tends to be dry and tedious reading. If you like reading box scores and statistical information this is a book well worth the read. You also get teasing glimpses of Babe's revelries, drinking, eating, and sexual escapades in this book. He not only set the record for home runs but he set records in eating also. I am reminded of a book I read "The Life That Ruth Built," by Marshall Smelser. In that book Babe Ruth was hospitalized in 1925 after eating 18 hot dogs and blacking out on a train ride. His drinking and frequent sexual encounters are also very well documented in other books and leaves a lot of those vices alone in this book. It seems like it would be fertile ground for more research and exploration into Babe's social life. Another issue was that I didn't like the way the book abruptly ended with his death. I would like to have read more about his funeral and the aftermath of his death. Yet, if your baseball fan you can overlook these minor issues and find a very good biography of Babe Ruth.
July 14, 2017
Certainly the best source of information I have found on Babe Ruth. The author covers everything one can think of for Babe - whether it was success on the field as both a pitcher and a hitter, his huge appetite for liquor, food and sex, or some of his famous legendary stories such as the "called shot" homer in the 1932 World Series. An excellent book on one of the most famous athletes of the 20th century.
May 23, 2019
This was the definitive biography when I read it in the early 1990s and I don't know of any book that has overtaken it. On this my second time through it the story is still compelling as Creamer's account is a straight chronological tale of cradle to grave without the psychology or fashionable analysis that modern publishers seem to favor. Babe was a man of tremendous appetite. Food, drink, women, cars. He was also the first guy to hit 30, 40, 50, and 60 home runs. Teammates and friends called him George (pronounced Gidge) and he called them Kid (pronounced Keed) because he couldn't remember anyone's name.
So did Ruth actually call his shot in the 1932 World Series against Charlie Root? Root says no. If Ruth had tried such theatrics Root says he would have beaned him. One newspaper account said so the day after the event and then sports writers that didn't mention it built it up into a legend. When Ruth was asked if it were true he said read the papers as if he were happier with their mythology than the story of what occurred. To Creamer's credit he just presents accounts at the time and accounts years after the fact and let's the reader decide if it's worth believing.
He goes into the rift between Ruth and Gehrig that may have started with Gehrig declining to hold out with Ruth for larger salaries in the late 1920s, but it definitely heated up when Ma Gehrig accused the Ruths of treating Babe's stepdaughter better than his adopted daughter. But they made up with the big hug on Lou Gehrig day.
Babe Ruth fought with manager Miller Huggins constantly up until Huggins died and Ruth was crushed. Then he despised Manager Joe McCarthy and broke every club rule but McCarthy was smart enough to just ignore the behavior and let his bat make the apologies.
In his post playing career Creamer explores Babe's desire to be a big league manager and how he had a few opportunities at the end of his playing career but they were squandered and he kind of just drifted away from baseball altogether. His last baseball job was coaching the Brooklyn Dodgers with a hope to someday manage, but his rocky relationship with former teammate and fellow coach Leo Durocher ended those hopes in the late 1930s. I read elsewhere that when they played together Babe nicknamed Durocher, The All-America Out. Yeah, I guess that came back to haunt him.
There is a little here about making the Lou Gehrig biographical film, Pride of the Yankees and how Ruth had to lose 40 pounds not to look ridiculous in the uniform. He made more money off the field than on so although he wasted much of his wealth he never went broke.
Babe made baseball more popular and he changed the way it was played. He was a fun companion if you were a ballplayer or golfer and he was a nightmare if you were his manager. Though he died of cancer in his early 50s no one can say he was cheated in life. He got well over 100 years of living in half the time.
So did Ruth actually call his shot in the 1932 World Series against Charlie Root? Root says no. If Ruth had tried such theatrics Root says he would have beaned him. One newspaper account said so the day after the event and then sports writers that didn't mention it built it up into a legend. When Ruth was asked if it were true he said read the papers as if he were happier with their mythology than the story of what occurred. To Creamer's credit he just presents accounts at the time and accounts years after the fact and let's the reader decide if it's worth believing.
He goes into the rift between Ruth and Gehrig that may have started with Gehrig declining to hold out with Ruth for larger salaries in the late 1920s, but it definitely heated up when Ma Gehrig accused the Ruths of treating Babe's stepdaughter better than his adopted daughter. But they made up with the big hug on Lou Gehrig day.
Babe Ruth fought with manager Miller Huggins constantly up until Huggins died and Ruth was crushed. Then he despised Manager Joe McCarthy and broke every club rule but McCarthy was smart enough to just ignore the behavior and let his bat make the apologies.
In his post playing career Creamer explores Babe's desire to be a big league manager and how he had a few opportunities at the end of his playing career but they were squandered and he kind of just drifted away from baseball altogether. His last baseball job was coaching the Brooklyn Dodgers with a hope to someday manage, but his rocky relationship with former teammate and fellow coach Leo Durocher ended those hopes in the late 1930s. I read elsewhere that when they played together Babe nicknamed Durocher, The All-America Out. Yeah, I guess that came back to haunt him.
There is a little here about making the Lou Gehrig biographical film, Pride of the Yankees and how Ruth had to lose 40 pounds not to look ridiculous in the uniform. He made more money off the field than on so although he wasted much of his wealth he never went broke.
Babe made baseball more popular and he changed the way it was played. He was a fun companion if you were a ballplayer or golfer and he was a nightmare if you were his manager. Though he died of cancer in his early 50s no one can say he was cheated in life. He got well over 100 years of living in half the time.
August 19, 2015
A perfect biography. Babe Ruth's story can be included in the pantheon of "poor unknown makes good", along with Isaac Newton or even Shakespeare. A child of the Baltimore streets sent to an orphanage/reformatory school captures the imagination of the American public through his tremendous athletic ability and personality. Per Creamer, Babe Ruth had two things going for him: incredible baseball ability and a sense of his own self worth.
My favorite anecdote is an 18 year old Babe, fresh from the orphanage, on his first trip to New York City earnestly sitting on a street corner. When asked what he was doing, he replied "I heard the girls will come if I sit here."
Despite the largesse of his subject Creamer never gets lazy and reverts to rehashing legend. He keeps Ruth grounded and personable.
I was sad when the book ended, and considered starting it over just to spend more time with this amazing person.
My favorite anecdote is an 18 year old Babe, fresh from the orphanage, on his first trip to New York City earnestly sitting on a street corner. When asked what he was doing, he replied "I heard the girls will come if I sit here."
