Leigh Montville's Big Bam

[The Cobb]

So, I'm currently reading Leigh Montville's "Big Bam". I have to be honest...I'm over half way through this book and I'm thoroughly unimpressed. It's almost like he decided to skim the facts. Oft times he'll just take a pass on proving this fact or that fact. For instance...a lot of the times, instead of providing anecdotes or facts he'll just say "FOG".

Example:
"What was Ruths' wife in the hospital for? Fog."

What in the hell is this? He asks a lot of questions too and never answers them. He'll just say "Fog". Sometimes he says nothing at all and asks three questions in a row and just moves on. Not very professional. Now, I don't know whether or not a lot of Ruth's life is covered in fog. If he was just one of those fellows where secrets were the name of the game. But, as high profile as Ruth is you'd think that Montville would have stories and facts coming out of the woodwork. Instead, it's just questions with no answers.

Example (I paraphrase)
Ruth then went into the dugout to confront so and so. Words were passed between them. "(Insert vicious bad word here) you son of a gun. If I catch you outside the ballpark I'll kill you!" Says Ruth. But what did he really say? Was there a fight? What became of the arguement? FOG.

HORRIBLE writing style. Stay away from this book. By the way...he actually puts the (Insert vicious bad word here) in his book all over the place. Horrible Ruth book. Just stay away.

[keving7]

I actually liked this book. A very enjoyable read.

[-Kyle-]

I liked it too. :think: But it wasn't as good as the Ted Williams one.

[John Burris]

So, I'm currently reading Leigh Montville's "Big Bam". I have to be honest...I'm over half way through this book and I'm thoroughly unimpressed. It's almost like he decided to skim the facts. Oft times he'll just take a pass on proving this fact or that fact. For instance...a lot of the times, instead of providing anecdotes or facts he'll just say "FOG".

Example:
"What was Ruths' wife in the hospital for? Fog."

What in the hell is this? He asks a lot of questions too and never answers them. He'll just say "Fog". Sometimes he says nothing at all and asks three questions in a row and just moves on. Not very professional. Now, I don't know whether or not a lot of Ruth's life is covered in fog. If he was just one of those fellows where secrets were the name of the game. But, as high profile as Ruth is you'd think that Montville would have stories and facts coming out of the woodwork. Instead, it's just questions with no answers.

Example (I paraphrase)
Ruth then went into the dugout to confront so and so. Words were passed between them. "(Insert vicious bad word here) you son of a gun. If I catch you outside the ballpark I'll kill you!" Says Ruth. But what did he really say? Was there a fight? What became of the arguement? FOG.

HORRIBLE writing style. Stay away from this book. By the way...he actually puts the (Insert vicious bad word here) in his book all over the place. Horrible Ruth book. Just stay away.

He uses the "fog" as a literary device and goes into very abundant detail in the 16-page introduction of why he uses it.

Despite all the Ruth anecdotes we have, and the number of biographies written before Montville's effort (he was able to obtain the raw material used to write several of them and begin from there), there are several things we still don't know about Ruth.

1. Most of his non-St. Mary's childhood is totally obscured.
2. Ruth's family life wasn't very well chronicled.
3. Journalists in the era protected Ruth from public view -- we really don't know how many anecdotes about his non-playing field life are true, and to try to check them out 80 years later is problematic.

That's why he uses the "fog." For the record, he presents a fairly good picture of the details surrounding a certain event with no known outcome (like what you mention above) before he resorts to saying "We don't know what happened." And his writing covering what we do know and his research to support what we "sort of" know ("The Bellyache Heard 'Round The World in 1925) is superb.

All of this is made readily apparent in the introduction and throughout the book.

Regarding the use of the "N" word: The reason that word is used so frequently in the beginning because the kids at St. Mary's called him that. Montville's use is not a racist caricature he created (and it's not wall-to-wall in the book, by any stretch) -- it's a real picture of what Ruth faced in an era based on what Montville says here (pg. 21):

"He had facial characteristics -- the lips, the nose -- that gave him a mixed-race look in a time and environment when a mixed-race look was not a good thing to have."

If we're really going to talk about apparent racism, re-read pg. 199-200.

[Augustin_"Gus"]

I tought it was a rather enjoyable read. Of course, it's a style that's not for everyone (everytime he talks about Ruth's age, he says for example "Ruth celebrated his 26 birthday (he tought he was 27)") and that can get on the reader's nerves. But I certainly would not advise people to stay away. I had been looking for a biography so I could learn about a man I knew little about and came out rather satisfied.