* At the risk of tooting my own horn…

November 26, 2008

Thirteen years in the making.

In 1995, I delivered my first “scholarly paper.” It was at Hoftsra University’s centennial celebration of Babe Ruth’s birth and it was a hoot. I spent three days there, listening to all sorts of presentations, visiting exhibits and finally — nervously — making my own. My topic was “The Books on The Babe: The Later Biographies of George Herman Ruth.” The titles I analyzed included Robert Creamer’s Babe: The Legend Comes to Life; Marshall Smesler’s The Life That Ruth Built: A Biography; Babe Ruth and The American Dream, by Ken Sobel; and Babe Ruth: His Life and Legend, by Kal Waggenheim. I recall how nice everyone was to me, even though I certainly did not have their academic credentials.

One of the perks was that the conference organizers were going to take all the papers and publish them as a compendium.

Baseball and The “Sultan of Swat”: Babe Ruth at 100, edited by Robert N. Keane and published by AMS Press, arrived on my doorstep today.

I feel honored to be in such company. Among the names I recognize from the publishing world and the Society for American Baseball Research who also presented during the conference were Ron Briley, William Cahill, Victor Debs, Jr., Steven Gietschier; Stan Isaacs, Ray Robinson, Ken Shouler, Lyle Spatz, George Vecsey, and Peter Williams.

But better late than never? Perhaps not. Several other books on the Babe have been published since then, most notably Leigh Montville’s The Big Bam. Much of what I wrote back then is still applicable, but it just seems a bit outdated by newer material so it seems anti-climactic so long after the fact.

Still, after so many magazine articles, it’s kinda nice to see my work within a hard cover.

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