Despite the largesse of his subject Creamer never gets lazy and reverts to rehashing legend. He keeps Ruth grounded and personable.
I was sad when the book ended, and considered starting it over just to spend more time with this amazing person.
February 16, 2019
Comprehensive biography, just about understand enough about baseball to follow, was disappointed because I did not feel he came to life enough - very descriptive of his life but lacked any real analysis
December 31, 2022
I ended 2021 (aka "The Year of 200 Books") with a baseball biography, and it would be fair to say that I'm doing the same in 2022, the year of "not quite 200 books" (as it stands I'm looking to end on 153). This year I wanted it to be more about quality than quantity, and I managed to get in quite a few great books and avoid some not-so-great ones that I abandoned only a few pages in. I wasn't sure how this one would turn out when I began it, because I've read other books about Babe Ruth before and knew the beats of his story pretty well. But I ended up loving the way that this one unfolded and, while I doubt I learned anything new about the Bambino, I enjoyed it a lot.
"Babe: The Legend Comes to Life" by Robert W. Creamer is one of the biographies of Ruth penned in the wake of Henry Aaron's pursuit of the all-time home-run record in the early Seventies, and it benefits from Creamer having been able to interview contemporaries of Ruth's who were still alive at the time. It follows the standard formula of birth to life to death, but it's interesting because of how Creamer divides the book into Babe's early life and career and his later ascension to the ranks of American immortals. You can't talk about the history of baseball without Babe Ruth, much like you can't talk about the history of modern music without The Beatles; even reactions to him that are negative are about him. I think that personally I considered him long to be something of an overbearing shadow on American sports history, not so much for the man himself but for what he represented through the eyes of other people. Anyone with an agenda to deny that Black and other minority players didn't "hustle" enough like ballplayers of old could point to Ruth's prodigious bat as a sign of how much more qualified he was to be home-run king (while ignoring his many activities away from the field that wouldn't cast him in the most morally upright light, however tame they are by today's standards of athlete behavior). Indeed, Ruth played at a time when the major leagues were segregated and minority players never got a chance to play. But for his time, Ruth was unavoidable as a persona on and off the base paths.
Creamer does a great job of sorting out the Babe's life on the diamond, and while his look at Ruth's personal life isn't always the most full-scale, it stands to reason that Creamer aimed to capture the Babe in his element as a sports figure. He does so by doing something that I feel rarely gets done in most Babe Ruth biographies: he gives almost equal amounts of space to talking about Ruth's years in Boston as a member of the pre-curse Red Sox. It's baseball lore that when Harry Frazee sold the Babe to the Yankees in 1920, he threw the Red Sox's chances to be contenders away for at least eighty-six years. That's hogwash, of course (the Red Sox were the last team to integrate, as it turns out, because of Tom Yawkey's racist views, thus further consigning them to futility), but I don't know that I've ever seen Babe's Boston years, where he served as a great pitcher as well as a great hitter, given such attention before. Creamer also pays attention to Ruth's years in reform school and how that forced isolation from his family could help explain his positively boorish and childish behavior once he became "Babe Ruth, World Champion."
I don't know how I fell into reading books about Babe Ruth at this stage in my life; I've read Jane Leavy's great "The Big Fella" and Leigh Montville's Ruth biography as well (though I'll be damned if I can remember it; I might revisit it sometime this upcoming year). "Babe: The Legend Comes to Life" is a great look at a familiar figure who seems more well-known than he really is, and less complicated than he really was. Babe Ruth is still the gold standard by which a lot of people are measured, not just in sports. And this book is a fitting look at why he continues to endure well over a century since he first put on the pin stripes and birthed the Yankee dynasty.
"Babe: The Legend Comes to Life" by Robert W. Creamer is one of the biographies of Ruth penned in the wake of Henry Aaron's pursuit of the all-time home-run record in the early Seventies, and it benefits from Creamer having been able to interview contemporaries of Ruth's who were still alive at the time. It follows the standard formula of birth to life to death, but it's interesting because of how Creamer divides the book into Babe's early life and career and his later ascension to the ranks of American immortals. You can't talk about the history of baseball without Babe Ruth, much like you can't talk about the history of modern music without The Beatles; even reactions to him that are negative are about him. I think that personally I considered him long to be something of an overbearing shadow on American sports history, not so much for the man himself but for what he represented through the eyes of other people. Anyone with an agenda to deny that Black and other minority players didn't "hustle" enough like ballplayers of old could point to Ruth's prodigious bat as a sign of how much more qualified he was to be home-run king (while ignoring his many activities away from the field that wouldn't cast him in the most morally upright light, however tame they are by today's standards of athlete behavior). Indeed, Ruth played at a time when the major leagues were segregated and minority players never got a chance to play. But for his time, Ruth was unavoidable as a persona on and off the base paths.
Creamer does a great job of sorting out the Babe's life on the diamond, and while his look at Ruth's personal life isn't always the most full-scale, it stands to reason that Creamer aimed to capture the Babe in his element as a sports figure. He does so by doing something that I feel rarely gets done in most Babe Ruth biographies: he gives almost equal amounts of space to talking about Ruth's years in Boston as a member of the pre-curse Red Sox. It's baseball lore that when Harry Frazee sold the Babe to the Yankees in 1920, he threw the Red Sox's chances to be contenders away for at least eighty-six years. That's hogwash, of course (the Red Sox were the last team to integrate, as it turns out, because of Tom Yawkey's racist views, thus further consigning them to futility), but I don't know that I've ever seen Babe's Boston years, where he served as a great pitcher as well as a great hitter, given such attention before. Creamer also pays attention to Ruth's years in reform school and how that forced isolation from his family could help explain his positively boorish and childish behavior once he became "Babe Ruth, World Champion."
I don't know how I fell into reading books about Babe Ruth at this stage in my life; I've read Jane Leavy's great "The Big Fella" and Leigh Montville's Ruth biography as well (though I'll be damned if I can remember it; I might revisit it sometime this upcoming year). "Babe: The Legend Comes to Life" is a great look at a familiar figure who seems more well-known than he really is, and less complicated than he really was. Babe Ruth is still the gold standard by which a lot of people are measured, not just in sports. And this book is a fitting look at why he continues to endure well over a century since he first put on the pin stripes and birthed the Yankee dynasty.
