Breaking Babe Ruth: Baseball's Campaign Against Its Biggest Star (Sports and American Culture) - Softcover

Wehrle, Edmund F.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0826223478 ISBN 13: 9780826223470

Publisher: University of Missouri, 2025

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author

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.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Missouri
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0826223478
• ISBN 13: 9780826223470
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304