20th
A01=Edmund F. Wehrle
Author_Edmund F. Wehrle
Babe Ruth
Baltimore
Baseball Hall of Fame
biography
blacklisted
Boston Red Sox
career
Category=KCF
Category=KNXU
Category=SCX
Category=SFC
century
Ed Barrow
Edmund Wehrle
Edward White
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eq_business-finance-law
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eq_isMigrated=2
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_sports-fitness
fame
George Herman Ruth Jr
history
home run king
image
labor strife
Leigh Montville
Major League Baseball
Marshall Smelser
Maryland
MD
media
MLB
New York Yankees
newspaper
personality
player
press
reputation
roaring twenties
Robert Creamer
Ruth vs baseball
Simon Legree
slugger
sports
star
The Bambino
The Sultan of Swat
twentieth
Product details
- ISBN 9780826223470
- Weight: 454g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 19 Dec 2025
- Publisher: University of Missouri Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Rather than as a Falstaffian figure of limited intellect, Edmund Wehrle reveals Babe Ruth as an ambitious, independent operator, one not afraid to challenge baseball’s draconian labor system. To the baseball establishment, Ruth’s immense popularity represented opportunity, but his rebelliousness and potential to overturn the status quo presented a threat. After a decades-long campaign waged by baseball to contain and discredit him, the Babe, frustrated and struggling with injuries and illness, grew more acquiescent, but the image of Ruth that baseball perpetuated still informs how many people remember Babe Ruth to this day. This new perspective, approaching Ruth more seriously and placing his life in fuller context, is long overdue.
Edmund F. Wehrle is Professor of History at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, where he has taught since 2000. He is the author of Between a River and a Mountain: The AFLCIO and the Vietnam War, and co-author with Lawrence Peskin of America and the World: Culture, Commerce, Conflict.