September 7, 2021
Birthday Book #88 from my Uncle Doug. I really enjoyed this one. Yes, it was published 45 years ago, but as that was well after Ruth's death it was complete as far as he was concerned. I did frequently look up records he set and other baseball "firsts" to see if (usually when) they had been surpassed and was delightfully surprised to find Ruth still #3 on the career home runs list. #3! One hundred years after he played ball! And he still has two places on the Top 10 list of seasonal home runs as well. Home runs is about all I really knew about Ruth, so I really enjoyed reading about his childhood, his full career, his health difficulties, his personal life, his wild personality and so forth. This was a very good read.
May 22, 2023
Solid 4 stars. Ruth is one of the few Yankees I'll ever love.
January 26, 2019
Reading books about the MLB legends is a great way to pass your time. A book about America's favorite past-time. The play by play documentation from the various games makes it feel like you are there.
The deep dive into Babe's life and character outside of the diamond is also very telling and interesting.
As I listened to these pages unfold, I could not help but think how detailed the books of todays greats will be, with all of the social media and technology we now have. The way public lives are on constant display will make for some good reading to my grandkids.
This book also makes me believe more in the curse put on the Red Sox for selling Babe to the Yankees. No No Nannette must have been quite the play to make such a trade. When I visited Yankee Stadium in 2008, the curse accusations was still alive and well. Lots of paraphernalia suggesting the curse was even growing!
When I visited Fenway in 2013, granted the Sox had won a couple of World Series at that point, the curse was hardly mentioned or referred to.
Curse or no curse, this book on one of baseball's greatest is a must read (or listen-whatever your flavor may be.) Especially while we all wait for the next season of MLB to get going.
The deep dive into Babe's life and character outside of the diamond is also very telling and interesting.
As I listened to these pages unfold, I could not help but think how detailed the books of todays greats will be, with all of the social media and technology we now have. The way public lives are on constant display will make for some good reading to my grandkids.
This book also makes me believe more in the curse put on the Red Sox for selling Babe to the Yankees. No No Nannette must have been quite the play to make such a trade. When I visited Yankee Stadium in 2008, the curse accusations was still alive and well. Lots of paraphernalia suggesting the curse was even growing!
When I visited Fenway in 2013, granted the Sox had won a couple of World Series at that point, the curse was hardly mentioned or referred to.
Curse or no curse, this book on one of baseball's greatest is a must read (or listen-whatever your flavor may be.) Especially while we all wait for the next season of MLB to get going.
November 10, 2023
This is what a baseball biography should aspire to be. It's fun, factual, tells famous stories, corrects famous inaccurate stories, and puts it all in the context of the player being written about. I have no idea if subsequent research has uncovered weaknesses in this book -- it is 50 years old -- but it's highly entertaining and seems to be as accurate as things could be about a legend.
If you're a baseball fan, you've heard of Babe Ruth. If you're an American of almost any age, you've probably heard of Babe Ruth. Perhaps not a 20-year-old today, given that Ruth died in 1948 and his baseball exploits were in the '20s and '30s. That might as well be Thomas Jefferson, in terms of how a kid or young adult today thinks. But I think the name is still magical, and this book does a wonderful job of explaining where that magic came from. The story is out of a novel. A kid is born in Baltimore in the late 1800s. His mom is sickly, his dad runs a bar. They don't have much time for him, and he gets in a lot of trouble, surprisingly dangerous stuff for a kid under age 10. His mom dies, and his dad sends him to a Catholic reform school, where he lives through age 18 (with a couple months of release to his family). It's a grim situation by our standards, though not as grim as Charles Dickens being put to work as an 8-yaer-old to work off his father's debts. Ruth grows up to be big and full of lean muscle, and by age 18 he's the best ballplayer anyone has seen. Within a year, he goes from playing against high schoolers to playing in the minor leagues against adults to playing for the Boston Red Sox, who get to the World Series (he doesn't play in it). A year later, he's one of the most popular players in the game and earning three times what his dad's bar has ever cleared in a year. He's 19 years old.
Oh, by the way, he did all that as a pitcher. A dominating lefthander with a temper. But when he bats, everyone notices that he hits the ball further than anyone ever has. His homers become legendary as they literally fly outside the park and land in cornfields, back yards, etc. And so after a few years as a dominant pitcher, he becomes the greatest hitter the game has ever seen. And the biggest celebrity in America, with teletypes and newspapers recounting his every at-bat or utterance. And this goes on for 15 more years.
The book describes this meteoric rise and explains how he changed the game from pitcher-centric battles of singles and bunts and stolen bases, to a slugging matches of homers. The game we have today isn't very different than the game created by Babe Ruth in the early 1920s. Ruth was at the center of great teams almost every year, and he repeatedly produced when it mattered most -- homers in the World Series, etc. And yet, at the same time he was a drama queen, constantly getting injured and limping off one afternoon and then coming back the next day covered in bandages and hitting two doubles.
He was also astonishingly immature and thoughtless, and the author doesn't let him get away with it too much. I'm sure that a book written today would make a bigger deal out of his hundreds (?) of women partners, his casual racism, and so on. In this book, the author says Ruth was a man of his time and nowhere near the worst. Who knows if that's true? But some of the anecdotes are timeless and worth retelling for their humor and insight, such as Ruth saying goodbye to Waite Hoyt, a teammate for 11 years, and calling him "Walter." Or meet Marshall Foch, supreme allied commander of World War I, and saying to him, "So I guess you were in the war." Priceless.
Ruth needed the attention, and the biographer says that it's unfair to do armchair psychology, but reasonably points out the excesses in his life that seem to stem from the sad, difficult childhood. His appetite for food was unmatched, and his apparent sexual appetite and stamina were remarkable as well --- fulfilling needs, so to speak. His two marriages and many affairs were tabloid fodder, and this book takes them off those pages and explains them. The first was to a 17-year-old waitress he met when he was 19. Apparently, she had several miscarriages, which upset her greatly, as did his endless philandering. Eventually, she left him, and he took up with a 29-year-old heiress widow, who had married a rich man as a teenager. But as a Catholic, he didn't divorce. Three years after his wife left him, she died in a fire, and it turned out she had been living with a man under an assumed name and a pretense of being married. So Babe was able to marry his second love, at which point his daughter from his first wife -- who everyone assumes was adopted -- joined the family. Babe's second wife adopted that girl, which was only fair because Babe adopted his wife's daughter from her first marriage too. And they lived happily ever after. Really.
Our sports and entertainment worlds are full of hype these days, and this book reminds us that it's been that way for more than a century. Is it healthy for us to follow celebrities in this way? Definitely not. It's sad that we know more about Babe Ruth or Kim Kardashian than we do our next-door neighbor. But that's how we're wired as a culture. At least when it comes to Babe Ruth, he really did earn his fame, and he really did do a lot of the good and great and funny things that were attributed to him.
