Book Description

The 500 Home Run Club: Baseballs Greatest Home Run Hitters from Babe Ruth to Mark McGwire is one of the most unusual and revealing baseball books ever written. It tells the stories of the 16 men who have hit more than 500 home runs. They are all here, from Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth to Mark McGwire, the latest player to hit 500 homers. In first-person accounts with friend and agent Bob Allen, baseballs most legendary sluggers describe and assess their own careers and lives, and each others, including the obstacles along the way. Hank Aaron tells of his impoverished boyhood in Mobile, Alabama; of his fears for his own safety as he chased Babe Ruths record while getting many death threats; and of his pride in what he accomplished. April 8, 1999, marked the 25th anniversary of Aarons memorable 715th home run. Allen interviewed 180 former major leaguers to get their first-person accounts of playing with and against baseballs most dominant sluggers. Stories from and about Aaron, Ruth, Mays, Robinson, Killebrew, Jackson, Schmidt, Mantle, Foxx, McCovey, Williams, Banks, Mathews, Ott, and Murray are all here, in what is destined to become one of the best baseball books of all time. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

With Bonds at 654 and Sosa at 533:
It's doubful that the authors thought-two- more members would be on so soon...time for another update.

Updated with McGwire
Right now there are sixteen players who have hit over 500 home runs. Each one has a nice write-up and stories that are very enjoyable to read. Fifteen are retired or deceased and one is still playing.

New and Improved.
I have always dreamed of meeting the 16 baseball players that have hit over 500 home runs. Now I realize that meeting Ruth, Ott, Mantle and Matthews would be impossible that's why I'm glad to have a copy of this book.

Along with those listed earlier you read about Aaron, Schmidt, Jackson, Foxx, Killebrew, Mays, Robinson, Williams, McCovey, Banks, Murray and the newest member McGwire.

The book is new and updated and the 16 players are listed alphabetically and no ranking system is used. I like this concept as it gives the reader the choice as to which they consider the best of this very special and elite group.

Each chapter is written to not only discuss the career of the player but also let others who knew them talk about the person as well. The book also includes photos of each of the players. This is for every baseball fan young and old - excellent work and well done!! ... Read more

Reviews (2)

An excellent transitional biography of the Babe
Art Berke's biography of Babe Ruth is an excellent transitional biography between the introductory books written for young readers and the more scholarly biographies written by sports writers and other historians.Berke begins with the argument that Babe Ruth was simply the best there ever was in the history of baseball.Ty Cobb might have been a better overall hitter, Willie Mays and Joe DiMaggio were five-tool stars who could do everything, and Walter Johnson was a better pitcher, but there is only one Babe Ruth.Berke lets Ruth's former teammate Waite Hoyt explain that somebody could come along and hit more than 60 home runs in a single season (as Roger Maris, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds have done) or end up with more than 714 home runs in a career (as Hank Aaron did), but doing those things would not make anybody any Ruth.By the time they finish reading this book young readers will understand why that is the case.But Berke also provides the other side of the story, telling how Ruth had little discipline, an enormous appetite for food and alcohol, caroused off the field, and was a reckless driver.Of course, any youngster who keeps up with the sports page will be well aware of how being a great player does not translate into being a great human being.

The story of the Babe also resonates because George Human Ruth came from an underprivileged childhood in Baltimore, Maryland, to become the greatest sports hero the country had ever known in one of the great rags to riches stories.If Ruth could start at St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys and end up in the Baseball Hall of Fame then all sorts of things are possible.Berke covers all of Ruth's milestones, from his remarkable pitching exploits with the Boston Red Sox to his revolutionary home run prowess with the New York Yankees after the infamous sale that altered the balance of power in the American League.There is also the way his deep affection for children and his less than admirable excesses added to his legendary persona.

Ruth was the most photographed man on the planet when he was alive and the book is illustrated with almost two dozen black & white photographs and Douglass Corckwell's painting of Ruth's "Called Shot."In addition to the career batting and pitching statistics in the back of the book Berke has boxes in most of the chapters that have Highlights and Key Statistics for a particular period, putting the numbers into context (e.g., in the 1916 season Ruth we know he was first in E.R.A. and shutouts because those stats are in boldface in the back of the book, but Ruth was tied for second in the number of wins and innings pitched, and was third in winning percentage and strikeouts).But in addition to the numbers are the stories that Berke tells that flesh out the Babe's legend.There are more such stories out there and interested readers can turn to Robert W. Creamer's "Babe: The Legend Comes to Life" or other adult biographies of Ruth to find out even more.This version of the "Babe Ruth" story provides a solid foundation for going to that next level.

