The Life That Ruth Built: A Biography

Rating:
Summary: not the best ruth bio
Review: A better Ruth biography is Robert Creamer's "Ruth: The Legend Comes to Life." Smelzer's book is a little too scholarly. He treats his subject as if it were a frog to be dissected. As I read on, I found myself skipping over the parts where the authors opinionated observations began to get in the way of his believability. After a while they just became tiring, and I put the book down.

Rating:
Summary: The Babe on Balance
Review: A better Ruth biography is Robert Creamer's "Ruth: The Legend Comes to Life." Smelzer's book is a little too scholarly. He treats his subject as if it were a frog to be dissected. As I read on, I found myself skipping over the parts where the authors opinionated observations began to get in the way of his believability. After a while they just became tiring, and I put the book down.

Rating:
Summary: Babe Ruth - what more can you say!
Review: Some legends are larger than life. Some legends are made up. Then there's Babe Ruth, than man by which all other baseball players are measured, even today. George Herman Ruth comes to life in this riveting, yet easy to read biography by Marshall Smelser.

You follow the bambino from his early days at St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys to his early days with the Boston Red Sox. You read about his turmoil with the fans, his trade to the New York Yankees, that later became the curse of the Bambino.

Smelser's accounts of Ruth's life from his first wife to the run ins with Yankees manager Miller Huggins to the called shot in the 1934 World Series and so many others, will have laughing on minute and on the brink of tears the very next.

I have always been a great Babe Ruth fan; so reviewing this book was a no brainer. Smelser writing style made it easy for me to read along and finally get a true picture of the man so many either loved or hated. I would highly recommend this book to any serious baseball fan!

Rating:
Summary: The Babe on Balance
Review: This biography, although scholarly, is entertaining throughout and easily read. Smelser was a life long baseball fan and his love of the game animates every page. As an undergraduate at Notre Dame, I studied under the author. Now deceased, he was a professor of history. Smelser demanded from his students the thorough research he displays in this book. But he was also a wonderful storyteller. Both qualities are apparent in this work. Like the best biographers, the author has only mild affection for his subject. The Babe's qualities and failings get equal attention. But today, when the word "superstar" is wildly overrused, you see the extraordinary level of fame this man achieved. If you really want to understand the Babe's life, read this book.