If you're a baseball fan, you've heard of Babe Ruth. If you're an American of almost any age, you've probably heard of Babe Ruth. Perhaps not a 20-year-old today, given that Ruth died in 1948 and his baseball exploits were in the '20s and '30s. That might as well be Thomas Jefferson, in terms of how a kid or young adult today thinks. But I think the name is still magical, and this book does a wonderful job of explaining where that magic came from. The story is out of a novel. A kid is born in Baltimore in the late 1800s. His mom is sickly, his dad runs a bar. They don't have much time for him, and he gets in a lot of trouble, surprisingly dangerous stuff for a kid under age 10. His mom dies, and his dad sends him to a Catholic reform school, where he lives through age 18 (with a couple months of release to his family). It's a grim situation by our standards, though not as grim as Charles Dickens being put to work as an 8-yaer-old to work off his father's debts. Ruth grows up to be big and full of lean muscle, and by age 18 he's the best ballplayer anyone has seen. Within a year, he goes from playing against high schoolers to playing in the minor leagues against adults to playing for the Boston Red Sox, who get to the World Series (he doesn't play in it). A year later, he's one of the most popular players in the game and earning three times what his dad's bar has ever cleared in a year. He's 19 years old.
Oh, by the way, he did all that as a pitcher. A dominating lefthander with a temper. But when he bats, everyone notices that he hits the ball further than anyone ever has. His homers become legendary as they literally fly outside the park and land in cornfields, back yards, etc. And so after a few years as a dominant pitcher, he becomes the greatest hitter the game has ever seen. And the biggest celebrity in America, with teletypes and newspapers recounting his every at-bat or utterance. And this goes on for 15 more years.
The book describes this meteoric rise and explains how he changed the game from pitcher-centric battles of singles and bunts and stolen bases, to a slugging matches of homers. The game we have today isn't very different than the game created by Babe Ruth in the early 1920s. Ruth was at the center of great teams almost every year, and he repeatedly produced when it mattered most -- homers in the World Series, etc. And yet, at the same time he was a drama queen, constantly getting injured and limping off one afternoon and then coming back the next day covered in bandages and hitting two doubles.
He was also astonishingly immature and thoughtless, and the author doesn't let him get away with it too much. I'm sure that a book written today would make a bigger deal out of his hundreds (?) of women partners, his casual racism, and so on. In this book, the author says Ruth was a man of his time and nowhere near the worst. Who knows if that's true? But some of the anecdotes are timeless and worth retelling for their humor and insight, such as Ruth saying goodbye to Waite Hoyt, a teammate for 11 years, and calling him "Walter." Or meet Marshall Foch, supreme allied commander of World War I, and saying to him, "So I guess you were in the war." Priceless.
Ruth needed the attention, and the biographer says that it's unfair to do armchair psychology, but reasonably points out the excesses in his life that seem to stem from the sad, difficult childhood. His appetite for food was unmatched, and his apparent sexual appetite and stamina were remarkable as well --- fulfilling needs, so to speak. His two marriages and many affairs were tabloid fodder, and this book takes them off those pages and explains them. The first was to a 17-year-old waitress he met when he was 19. Apparently, she had several miscarriages, which upset her greatly, as did his endless philandering. Eventually, she left him, and he took up with a 29-year-old heiress widow, who had married a rich man as a teenager. But as a Catholic, he didn't divorce. Three years after his wife left him, she died in a fire, and it turned out she had been living with a man under an assumed name and a pretense of being married. So Babe was able to marry his second love, at which point his daughter from his first wife -- who everyone assumes was adopted -- joined the family. Babe's second wife adopted that girl, which was only fair because Babe adopted his wife's daughter from her first marriage too. And they lived happily ever after. Really.
Our sports and entertainment worlds are full of hype these days, and this book reminds us that it's been that way for more than a century. Is it healthy for us to follow celebrities in this way? Definitely not. It's sad that we know more about Babe Ruth or Kim Kardashian than we do our next-door neighbor. But that's how we're wired as a culture. At least when it comes to Babe Ruth, he really did earn his fame, and he really did do a lot of the good and great and funny things that were attributed to him.
January 20, 2016
If you are a baseball fan? Or a Babe Ruth fan you will certainly enjoy this book. There is so much information that some is well know while others not so much. It gives you a great look at the great bambino. It states his greatest moments and his lowest moments.
March 4, 2015
Written for a true fan of baseball. Very interesting.
Read
August 2, 2015Interesting story of this baseball legend.
October 25, 2015
Superb biography without hagiography.
January 31, 2017
A good introduction to the life and personality of the great slugger. Readable, balanced without undue speculation or hagiography.
October 25, 2021
My grandfather was a huge fan of the Babe, and wrote a lengthy poem about him: "They call him The Babe, and he loves it/ For a kid at heart is he." This book has been sitting on my shelves for a while, and playoff time seemed like a good time to read it and to remember my grandfather.
Author Creamer was a sportswriter, and he crams colorful anecdotes about Babe Ruth gleaned from many interviews with his colleagues, with baseball old-timers, both legends and bench jockeys, and from old newspaper accounts.
The biography devotes ample time to Ruth's youth in a Baltimore home for wayward boys, his evolution from a dominant pitcher with the Boston Red Sox, unquestionably the best lefty in the American League, into a record-setting slugger with the New York Yankees, and his many scrapes with baseball management because of his (mostly) undisciplined lifestyle. In many seasons, Ruth missed weeks of action due to various illnesses and injuries -- who knows how many homers he would have hit had he taken care of himself. Ruth played baseball for nearly half his life and remained a feared hitter into his 40's. But colossal home runs were only a part of his legacy. Creamer notes his impeccable record as a World Series pitcher and his exalted .342 lifetime batting average. Creamer notes the records that Ruth still holds, including the longest home runs in many parks. He comments on the many stories embroidered the legend, e.g. the "called shot" that came late in his career. His ego often got the better of him, and he didn't blink in his demands for enormous salary increases as his fame grew. Babe Ruth was supremely popular with the fans of his teams, but also with folks in outlying towns when Ruth participated in exhibitions and barnstorming tours, when traveled internationally, and, indeed, the promise of his very presence in the lineup assured packed stadiums on the road, where fans of the opposing club anticipated another Ruthian blast.
Off the field antics include his carousing into the early morning hours, his massive capacity for food and alcohol, his sexual appetite, and his spendthrift, uhhh, generous nature.