BABE RUTH
ANDREW SMITH

BABE RUTH
BY, ART BURKE

THE BIOGRAPHY BABE RUTH IS THE TRIUPHRATE STORY OF A BOY THAT CAME FROM NOTHING THE STRIVED TO BECOME THE BEST BASEBALL PLAYER EVER AND ACHIEVED THAT GOAL.YOUNG GEORGE WAS A FANOMINAL BASEBALL PLAYER IN HIS EARLY YEARS WHEN HE STARTED TO GET INTROUBLE BECAUSE HE HAD NO FATHER FIQURE IN HIS LIFE. HE ATTENDS THE BOYS SCHOOL OF ST. MARYS WHERE HIS BASEBALL CAREER IS STARTED.
THIS BOOK IS A IS A VERY GOOD STORY FOR THE FAMILY.IT IS ALSO VERY INSTRUCTIVE.IT SHOWS GOOD MORALE LESSONS IN LIFE AND WHEN MADE BAD DECISSIONS AND HOW TO LEARN FROM THEM.IN THIS BOOK THEY DIDN�T REALLY GO INTO THE FAMILY LIFE OF BABE RUTH WHICH I THOUGHT THEY COULD HAVE A BIT MORE.THIS BOOK ALSO NAMES MANY OF THE �GREAT BAMBINO�S� NICKNAMES.THIS BOOK AFFECTED ME IN MANY WAYS.IT SHOWED ME WHAT TO DO IN LIFE AND WHAT NOT TO DO.IT ALSO TAUGHT ME THAT YOU CANT ACCOMPLISH WHAT YOU WANT IN LIFE UNLESS YOU WORK HARD.

By, A.S. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Wonderful baseball story
This book was about George "Babe" Ruth and Henry Aaron. I thinkit was a great baseball story about these to players. It really tells a lotabout Babe's history where he came from and how he got to the top. the bookalso tells some about Henry and how he got to the top. I really enjoyedthis book! ... Read more

Product Description

100th Anniversary of Ruth's Birth edition. Illustrated throughout! ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Basic biographies of Cobb, Ruth and Robinson for young fans
For my money there are two figures in baseball history who tower above everybody else, namely Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson.In terms of changing the game you cannot find another player or owner who had an impact as great as the man who made the home run what it is today and the man who broke the color barrier.The only other thing that comes as close to impacting the game would be the introduction of night baseball at which point we are closer to requiring clean baseballs to be used and lowering the mound than we are to what Ruth and Robinson accomplished.

However, in "They Shaped the Game," William Jay Jacobs looks at not only Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson but starts off with Ty Cobb.Certainly Cobb personifies the way baseball was played before Ruth changed the emphasis from speed to power, but I would not make the case that he shaped the game in terms of changing how it was played.Willie Keeler was hitting them "where they ain't" and John McGraw had made using your head when playing baseball a key part of the game before Cobb's time.So I buy the idea of Cobb defining the game, but not shaping it into something new.

Besides, the argument that Cobb, Ruth and Robinson shaped the game is rather implicit in this book, which essentially provides short biographies of the three players.To demonstrate the impact Jacobs would have to focus more on those who followed in their footsteps.However, that gets reduced to Lou Gehrig and Roy Campanella respectively when it comes to Ruth and Robinson.What I was expecting was a more specific look at how Jimmy Foxx, Hack Wilson and Hank Greenberg were following closely on Ruth's heels and how Jackie Robinson opened the door for Willie Mays, Hank Aaron and Roberto Clemente.

As short biographies of these three players what you will find in "They Shaped the Game" certainly covers the highlights of their careers and will serve as introductory looks at each.I appreciate that Jacobs does not sanitize their lives, touching on Cobb's racism, Ruth's drinking, and the hate hurled at Robinson but leaves it to later biographies to fill in the details (a list of such books is provided in the back).The book is illustrated with black & white photographs of the players and if "The Shaped the Game" does not really prove its thesis, it domes demonstrate that Cobb, Ruth and Robinson all had the key common trait of being fiercely dedicated to what they were doing. ... Read more

Book Description

An American Legend chronicles Babe Ruth's astounding three decade long career through exclusive, never before heard interviews and insightful narrative.Not only of one poor boy from Baltimore, but an entire nation of sports lovers as well. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Solid, literate biography
Tom Meany was a sports writer & close friend of Babe Ruth. The book opens with an account of Babe's death & of the funeral: the Babe laid in state in the rotunda of old Yankee Stadium. It closes with an account of his last appearance there before he died.

In betw. his discovery in Emmitsburg, MD, by Joe Engel, who noted that when the big teen wasn't pitching or batting, he was pounding a bass drum in the stands. There's Ed Barrow, his manager in Boston, who asked Babe what he thought of pitching every fourth day & playing the outfield in between & who was later named baseball's first general manager by the Yankees. There's the called shot ("The Beau Geste") & Babe's retort when informed that his 1930 salary demand of $80K was more than the President made: "What's he got to do with it? Besides, I had a better year than he did."

Although I bought my copy 45 years ago @some grade school book fair, this is not a children's book. It took repeated readings to understand certain colloquial expressions ("pulled a skull") & to understand that this was not a chronological biography but a series of vignettes. Meany is as vague on the Babe's ancestry as the Babe was.

But it's a literate book with a good deal of insight into the times in which Babe lived: when Babe told a friend that he gone out with "those movie people" (Babe's inability to remember a name was legendary.), the friend found out they were Douglas Fairbanks & Mary Pickford, then "at the zenith of their popularity."

There is a reason that Babe Ruth will remain the greatest baseball player ever, no matter who passes his 714 home runs: he was also a great pitcher, twice winning 20 games in three seasons & holding the original record (later broken by Yankee icon Whitey Ford) for consecutive scoreless innings in World Series play. He started one game a season during his career with the Yankees, & even after he retired, he was proudest of his pitching achievements (he once outdueled Walter Johnson). Yet, he was such a slugger that by 1923, he was the all-time home run leader.



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