Jane Leavy, award-winning former sportswriter and feature writer for the Washington Post, is author of the New York Times bestsellers Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy, The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood, and the comic novel Squeeze Play. She lives in Washington, D.C. and Truro, Massachusetts.
"Magnificent.... All this is only to touch on the wealth of
research, detail and astuteness of observation that make up The Big
Fella. Some of it is sad.... But the winning side of the Babe's
life predominates in these pages and in history." -- Wall Street
Journal"Captures Ruth's outsize influence on American sport and
culture.... Leavy's conceit allows her to stake out some untrod
turf. But she also makes a compelling case that to appreciate the
adulation Ruth soaked up in October 1927 is to understand his
contribution to American life in full." -- New York Times Book
Review"An editor of mine once told me that each generation deserves
its own biography of a historic figured, and we now have ours for
Babe Ruth...Offers depth and nuance to the Bambino's
character....Leavy convincingly shows how Ruth embodied the Jazz
Age, rebelling against all constraints both on and off the field
while serving as the precursor to Michael Jordan, LeBron James, and
the other athletes who would become multimedia conglomerates." --
Boston Globe"Jane Leavy writing a book about Babe Ruth is the
biggest thing that has happened in my life since Santa Claus
visited my classroom in the second grade. This is Babe Ruth off the
diamond and out of uniform, a very flawed human being but still
very much a hero, a man who could lift an army of beggars and
wannabes onto his back and carry them to their dreams." -- Bill
James, Baseball Writer"Does the world need another biography of
Babe Ruth? If it's this one, then the answer is an emphatic yes."
-- Kirkus (starred review)"Engaging.... Sifts through the myths....
Leavy shines light on Ruth's place in American cultural history.
She paints a sensitive and humorous portrait of a flamboyant figure
who exploited technological transformations, public appetites and
his athletic prowess to forge a new sporting celebrity." --
Washington Post"Leavy's newest masterpiece ... delivers all the
goods again. Meticulously researched over eight years and richly
detailed, it's as close as we'll ever come to meeting the legend
and watching him in action. The Big Fella is a must-read for Babe
Ruth fans, baseball history buffs, and collectors. Above all, it is
a major work of American history by an author with a flair for
mesmerizing story-telling. -- Forbes"There have been numerous books
written about the enormous life of Babe Ruth.... Jane Leavy,
though, manages to mine new material in her wonderful book....
Ultimately, Leavy provides a different perspective of a man who
consistently broke the mold in sports and society." -- Chicago
Tribune"Fascinating...reveals Ruth's pioneering role in modern
celebrity." -- The Guardian "The Big Fella, beyond being the
premiere biography about the King of Crash, is a book for all
history buffs, not just fans of the New York Yankees, baseball, or
sports in general." -- Philadelphia Inquirer"Monumental.... Leavy
writes lovely, lively sentences and, as in her other big baseball
biographies, of Sandy Koufax and Mickey Mantle, coordinates her
head with her heart. Her research is thorough, and she works the
material hard. She knows the score. She likes her subjects
sometimes despite it, or comes to like them, or to feel sympathy
for them.... As Nick Carraway is to Jay Gatsby, Jane Leavy is to
Babe Ruth, who represents everything for which I have an unaffected
scorn. She persuaded me to cut him some slack." -- National
Review"What sets 'The Big Fella: Babe Ruth and the World He
Created' apart from earlier attempts to identify the true essence
of the man is an unprecedented look back into Ruth's long-neglected
childhood and a magnified focus on how his tremendous popularity
helped birth the cult of personality in America." -- Peter Schmuck,
Baltimore Sun"Leavy always entertains, injecting necessary context
about a sport that was just beginning to become a major advertising
and marketing vehicle. She also evokes sympathy for the Babe ...
without excusing his sins and excesses. Leavy brings the
larger-than-life slugger down to the size of a real human being."