I can't note a fraction of the details and anecdotes that Creamer packs into the biography. I enjoyed it immensely, and learned from it.
Author Creamer was a sportswriter, and he crams colorful anecdotes about Babe Ruth gleaned from many interviews with his colleagues, with baseball old-timers, both legends and bench jockeys, and from old newspaper accounts.
The biography devotes ample time to Ruth's youth in a Baltimore home for wayward boys, his evolution from a dominant pitcher with the Boston Red Sox, unquestionably the best lefty in the American League, into a record-setting slugger with the New York Yankees, and his many scrapes with baseball management because of his (mostly) undisciplined lifestyle. In many seasons, Ruth missed weeks of action due to various illnesses and injuries -- who knows how many homers he would have hit had he taken care of himself. Ruth played baseball for nearly half his life and remained a feared hitter into his 40's. But colossal home runs were only a part of his legacy. Creamer notes his impeccable record as a World Series pitcher and his exalted .342 lifetime batting average. Creamer notes the records that Ruth still holds, including the longest home runs in many parks. He comments on the many stories embroidered the legend, e.g. the "called shot" that came late in his career. His ego often got the better of him, and he didn't blink in his demands for enormous salary increases as his fame grew. Babe Ruth was supremely popular with the fans of his teams, but also with folks in outlying towns when Ruth participated in exhibitions and barnstorming tours, when traveled internationally, and, indeed, the promise of his very presence in the lineup assured packed stadiums on the road, where fans of the opposing club anticipated another Ruthian blast.
Off the field antics include his carousing into the early morning hours, his massive capacity for food and alcohol, his sexual appetite, and his spendthrift, uhhh, generous nature.
I can't note a fraction of the details and anecdotes that Creamer packs into the biography. I enjoyed it immensely, and learned from it.
February 13, 2019
This is a classic biography of the great bambino. It is a touching but honest account of the man-his faults and his triumphs. The man who needed to be loved by everyone, but who may never have truly loved another is traced from his de facto abandonment by his parents. Babe's zest for life and hedonistic ways seem to have had their genesis in the discipline and confinement of his years at St. Mary's Home in Baltimore. Once free from that atmosphere, Ruth displayed an ugly resentment to authority figures throughout his life. He fought with owners, GM's, managers and anyone who tried to curb his quest for food, booze, and sex. He even fought with teammates.To be frank, I found the stories of his excesses and boorish behavior to be disturbing. He was indeed a man child for much of his life until his marriage to his second wife Claire.
Many of the stories and incidents have been retold since 1975, the date of this publication, but there is still a lot to learn. I learned the true reason or reasons for the falling out between Babe and Gehrig.I found the story behind Helen Ruth's death to be fascinating. The last chapters, when Babe's career was over and he was manipulated or merely shooed away by owners who had made a fortune from him were very sad. His dream to manage the Yankees or any other team never materialized. Even a former teammate Bob Shawkey said Ruth couldn't manage himself, how could he manage an entire baseball team. He may have had the chance but he mistakenly believed that Colonel Rupert would eventually give him that chance. The book covers all the ground-from the pitching star of Boston to the greatest hitter of all time in the hey day of Murderers Row. You will marvel at the baseball feats of a man who actually got better from age 32 through 36. He didn't do it with steroids. He did it with hot dogs and bicarbonate soda. You may, like me, come away a bit sad when you learn about the man behind the legend, but you will also relish his accomplishments and the effect he had on the game of baseball that he loved so well.
Many of the stories and incidents have been retold since 1975, the date of this publication, but there is still a lot to learn. I learned the true reason or reasons for the falling out between Babe and Gehrig.I found the story behind Helen Ruth's death to be fascinating. The last chapters, when Babe's career was over and he was manipulated or merely shooed away by owners who had made a fortune from him were very sad. His dream to manage the Yankees or any other team never materialized. Even a former teammate Bob Shawkey said Ruth couldn't manage himself, how could he manage an entire baseball team. He may have had the chance but he mistakenly believed that Colonel Rupert would eventually give him that chance. The book covers all the ground-from the pitching star of Boston to the greatest hitter of all time in the hey day of Murderers Row. You will marvel at the baseball feats of a man who actually got better from age 32 through 36. He didn't do it with steroids. He did it with hot dogs and bicarbonate soda. You may, like me, come away a bit sad when you learn about the man behind the legend, but you will also relish his accomplishments and the effect he had on the game of baseball that he loved so well.
October 18, 2022
4.5 Stars. If you're a Babe Ruth fan or a lover of baseball, this is a great place to start your learning of the Babe. There are so many books about Babe Ruth but this one is pretty accurate and focuses on Babe as a baseball player. The author doesn't spend much time about Babe's tough childhood. Plenty of books cover that (see the "Wopper" series by F. Amoroso). We all know about Babe's wild habits, drinking, womanizing, etc., but here you'll see more of Babe's issues as a ballplayer and his relationships with fellow players and management. I have to say, the owners and managers did not like Babe and treated him quite poorly. Was it deserving? I don't know.
It's a shame that Babe never got the opportunity to manage as he wished. He was an amazing ballplayer, pitcher, home run hitter, first baseman, etc. He was married twice, and had two girls, possibly one biological. That came out much later. This book was published in 1974 so this was not covered. Nobody's perfect and Babe is no exception, but his legacy lives on for a reason. He was a superior baseball player and smacked it out of the park far beyond many others of the day.
We follow Ruth through his highs and lows. He made a ton of money and lived well. But, he had tons of injuries, was in and out of the hospital numerous times and had terminal cancer in the end. It was a sad side of the Babe, but extremely informative.
It's a shame that Babe never got the opportunity to manage as he wished. He was an amazing ballplayer, pitcher, home run hitter, first baseman, etc. He was married twice, and had two girls, possibly one biological. That came out much later. This book was published in 1974 so this was not covered. Nobody's perfect and Babe is no exception, but his legacy lives on for a reason. He was a superior baseball player and smacked it out of the park far beyond many others of the day.
We follow Ruth through his highs and lows. He made a ton of money and lived well. But, he had tons of injuries, was in and out of the hospital numerous times and had terminal cancer in the end. It was a sad side of the Babe, but extremely informative.
November 5, 2023
In “Babe: The Legend Comes to Life,” Robert Creamer takes us along for the wild, thrilling, over-the-top, sometimes disappointing and in the end, historic ride that was Babe Ruth’s life. He addresses myths and legends — like Babe’s famous called shot in the 1932 World Series — head-on and dispels inaccuracies with polish. He dives deep into Babe’s childhood, his coming-of-age in Boston and then New York and his myriad exploits (drinking, eating, gambling, women) out on towns all over the U.S.
