The Big Bam

Starred review from April 15, 2006
This book represents an ambitious endeavor: to lift the fog from so many periods and events that shroud the life of Babe Ruth, perhaps the best-known athlete in the history of North America. Beginning with an incisive reconstruction of Ruth -s childhood, Montville, an award-winning baseball writer best known for his recent biography of Ted Williams, can boast of having published the best Ruth biography to date, one that will be consulted regularly as the contemporary assault on Ruth -s records serves to focus renewed attention on his life and times. Although the author has perhaps promised greater revelations than are in fact revealed, his adroit organization of the historical material -enhanced by newly studied archival material and oral history transcripts, together with his flair for marshalling undisputed facts that are intertwined with plausible speculations -has produced an engaging, entertaining, and eminently readable biography. New fans and older ones will be rewarded with by Montville -s quite remarkable effort to paint a portrait, warts and all, of a larger-than-life character. Recommended for the sports shelves of every library in America, and beyond. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ "1/06.]" -Gilles Renaud, Ontario Court of Justice"

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2006
In this day of overamped salaries, statistics, and physiques, it's useful to be reminded of the singular talent and impact Babe Ruth brought to baseball during his career (1914-35). He owned most of the hitting records for decades, including single-season and career home runs--and all this during the "dead ball" era. Even now, the baseball fan can only be awed by what Ruth accomplished, not to mention the adulation he engendered. And if Robert Creamer's highly readable " Babe " (1974) is still the benchmark biography, Montville (" Ted Williams," 2004) brings fresh observations to his subject, one being that Ruth probably suffered from attention-deficit disorder, which accounts for his inexhaustible energy for everything from baseball to food to alcohol to sex, not necessarily in that order. And in his vivid account of the years Ruth spent at St. Mary's orphanage in Baltimore, Montville gives readers the measure of what made the man. Montville has also carefully sifted the factual from the hearsay, leaving us with a volume that's reliable, readable, and deserving of a place in the sports or American culture collection. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)