‘The Big Fella’ is not just another bio of Babe Ruth

Is there anything new to learn about Babe Ruth? Countless books have been written about him, probably more than the number of home runs he sent soaring above American League fences.

For almost a century, Ruth has been the subject of endless fascination, as well as intense speculation (what if the Red Sox hadn’t sold him to the Yankees? What if he’d remained a pitcher instead of a slugger? What if he’d ingested less beer and fewer hot dogs before each game?)

He was, quite simply, a colossus — not only of baseball, but of America between the World Wars. A reporter covering Ruth for The New York Times wrote: “The Babe does not have to step out of character to be what he is: an appealing, swashbuckling, roistering, boisterous figure who is as natural a showman as P. T. Barnum.”

The casual sports fan of today, therefore, may be forgiven for confusing Ruth’s staggering achievements on the diamond with the mythology associated with his name.

Jane Leavy’s new biography “The Big Fella: Babe Ruth and the World He Created” (Harper, 656 pages) will certainly interest the casual sports fan, especially those with an interest in the early years of professional baseball. But Babe Ruth was the rare athlete whose charisma, and larger-than-life persona, transcended sports.

An award-winning baseball writer, Leavy has written books about Hall of Famers Sandy Koufax and Mickey Mantle. “The Big Fella,” however, is not only about baseball, but a richly detailed social history of America in the Roaring Twenties.

Leavy describes a prosperous, rapidly evolving nation in thrall to the power of celebrity. Babe Ruth was its instantly recognizable ambassador, the “model citizen in the Country of More, the perfect spokesman not just for material things but for the entire era. He imbibed whatever life had to offer. He indulged in excess, guzzling it down with a chaser of more.”

Whenever Ruth was asked to analyze his mechanics with the bat, he would often reply, “I swing big with everything I’ve got. I hit big or I miss big.”

He hit more than he missed. Ruth’s record-smashing stats were a quantum leap above his contemporaries. Multiple examples could be given, but for the sake of brevity: In 1921, the Major League “team average” for home runs was 59 — the same number Ruth hit that season all by himself.

Leavy has organized her book in an unconventional manner that settles into a comfortable groove. Each chapter opens in a different town, as Ruth and fellow slugger Lou Gehrig (“Bustin’ Babe and Larroupin’ Lou”) make their way across America in a “barnstorming tour” that lasts several weeks.

The mammoth PR event was orchestrated by Christy Walsh, Ruth’s business manager (and vigilant image maker). It took place in the aftermath of the Yankees’ championship season of 1927, in which Ruth clouted an unfathomable 60 home runs.

These sections of “The Big Fella” attest to Ruth’s gregarious celebrity, as well as his Pied Piper effect upon crowds.

But when Leavy examines Ruth’s sad life before baseball, she makes a convincing case that he was permanently scarred by his parents’ abandonment at the age of 7. The following 12 years that he spent in the reformatory and orphanage St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys influenced the rest of his life, particularly his fear of being alone.

And yet Ruth came away from the experience with the athletic skills and determined will to take him to the pinnacle of his sport.

“He viewed every called strike, every swing and a miss, not as an impediment but as a prelude to the next home run. He swung the bat the way he lived his unexpected life — like a boy with nothing to lose. And in so doing he changed the trajectory of America’s game.”

This story was originally published October 7, 2018 at 12:25 PM with the headline "‘The Big Fella’ is not just another bio of Babe Ruth."