Creamer doesn’t shy from Babe’s downfalls. He was a hothead, stubborn and was not a good husband to his first wife, Helen, who died young. His aloofness eliminated him from contention to be the Yankees’ manager in the 1930s and 40s, and he had spats with teammates like Lou Gehrig.
But Ruth was a great man. He cared for children and always dedicated time and energy to them in the interest of paying it forward. He was the greatest baseball player to ever live. Creamer masterfully explains Ruth’s successes in modern terms, arguing that the Great Bambino’s greatness was unprecedented — most of all because Ruth didn’t just elevate the game but completely revolutionized baseball as we know it.
This is a masterful, complete and thoroughly entertaining biography, and a must-read for baseball nerds.
Creamer doesn’t shy from Babe’s downfalls. He was a hothead, stubborn and was not a good husband to his first wife, Helen, who died young. His aloofness eliminated him from contention to be the Yankees’ manager in the 1930s and 40s, and he had spats with teammates like Lou Gehrig.
But Ruth was a great man. He cared for children and always dedicated time and energy to them in the interest of paying it forward. He was the greatest baseball player to ever live. Creamer masterfully explains Ruth’s successes in modern terms, arguing that the Great Bambino’s greatness was unprecedented — most of all because Ruth didn’t just elevate the game but completely revolutionized baseball as we know it.
This is a masterful, complete and thoroughly entertaining biography, and a must-read for baseball nerds.
January 24, 2024
Creamer clearly loves baseball and there's A LOT of it in this book. He even mentions at the beginning that he expects the more casual fan to skip much of it. I admit that once Babe became a Yankee outfielder and hit home run after home run (after home run), I did find it all a little monotonous. Many of those tales are oft told. BUT the parts about The Babe in Boston and his early years as a Yankee pitcher were fascinating. I knew he'd been a good hitting pitcher. I didn't truly understand how good until now. Shohei Ohtani wasn't born until after this book was published, but it made me hope he recovers fully and becomes a pitcher again. I want to see that level of play live and in my ballpark (Wrigley Field, where The Babe made history with his called shot).
It's heartbreaking how fast Babe goes from superstar to has been. I don't think I ever quite got that, either. He never stopped being famous, but he quickly became irrelevant to major league baseball, and was dead by 53. The book ends abruptly with his death, which only increased the impact.
This is my second Babe Ruth biography -- the first being Jane Leavy's "The Big Fella" -- and now I think I have a full picture of the man. That's how big he was as a ballplayer and an American icon: one book just can't do him justice.
It's heartbreaking how fast Babe goes from superstar to has been. I don't think I ever quite got that, either. He never stopped being famous, but he quickly became irrelevant to major league baseball, and was dead by 53. The book ends abruptly with his death, which only increased the impact.
This is my second Babe Ruth biography -- the first being Jane Leavy's "The Big Fella" -- and now I think I have a full picture of the man. That's how big he was as a ballplayer and an American icon: one book just can't do him justice.
August 7, 2008
Long before Barry Bonds was the home run king, there was the Babe. Arguably no other figure in American sports history is wrapped in more mystery and reverence as George Herman “Babe” Ruth. Robert Creamer is well aware of this and in his masterful biography BABE: THE LEGEND COMES TO LIFE, he strips away the legends and reveals the man.
This wonderfully rich and detailed book was first published in 1974 and routinely makes the “best of” lists whenever sports books are mentioned. But it wasn’t until recently that I read Creamer’s work. Sure I had heard of him. Creamer is a well known sportswriter having been with Sports Illustrated since it’s inception in 1954 and the author of three baseball histories.
I approached this book with guarded interest. Babe Ruth’s life and legends are some of the most recorded and cherished of any 20th century figure. And having been a Yankee fan in my youth, I had already read quite a bit about the Bambino. As you can clearly see, I was sucked in and quite taken with this book.
Creamer uses previous biographies and newspaper accounts interspersed with reminiscences by those who played, befriended, and wrote about Ruth. BABE strips the man bare and removes most of the sentimentality to reveal a powerful but often tragic sports figure. Most of the Ruthian legends are explored here. From his days in the Catholic reformatory to pitching with the Red Sox and most notably his time with the New York Yankees. But more than discussing the famed exploits of this often larger than life personage, Creamer uses anecdotes to explore other aspects of his life.
*************************
[Ruth is talking to a reporter during batting practice before a Yankees-Browns game in
1930. Yankee shortstop Tony Lazzeri is nearby. The reporter is asking Ruth a question.]
“What is the psychology of home runs?”
“Say, are you kidding me?”
“No, of course not. I just want an explanation of why you get so many home runs.”
Ruth spat again. “Just swinging,” he said.
“Have you ever had an idol, someone you thought more of than anyone else?”
“Sure he has,” Lazzeri said. “Babe Ruth.”
“Go to hell,” Ruth said, and to the reporter, “Excuse me, it’s my turn to hit.”
*************************
BABE is full of similar scenes. There were exploits and stories that made me chuckle making this sports god very real. Creamer really shines when he is exploring some legendary Ruthian exploit and none more so than the “called shot home run”.
In the fifth inning of the third game of 1932 World Series with the Chicago Cubs, Babe Ruth hit a monstrous home run into the center field bleachers of Wrigley Field. This is a fact but legend bleeds all around it. With the count two balls and two strikes, Ruth, who had been taunted unmercifully by both the Cubs fans and players, pointed two fingers toward the center field bleachers. Babe deposited the very next pitch into the bleachers and another story was added to the Ruthian mythos. Or so the legend goes. Creamer spends an entire chapter exploring one of the cornerstones of the Ruth legend. And it is fascinating.
*************************
Here are what some witnesses said about it.
Charlie Root [Cubs pitcher who threw the fateful pitch]: “Ruth did not point at the fence before he swung. If he had made a gesture like that, well, anybody who knows me knows that Ruth would have ended up on his ass. The legend didn’t get started until later. I fed him a changeup curve. It wasn’t a foot off the ground and it was three or four inches outside, certainly not a good pitch to hit. But that was the one he smacked. He told me the next day that if I’d thrown him a fastball he would have struck out. ‘I was guessing with you,’ he said”
Gabby Hartett, the Chicago catcher: “Babe came up in the fifth and took two called strikes. After each one the Cub bench gave him the business, stuff like he was choking and he was washed up. Babe waved his hand across the plate toward our bench on the third base side. One finger was up. At the same time he said softly, and I think only the umpire and I heard him, ‘It only takes one to hit it.’ Root came in with a fast one and it went into the center field seats . Babe didn’t say a word when he passed me after the home run. If he had pointed out at the bleachers, I’d be the first to say so.”
