Gehrig and the Babe: The Friendship and the Feud

by Tony Castro

Overview

2018 Casey Award for Best Baseball Book Finalist 

The legendary achievements of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig are undeniable hallmarks of baseball history. Much has been written about the two men as teammates, but Ruth and Gehrig's relationship away from the field is rarely, if ever, explored. In Gehrig and the Babe, Tony Castro portrays Ruth and Gehrig for what they were: American icons who were remarkably different men. For the first time, readers will learn about a friendship driven apart, an enduring feud which wove its way in and out of their Yankees glory years and chilled their interactions until July 4, 1939—Lou Gehrig Day at Yankee Stadium—when Gehrig’s famous farewell address thawed out their stone silence.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781629372518
Publisher:	Triumph Books
Publication date:	04/01/2018
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Tony Castro is the author of Mickey Mantle: America's Prodigal Son, DiMag & Mick: Sibling Rivals, Yankee Blood Brothers, and Looking for Hemingway and the Lost Generation, among others. His reporting has appeared in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Dallas Morning News, and the Texas Observer. He was a columnist at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner for the late legendary editor, Jim Bellows. Tony lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Renee LaSalle, and Jeter, their black Labrador retriever. Their two grown sons, Trey and Ryan, also reside in Southern California.

Table of Contents

Prologue xi

1 The Black Sox Scandal 1

2 Babe's Resurrection 11

3 Beginnings 31

4 The Tale of the Most Costly Headache 51

5 Claire Ruth 63

6 Elegnor Gehrig 79

7 "Baseball's Gift to Women" 93

8 The Yankees' Team Mom 107

9 Pre-Yankees Babe 115

10 The Eastern Babe 129

11 The Making of Gehrig and Ruth 141

12 The Gehrigs and Ruth 155

13 The Bottom Falls Out 165

14 The Early 1930s 175

15 Called Shots 189

16 The Feud 199

17 Post-Ruth 211

18 The Streak Ends 221

19 "The Luckiest Man" 231

Epilogue 243

Acknowledgments 247

Appendix 1 Babe Ruth's Farewell Speech 255

Appendix 2 Lou Gehrig's Farewell Speech 257

Appendix 3 Letters of Note 259

Appendix 4 Career Statistics 261

Bibliography 267

About the Author 273