The Babe; The Game That Ruth Built

New York: Total Sports, 1997. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Mark Rucker (Picture Editor). The format is approximately 9.125 inches by 12 inches. [6], ii, 296 pages. Illustrated endpapers. Illustrations. Index. Sources. Includes an Aaron vs. Ruth CD in separate envelop laid in at the back of the book. DJ is textured with the figure of Babe Ruth at bat on the front slightly elevated. This is a heavy item and if shipped outside of the United States will require additional shipping charges. Text and photographs highlight the astonishing career of baseball's legendary "Babe" Ruth. Contents include Foreword by Hank Aaron; Introduction; St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys (1895-1914); The Best Left-handed Pitcher in Baseball (1914-1918); The House That Ruth Built (1919-1923); The bellyache Heard Round the World (1922-1925); The Sultan of Swat (1925-1928); Did He really Call His Shot? (1928-1932); "How Can You Manage the Yankees When You Can't Even Manage Yourself?" (1933-1935); Final Innings (1935-1948), Babe Ruth's Record; and Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron Home Run Log. George Herman "Babe" Ruth (February 6, 1895 - August 16, 1948) was an American professional baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Sultan of Swat", he began his MLB career as a star left-handed pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, but achieved his greatest fame as a slugging outfielder for the New York Yankees. Ruth is regarded as one of the greatest sports heroes in American culture and is considered by many to be the greatest baseball player of all time. Lawrence Stanley Ritter (May 23, 1922 - February 15, 2004) was an American writer whose specialties were economics and baseball. Ritter was a professor of economics and finance, and chairman of the Department of Finance at the Graduate School of Business Administration of New York University. He also edited The Journal of Finance from 1964 to 1966. In 1970, Ritter served as president of the American Finance Association. His book, Principles of Money, Banking, and Financial Markets, coauthored with William L. Silber and Gregory F. Udell, has been a standard college text since it was first published in 1974. Ritter is best known for writing one of the most famous sports books of all time, The Glory of Their Times. He collaborated with another baseball historian, Donald Honig, on The Image of Their Greatness (1979) and The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time. In researching The Glory of Their Times, Ritter traveled 75,000 miles to interview his subjects, sitting for hours listening to them tell their tales into his tape recorder. Ritter's "Existential" style of interviewing was to allow his subjects to reminisce freely, rarely prodding or probing them on anything. No questions about specific games. No questions about what it was like to face certain players. Ritter's technique was to get his interviewee comfortable around him, to turn the tape-recorder on, and shut up while his subjects spoke. Ritter's style elicited responses that other reporters never reach with questions. His most difficult "find" was Sam Crawford, who shared the outfield with Ty Cobb in Detroit. After being given only cryptic hints about where he might find Crawford, i.e., "drive between 175 and 225 miles north of Los Angeles", Crawford's wife told Ritter, "and you'll be warm" - Ritter ended up in Baywood Park, California where his inquiries yielded nothing. After several days, he sat in a laundromat watching his clothes spin beside an old man. Ritter asked him if he knew anything about Sam Crawford, the old ball player. The man replied, "Well I should hope so. Bein' as I'm him."