Doc Painter, the Yankee trainer: “Before taking his stance he swept his left arm full length and pointed to the center field fence. When he got back to the bench, Herb Pennock said, ‘Suppose you missed? You would have looked like an awful bum.’ Ruth was taking a drink from the water cooler, and he lifted his head and laughed. ‘I never thought of that,’ he said.”
THE SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER, October 2, 1932: “He called his shot theatrically, with derisive gestures towards the Cubs’ dugouts.”
*************************
Creamer explores all aspects of the events and other fascinating bits of this baseball legend’s life. My only complaints with this wonderfully written biography is the briefness in which the author explores the Ruth-Gehrig relationship and the seemingly disinterested, rushed manner he dealt with Ruth’s life post-baseball. Course his life may have not been that interesting once his career end but I doubt it. From the brief glimpses Creamer affords us there seems to be plenty of story to tell. This is a small problem and does not detract too much from this book, which may very well be the greatest baseball book ever written. Give it a try. And did Ruth actually call his shot back in ‘32? I’ll leave you with the way Creamer ends his marvelous chapter about that extraordinary happening.
*************************
Ford Frick, who was not at the game, tried to pin Ruth down on the subject when the two were talking about the Series some time later.
“Did you really point to the bleachers?” Frick asked.
Ruth, always honest, shrugged. “It’s in the papers, isn’t it?” he said.
“Yeah,” Frick said. “It’s in the papers. But did you really point to the stands?”
“Why don’t you read the papers? It’s all right there in the papers.”
Which, Frick said, means he never said he did and he never said he didn’t.
*************************
This wonderfully rich and detailed book was first published in 1974 and routinely makes the “best of” lists whenever sports books are mentioned. But it wasn’t until recently that I read Creamer’s work. Sure I had heard of him. Creamer is a well known sportswriter having been with Sports Illustrated since it’s inception in 1954 and the author of three baseball histories.
I approached this book with guarded interest. Babe Ruth’s life and legends are some of the most recorded and cherished of any 20th century figure. And having been a Yankee fan in my youth, I had already read quite a bit about the Bambino. As you can clearly see, I was sucked in and quite taken with this book.
Creamer uses previous biographies and newspaper accounts interspersed with reminiscences by those who played, befriended, and wrote about Ruth. BABE strips the man bare and removes most of the sentimentality to reveal a powerful but often tragic sports figure. Most of the Ruthian legends are explored here. From his days in the Catholic reformatory to pitching with the Red Sox and most notably his time with the New York Yankees. But more than discussing the famed exploits of this often larger than life personage, Creamer uses anecdotes to explore other aspects of his life.
*************************
[Ruth is talking to a reporter during batting practice before a Yankees-Browns game in
1930. Yankee shortstop Tony Lazzeri is nearby. The reporter is asking Ruth a question.]
“What is the psychology of home runs?”
“Say, are you kidding me?”
“No, of course not. I just want an explanation of why you get so many home runs.”
Ruth spat again. “Just swinging,” he said.
“Have you ever had an idol, someone you thought more of than anyone else?”
“Sure he has,” Lazzeri said. “Babe Ruth.”
“Go to hell,” Ruth said, and to the reporter, “Excuse me, it’s my turn to hit.”
*************************
BABE is full of similar scenes. There were exploits and stories that made me chuckle making this sports god very real. Creamer really shines when he is exploring some legendary Ruthian exploit and none more so than the “called shot home run”.
In the fifth inning of the third game of 1932 World Series with the Chicago Cubs, Babe Ruth hit a monstrous home run into the center field bleachers of Wrigley Field. This is a fact but legend bleeds all around it. With the count two balls and two strikes, Ruth, who had been taunted unmercifully by both the Cubs fans and players, pointed two fingers toward the center field bleachers. Babe deposited the very next pitch into the bleachers and another story was added to the Ruthian mythos. Or so the legend goes. Creamer spends an entire chapter exploring one of the cornerstones of the Ruth legend. And it is fascinating.
*************************
Here are what some witnesses said about it.
Charlie Root [Cubs pitcher who threw the fateful pitch]: “Ruth did not point at the fence before he swung. If he had made a gesture like that, well, anybody who knows me knows that Ruth would have ended up on his ass. The legend didn’t get started until later. I fed him a changeup curve. It wasn’t a foot off the ground and it was three or four inches outside, certainly not a good pitch to hit. But that was the one he smacked. He told me the next day that if I’d thrown him a fastball he would have struck out. ‘I was guessing with you,’ he said”
Gabby Hartett, the Chicago catcher: “Babe came up in the fifth and took two called strikes. After each one the Cub bench gave him the business, stuff like he was choking and he was washed up. Babe waved his hand across the plate toward our bench on the third base side. One finger was up. At the same time he said softly, and I think only the umpire and I heard him, ‘It only takes one to hit it.’ Root came in with a fast one and it went into the center field seats . Babe didn’t say a word when he passed me after the home run. If he had pointed out at the bleachers, I’d be the first to say so.”
Doc Painter, the Yankee trainer: “Before taking his stance he swept his left arm full length and pointed to the center field fence. When he got back to the bench, Herb Pennock said, ‘Suppose you missed? You would have looked like an awful bum.’ Ruth was taking a drink from the water cooler, and he lifted his head and laughed. ‘I never thought of that,’ he said.”
THE SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER, October 2, 1932: “He called his shot theatrically, with derisive gestures towards the Cubs’ dugouts.”
*************************
Creamer explores all aspects of the events and other fascinating bits of this baseball legend’s life. My only complaints with this wonderfully written biography is the briefness in which the author explores the Ruth-Gehrig relationship and the seemingly disinterested, rushed manner he dealt with Ruth’s life post-baseball. Course his life may have not been that interesting once his career end but I doubt it. From the brief glimpses Creamer affords us there seems to be plenty of story to tell. This is a small problem and does not detract too much from this book, which may very well be the greatest baseball book ever written. Give it a try. And did Ruth actually call his shot back in ‘32? I’ll leave you with the way Creamer ends his marvelous chapter about that extraordinary happening.
