He was the Sultan of Swat. The Caliph of Clout. The Wizard of Whack. The Bambino. And simply, to his teammates, the Big Bam. From the award-winning author of the New York Times bestseller Ted Williams comes the thoroughly original, definitively ambitious, and exhilaratingly colorful biography of the largest legend ever to loom in baseball—and in the history of organized sports.

Based on newly discovered documents and interviews—including pages from Ruth’s personal scrapbooks—THE BIG BAM traces Ruth’s life from his bleak childhood in Baltimore to his brash entrance into professional baseball, from Boston to New York and into the record books as the world’s most explosive slugger and cultural luminary.

Chapter One

The little boy and the man get on the Wilkens Avenue trolley on the morning of June 13, 1902. It is a Friday. They are off on a trip of great dimensions. Details are important but do not seem to be available. There is so much we want to know. There is so much we never will.

Is it really morning?

Or maybe early afternoon?

Probably not night.

The man and the boy take seats in the second row. Or maybe they are all the way in the back. The boy is on the outside so he can see the streets of Baltimore pass. Or maybe he is on the inside. Maybe he is looking at his shoes.

The jangle of nickels and pennies rolling through the conductor's coin box is background noise. Wasn't the coin box always background noise on a trolley? The ding-ding of the bell is heard when the trolley makes a stop. What is the weather? The Baltimore Sun predicted showers and cooler. Is it raining right now? Cool enough for a jacket? Don't know. Can't be sure.

The man is sad or resolute or perhaps secretly happy. The boy is . . . does he even know where he is going? Is the packed little suitcase on the seat next to him a clue? Or is there no suitcase? He is dressed in the best clothes that he owns. Or are there no best clothes? The conversation is quiet, short sentences, the man's mind lost somewhere in the business of the moment. Or perhaps there is no conversation, not a word. Or perhaps there are laughs, the man talking and talking, joking, to take the edge away.

What?

Imagination tries to build atop slim facts. The man is 31 years old. That is birth certificate truth. His wife is 28 years old. That is another birth certificate truth. Their first son, the boy, as recorded in the Office of the Registrar of Vital Statistics, Baltimore City, by midwife Minnie Graf, is seven years, three months, seven days old, except . . . except he will believe for most of his years that his birthday is one year and one day earlier.

Why is that?

The urge is to sketch in the rest of the picture, make judgments, add colors and emotions and maybe a passing billboard or two. Can it be resisted? The mother has kissed the boy good-bye at the front door of 426 West Camden Street, a tear rolling down her cheek. Or she has said nothing. Or she was relieved. Or maybe she wasn't even there. The boy is sad, crying. Or he is mute, defiant. Or he is clueless and confident, always confident.



The biggest mysteries in the life of George Herman Ruth--and some researchers say Herman is his true middle name, handed down from his father, and some say it is his confirmation name--are front-loaded and frustrating. The topographic representations of most famous lives feature well-defined peaks of public achievement, brightly lit and easily seen, but a fog often settles over the personal life below. The fog here covers everything.

Babe?

Babe Ruth?

Behind that moon face with those small eyes, that flat nose, those big lips that will be captured in any instantly recognizable portrait in a blue New York Yankees cap, the boy will forever hide. He is only a shape, glimpsed here, glimpsed there, lost again. No one has found that boy at the beginning of it all, touched him, gotten to know him. No one ever will. If the right questions ever were asked, the answers never were given. Time has finished the job. There is no one to talk to now. No one is around.

He will become the Sultan of Swat, the Bambino, the Big Bam, baseball royalty, the greatest home run hitter of his time or any time, a character as interesting as Einstein or Edison...

"A comprehensive look at a gargantuan life."

LEIGH MONTVILLE, a former columnist at the Boston Globe and former senior writer at Sports Illustrated, is the author of the bestselling Ted Williams, At the Altar of Speed, Manute,and Why Not Us? He lives in...