BIG BAM, THE(ISBN=9780767919715) 英文原版 网盘下载 pdf 免费 2025 在线 epub 电子版

　　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.

“[Montville is] one of America’s best sportswriters.” —Chicago

Tribune

Babe Ruth was more than baseball’s original superstar. For

eighty-five years, he has remained the sport’s reigning titan. He

has been named Athlete of the Century . . . more than once. But who

was this large, loud, enigmatic man? Why is so little known about

his childhood, his private life, and his inner thoughts? In The Big

Bam, Leigh Montville, whose recent New York Times bestselling

biography of Ted Williams garnered glowing reviews and offered an

exceptionally intimate look at Williams’s life, brings his

trademark touch to this groundbreaking, revelatory portrait of the

Babe.

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. Montville explores every aspect of the man, paying

particular attention to the myths that have always surrounded him.

Did he really hit the “called shot” homer in the 1932 World Series?

Were his home runs really “the farthest balls ever hit” in

countless ballparks around the country? Was he really part

black—making him the first African American professional baseball

superstar? And was Ruth the high-octane, womanizing, heavy-drinking

“fatso” of legend . . . or just a boyish, rudderless quasi-orphan

who did, in fact, take his training and personal conditioning quite

seriously?

At a time when modern baseball is grappling with hyper-inflated

salaries, free agency, and assorted controversies, The Big Bam

brings back the pure glory days of the game. Leigh Montville

operates at the peak of his abilities, exploring Babe Ruth in a way

that intimately, and poignantly, illuminates a most remarkable

figure.

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　　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

Boston.

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　　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 certi?cate truth. His wife is 28 years old. That

is another birth certi?cate truth. Their ?rst son, the boy, as

recorded in the Of?ce 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, de?ant. Or he is

clueless and con?dent, always con?dent.

　　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 con?rmation name–are

front-loaded and frustrating. The topographic representations of

most famous lives feature well-de?ned 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 ?at 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 ?nished 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 or Elvis or

any other twentieth-century innovator or inventor, but he will

never ?ll in the early blanks. Want to grow up to be Babe Ruth? He

will never explain how to start.

　　The trolley ride with his father on that June day of 1902 will

always be a bewilderment. The boy will say as a man only that he

was “a bad kid.” Not much more than that. He was seven years old.

He was an only son. He was taken to that trolley because he was a

seven-year-old bad kid? How bad could he have been? “Incorrigible”

was a word that was used.

　　There are no stories of a mother, none–good or bad or madhouse

crazy. There is one picture of her, a grainy shot, pulled from a

group photo of a family reunion, her famous child in her lap. Her

hair is up. Her high collar is buttoned. She is not

smiling. 

　　There are few stories of a father. He was a lightning-rod

salesman and then the owner of a succession of taverns. He had an

anger that coursed through him. Or so it seemed. The one famous

picture of father and son, later in life, shows a beefy man,

striped shirt, necktie, vest of a waiter. He has a cigar in his

left hand, stands behind his bar. Christmas decorations hang from

the ceiling. He would like to pour you a beer.

　　The environment can be stitched together from history books and

memoirs of local writers, but it is a broad picture of

turn-of-the-century Baltimore and a bad neighborhood and

working-class woes. Stevedores, sailors, wagons, horses, the

many-layered bustle of business–these are the backdrop in an area

of alleys and cramped brick houses near the docks on the wrong side

of Pratt Street, the downtown dividing line for class and

economics.

　　The general neighborhood, which included the house of George

Herman’s maternal grandmother at 216 Emory Street, where he was

born, was called Pigtown. He is a boy from Pigtown. The name comes

from the great herds of pigs, hundreds of pigs, that are run

through the streets on a regular basis from the nearby stockyard to

the nearby slaughterhouse. Residents, it is said, would open their

basement windows and reach out and try to grab a passing, squealing

potential Sunday dinner.

　　The speci?cs of family life are elusive. The father ran assorted

taverns in the area, nine in one count, one after another, so the

family moved often. The mother was pregnant much of the time, had

eight children, including two sets of twins. Six of the children

died early. She herself was dead of “exhaustion,” the word on her

death certi?cate, at age 39. The certi?cate also said she was a

widow.

　　A widow?

　　That’s wrong.

　　Isn’t it?

　　The meager bits of information scrawled on forms and in ledgers

by bored civil servants are pen-and-ink riddles as much as facts.

The father was supposed to be Lutheran, the mother Catholic. They

were married in a Baptist church. The boy supposedly was baptized

Catholic, but 11 years later was baptized Catholic again. The word

“convert” was written on the side of the of?cial certi?cate. Why

was that? Any mistakes made then are codi?ed now, preserved as

Paleolithic truth when found by armchair archaeologists.