-- New York Magazine"The Big Fella is just amazing. Filled with
fabulous tales. Tell me you wouldn't have wanted to follow the
Bambino around on a barnstorming tour in 1927. Now you can!" --
Jayson Stark"Jane Leavy could write the biography of a tube of
toothpaste and I'd be first in line to buy it. Jane Leavy on Babe
Ruth? Home run! Think you know the Babe? Not a chance--not until
you read The Big Fella." -- Jonathan Eig, author of Ali and
Luckiest Man"Leavy has cleared the bases with a compelling account
of the game's greatest, Babe Ruth. Leavy brilliantly describes the
complexities that accompany an elite talent and the blessing and
curse of stardom while documenting the essential role of an
attorney to provide vision, create a protective umbrella, and
facilitate the most important goal for a unique athlete:
self-understanding." -- Scott Boras, attorney for Major League
Baseball Players"Covers all aspects of Ruth's massive life,
bringing true empathy and impressive depth of knowledge to her
complex subject." -- Boston Globe"Proves conclusively there really
was room for another book on Babe Ruth, only because of Leavy's
usual diligent and extensive research." -- Daily News"Early in her
seminal Babe Ruth biography, The Big Fella, Jane Leavy, the gifted
storyteller of bygone ballplayers, perfectly encapsulates his place
at the intersection of America's game, Americana and America
today.... It's hard to conceive of a baseball player being the most
famous athlete in America, let alone the most famous person. And
yet with a clever narrative that tells Ruth's life story through
the lens of his 21-city barnstorming tour with Lou Gehrig, Leavy
doesn't need to do any convincing that it's true. The facts clearly
support the premise." -- Jeff Passan, Yahoo Sports"If you think
you've read enough stories about Babe Ruth to last a lifetime,
think again. If you haven't yet read THE BIG FELLA, you've got some
catching up to do." -- Steven Goldleaf, Bill James
Online"Entertaining and colorful.... Leavy's captivating biography
reveals Ruth as a man who swung his bat with the same purposeful
abandon that he lived his life." -- Publishers Weekly, starred
review"The same insight and verve that attracted readers to Leavy's
portraits of Mickey Mantle and Sandy Koufax manifest themselves
here as she traces the improbable transformation of the insecure
little George into the imposing Sultan of Swat, master of the
diamond and unparalleled national celebrity.... An American icon
brought to life." -- Booklist, starred review"Sweeping.... [The
Sultan of Swat] comes to life in these pages." -- Newsday"Simply
the best sports biography I have ever read...convincingly makes the
case that Ruth put down the template for modern celebrity.... If
you want to understand the Kardashians and their effect on our
culture, you have to understand Babe Ruth." -- The Progressive"One
rule of thumb personally adopted is I read anything Jane Leavy
writes. She's that good.... Leavy is an exquisite reporter and
researcher, which melds with her prose to make for a wonderful
gift." -- Detroit News"Leavy, through dogged reporting and astute
analysis, strips away many of the myths and misconceptions
surrounding Ruth's life. ... [She] spent eight years researching
and writing her Ruth biography, and her care and diligence surface
on every page." -- Christian Science Monitor"Colorful.... This
poignant life story reveals Babe Ruth warts and all." -- The
Missourian"Not only about baseball, but a richly detailed social
history of America in the Roaring Twenties." -- The Durham
Herald-Sun"Remarkable.... enlightening and interesting." -- NY
Sports DayPraise for Jane Leavy:
"The Last Boy is something new in the history of the histories of
the Mick. It is hard fact, reported by someone greatly skilled at
that craft...and presented so that the reader and not the author
draws nearly all the conclusions." -- New York Times Book Review on
The Last Boy"This is one of the best sports biographies I have ever
read. Beautifully written and thoroughly researched, it reveals
with stunning insight both the talents and the demons that drove
Mickey Mantle, bringing him to life as never before." -- Doris
Kearns Goodwin on The Last Boy"The incomparable and mysterious
Sandy Koufax is revealed.... This is an absorbing book, beautifully
written." -- Wall Street Journal on Sandy Koufax"Leavy has hit it
out of the park...A lot more than a biography. It's a consideration
of how we create our heroes, and how this hero's self perception
distinguishes him from nearly every other great athlete in living
memory... a remarkably rich portrait." -- Time on Sandy Koufax"An
exhaustively researched study that paints an intriguing portrait of
the famously reclusive Dodger pitcher." -- Sports Illustrated on
Sandy Koufax"The Last Boy is something new in the history of the
histories of the Mick. It is hard fact, reported by someone greatly
skilled at that craft...and presented so that the reader and not
the author draws nearly all the conclusions." -- The New York Times
Book Review on The Last Boy
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