*************************
Ford Frick, who was not at the game, tried to pin Ruth down on the subject when the two were talking about the Series some time later.
“Did you really point to the bleachers?” Frick asked.
Ruth, always honest, shrugged. “It’s in the papers, isn’t it?” he said.
“Yeah,” Frick said. “It’s in the papers. But did you really point to the stands?”
“Why don’t you read the papers? It’s all right there in the papers.”
Which, Frick said, means he never said he did and he never said he didn’t.
*************************
July 8, 2023
I am a big baseball fan and I also love history. Creamer's 1974 biography of probably the greatest baseball player of all time is a great read. I learned a lot about Babe Ruth. I had heard many of the stories before but this set out all them in chronological order, telling both the good and bad of the Bambino.
I knew the Babe started out as a pitcher with the Boston Red Sox but I didn't realize how good he was as a pitcher until I read this book. I also didn't realize that he was the one who wanted to stop pitching and just become an outfielder concentrating on hitting. I also didn't realize that he did pitch a few more times over the years.
You also get a look at the personal side of Babe Ruth. I didn't know he was married twice and that his first wife, Helen, had died in a fire. The Babe liked everything to the max. Booze, food, and women. Many stories are told by Creamer about the Babe gorging on all the vices he could. You will also hear about how the Babe was bad with names-not knowing the first name of teammates who he had played with for years.
A well-written biography of one of the greats in baseball. Much is made nowadays about Shohei Ohtani being a great pitcher and a great hitter. The Babe was truly the first and the greatest.
I knew the Babe started out as a pitcher with the Boston Red Sox but I didn't realize how good he was as a pitcher until I read this book. I also didn't realize that he was the one who wanted to stop pitching and just become an outfielder concentrating on hitting. I also didn't realize that he did pitch a few more times over the years.
You also get a look at the personal side of Babe Ruth. I didn't know he was married twice and that his first wife, Helen, had died in a fire. The Babe liked everything to the max. Booze, food, and women. Many stories are told by Creamer about the Babe gorging on all the vices he could. You will also hear about how the Babe was bad with names-not knowing the first name of teammates who he had played with for years.
A well-written biography of one of the greats in baseball. Much is made nowadays about Shohei Ohtani being a great pitcher and a great hitter. The Babe was truly the first and the greatest.
July 26, 2019
4.5*
The entire time I read this book I felt like I was in the early 1900s-1920s. This book did such a fantastic job of putting me in that time without having to try too hard, just by telling the story of the Babe.
This really was a great read and extremely engaging and compelling for a 450 page biography. You get the grasp for how incredible his stats were without the author ever lifting stats or giving dry boring numbers which can so often bring books like this down.
I left with feeling what kind of kid Babe was, what kind of athlete Babe was, what kind of husband Babe was and what kind of person Babe was. Creamer did a great job of bringing all that to life while giving us a peak behind the scenes into Major League baseball at the time. I feel like I really got a grasp for what baseball was like back then beyond just Babe Ruth.
The end of the book was the only part that dragged a bit, but perhaps that's the perfect ending because it seemed Babe dragged a bit, lost without a purpose in life once baseball ended and then just seemed to fizzle out anti-climactically.
The entire time I read this book I felt like I was in the early 1900s-1920s. This book did such a fantastic job of putting me in that time without having to try too hard, just by telling the story of the Babe.
This really was a great read and extremely engaging and compelling for a 450 page biography. You get the grasp for how incredible his stats were without the author ever lifting stats or giving dry boring numbers which can so often bring books like this down.
I left with feeling what kind of kid Babe was, what kind of athlete Babe was, what kind of husband Babe was and what kind of person Babe was. Creamer did a great job of bringing all that to life while giving us a peak behind the scenes into Major League baseball at the time. I feel like I really got a grasp for what baseball was like back then beyond just Babe Ruth.
The end of the book was the only part that dragged a bit, but perhaps that's the perfect ending because it seemed Babe dragged a bit, lost without a purpose in life once baseball ended and then just seemed to fizzle out anti-climactically.
January 17, 2019
High ratings for this one because it's charming. If some of the anecdotes seem pat, Creamer is aware of that, and he is writing on a subject who actually is legendary, in a folklore sense (we throw that term around too much. Michael Jordan was awesome but is he legendary if footage exists of his legendary acts?).
As much as I liked the book, I don't think the Babe's life has been explored as thoroughly and entertaining as it could have been. From a baseball sense much is glossed over (Creamer does state that Ruth played during a time when baseball underwent a transformation, then devotes about four paragraphs to it), and there are several very interesting characters whose lives intersected with the Babe (Jack Dunn, Lou Gehrig, Miller Huggins, Kenesaw Landis), with Ruth's glory years taking place against the backdrop of Jazz Age Manhattan. The Bambino's life has enough to sustain a Caro-esque biography for at least one volume.
As much as I liked the book, I don't think the Babe's life has been explored as thoroughly and entertaining as it could have been. From a baseball sense much is glossed over (Creamer does state that Ruth played during a time when baseball underwent a transformation, then devotes about four paragraphs to it), and there are several very interesting characters whose lives intersected with the Babe (Jack Dunn, Lou Gehrig, Miller Huggins, Kenesaw Landis), with Ruth's glory years taking place against the backdrop of Jazz Age Manhattan. The Bambino's life has enough to sustain a Caro-esque biography for at least one volume.
August 12, 2023
If you know me, I'm sure you're surprised I read this book, and I'll admit it was a bit of a mistake. I bought this because when we toured Wrigley Field the tour guide mentioned this as a good biography of Babe and how interesting he was as a person. It's true, his life was pretty unusual - a bad childhood, a weird personality, an amazing talent - but I'm not into baseball at all, so a lot of the details of games and stats were just eye-glazing for me. Still, I did find the details of his life and personality interesting as long as we weren't talking about baseball. I guess you could say I enjoyed about 1/3 to 1/2 of the book for that reason. It wasn't terrible, and if you're a baseball fan you'd probably love it.
June 28, 2017
I found this quite an excellent biography of someone who has become, to me, a caricature through the process of Hollywood storytelling based on his life. Thinking of “The Babe” and The Whammer in “The Natural”, Babe Ruth always struck me as an over-the-top, larger than life, uninhibited, womanizing lout. Ends up that’s one side of the story, but there are plenty more. “Babe” really tells the story from all sides, and eliminates my sense of Babe as just a impulsive ass that happened to be a great baseball player. Creamer has performed a public service in making the Babe a multi-dimensional person.
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