　　The most spare anecdotes or one-liners are repeated with each

succeeding retelling of the larger tale, gathering weight each

time. They are repeated here. The grown-up boy supposedly told

Chicago Cubs second baseman Johnny Evers of

Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance fame that his father took him to the

basement and beat him with a horsewhip. Another story mentioned a

billiard cue. Another said his mother beat on him in

frustration.

　　The image that clicks into place is an embattled household on the

perforated edge of poverty. Alcohol fuels discord and noise.

Volatility is the one constant of every day, the smallest

situations ticking, ready to explode. Love and quiet are luxuries

that can’t be afforded. Bills are always due. Frustrations sit in a

pile that never will get smaller, life turned into existence. An

unpleasant existence at that. The birth date for little George–if

it is right–indicates that he was born seven months after his

mother and father were married. What about that fact? Did his

parents know? Was that why they were married in the ?rst

place?

　　Is any of this right?

　　A sister survived. Mary, called Mamie, was ?ve years younger than

little George. Or maybe six. She would live to be 91 years old,

dying in 1992, but was of little help. She developed a mostly

romanticized version of childhood, as many people do. Her parents

were “in the restaurant business.” Her brother was “a very big boy

for his age, very good-hearted to everyone he met. He would get

very angry at times, but it was soon forgotten.”

　　She did say, “Mother was not a very well person.” She didn’t

elaborate on what sense of “well” she meant. Physical or mental? Or

both? Didn’t say. At times she was at variance with things her

brother said. He said he had an older brother, John, who died in a

street ?ght. She said there was no older brother; George was the

oldest. He also said their mother was a mix of Irish and English.

Mamie said this was nonsense; their mother was German.

　　Research seems to back Mamie’s side. The mother, maiden name

Katie Schaumberger, was the daughter of Pius and Anna Schaumberger.

They both were born in Germany; then Katie was born in Maryland.

The other side of the family also goes back eventually to Germany.

George Ruth Sr.’s parents both were born in Maryland. There is

dispute about where his grandparents were born, either in Germany

or Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Dutch country. Pick

one. If Bucks County is the choice, the great-great-grandparents

were from Germany.

　　Added to the confusion are a couple of other names, “Erhardt” and

“Gerhardt.” These were names mentioned mostly by the boy, the son,

in later years. He tried to explain, more than once, that Ruth was

his real name, not Erhardt or Gerhardt. Who exactly thought his

real name was Erhardt or Gerhardt was never explained.

Someone–perhaps a bunch of someones–must have thought so. Why else

would he explain?

　　In his autobiography, The Babe Ruth Story, ghostwr...

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媒体评论

　　“A comprehensive look at a gargantuan life.” —People

　　“Montville is refreshingly nonjudgmental about his superstar

subject.  First-rate biography.” —Los Angeles Times Book

Review

　　“Crisp analogies and astute observations, combined with a fluid

writing style, are Leigh Montville’s strengths in this definitive

biography of the Splendid Splinter.  Montville’s writing is

rich and full, like a Ted Williams swing.  He connects

solidly. A raw, no-holds-barred view of [Williams’s] life.” —Tampa

Tribune

　　“An engaging, fascinating read.” —San Diego Tribune

　　“Ted Williams is not only a first-rate sports biography, but also

a first-rate biography, period.” —Baltimore Sun

书籍介绍

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.

“[Montville is] one of America’s best sportswriters.” — Chicago Tribune

Babe Ruth was more than baseball’s original superstar. For eighty-five years, he has remained the sport’s reigning titan. He has been named Athlete of the Century . . . more than once. But who was this large, loud, enigmatic man? Why is so little known about his childhood, his private life, and his inner thoughts? In The Big Bam , Leigh Montville, whose recent New York Times bestselling biography of Ted Williams garnered glowing reviews and offered an exceptionally intimate look at Williams’s life, brings his trademark touch to this groundbreaking, revelatory portrait of the Babe.

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. Montville explores every aspect of the man, paying particular attention to the myths that have always surrounded him. Did he really hit the “called shot” homer in the 1932 World Series? Were his home runs really “the farthest balls ever hit” in countless ballparks around the country? Was he really part black—making him the first African American professional baseball superstar? And was Ruth the high-octane, womanizing, heavy-drinking “fatso” of legend . . . or just a boyish, rudderless quasi-orphan who did, in fact, take his training and personal conditioning quite seriously?

At a time when modern baseball is grappling with hyper-inflated salaries, free agency, and assorted controversies, The Big Bam brings back the pure glory days of the game. Leigh Montville operates at the peak of his abilities, exploring Babe Ruth in a way that intimately, and poignantly, illuminates a most remarkable figure.