After hitting his 60th home run in September of 1927, Babe Ruth embarked on the mother of all barnstorming tours, a three-week victory lap across America, accompanied by teammate Lou Gehrig. Ruth's agent, Christy Walsh, called the tour a "Symphony of Swat." The Omaha World Herald called it "the biggest show since Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey, and seven other associated circuses offered their entire performance under one tent."
In The Big Fella, voted the winner of the Seymour Medal by the Society for American Baseball Research in 2018, acclaimed biographer Jane Leavy recreates that 21-day circus and in so doing captures the pomp and the pathos that defined Ruth's life and times.
Drawing from more than 250 interviews, a trove of previously untapped documents, and the Ruth family records, Leavy breaks through the mythology that has obscured the legend of The Babe and delivers the story of the man. Leavy recounts a life full of journeys and itineraries, road trips and hunting trips, grand tours of foreign capitals and postseason promotional tours, and his 714 trips around the bases.
Free with the price of admission.
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