The Called Shot: Babe Ruth, the Chicago Cubs, and the Unforgettable Major League Baseball Season of 1932

by Thomas Wolf Narrated by Barry Abrams

Overview

In the summer of 1932, at the beginning of the turbulent decade that would remake America, baseball fans were treated to one of the most thrilling seasons in the history of the sport. As the nation drifted deeper into the Great Depression and reeled from social unrest, baseball was a diversion for a troubled country-and yet the world of baseball was marked by the same edginess that pervaded the national scene.



On-the-field fights were as common as double plays. Amid the National League pennant race, Cubs' shortstop Billy Jurges was shot by showgirl Violet Popovich in a Chicago hotel room. When the regular season ended, the Cubs and Yankees clashed in what would be Babe Ruth's last appearance in the fall classic. After the Cubs lost the first two games in New York, the series resumed in Chicago at Wrigley Field, with Democratic presidential candidate Franklin Roosevelt cheering for the visiting Yankees from the box seats behind the Yankees' dugout.



In the top of the fifth inning the game took a historic turn. As Ruth was jeered mercilessly by Cubs players and fans, he gestured toward the outfield and then blasted a long home run. Ruth's homer set off one of baseball's longest-running and most intense debates: did Ruth, in fact, call his famous home run?

Editorial Reviews

OCTOBER 2020 - AudioFile

Wolf’s chronicle of the 1932 baseball season is ambitious in scope, covering much more than the events on the field, including the Great Depression and the rise of President Roosevelt. At almost 11 hours, it needs a narrator with a brisk and confident pace, and Barry Abrams carries this off whether he’s relating anecdotes about baseball, politics, or social history. He strikes the right balance between breezy and authoritative except when he makes the poor choice to read direct quotes with imitative voices. Fortunately, these are rare. Wolf can’t be definitive about whether Babe Ruth really pointed to the center field bleachers before hitting a mammoth home run in Game 3 of the World Series, but he provides all the context listeners need to make their own calls. D.B. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

★ 04/27/2020

Wolf (coauthor, Midnight Assassin: A Murder in America’s Heartland), delivers a solid and exciting look at the 1932 baseball season, “one of the most remarkable seasons in the history of the sport.” Wolf chronicles the on-field heroics in that season’s tight race that led to the New York Yankees meeting the Chicago Cubs in the World Series, which the Yankees won in a four-game sweep, and whose game three is now legendary for Babe Ruth’s “called shot,” when Ruth “somewhat ambiguously” pointed toward the Cubs players in outfield before hitting a home run over their heads. But the beauty of Wolf’s work is how he seamlessly connects the day-to-day grind of a sport whose teams still “principally traveled from one city to another by train” with the changing, post-Depression world beyond the ballpark (“As the homeless suffered in crudely made shelters... most of America watched to see what would happen in the conventions being held in Chicago” in 1932), with cameo appearances by Al Capone, John Dillinger, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Wolf also provides an excellent look at how Ruth transformed from the excellent Yankee pitcher who lost to the Cubs in the 1918 World Series into the legendary slugger of 1932. Baseball fans will delight in this thrillingly told history. (May)

From the Publisher

[Wolf] delivers a solid and exciting look at the 1932 baseball season. . . . Baseball fans will delight in this thrillingly told history.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
 
 


"This book has it all. It is well-written, well-researched, and full of surprises."—Mark McGee, NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture


"Nearly 80 years after the event took place, a home run in the fifth inning of game three of the 1932 World Series between the New York Yankees and the Chicago Cubs is still being discussed and debated. Yankee outfielder Babe Ruth came to the plate and while being heckled by players from the Cubs dugout, he supposedly pointed to center field and proceeded to homer in the area to which he pointed. The verification of that event, while still being debated today, is only one of a number of topics about the 1932 baseball season on display in this excellent book by Thomas Wolf."—Lance Smith, Guy Who Reviews Sports Books

William Steele

“The Called Shot provides readers a multilayered narrative of politics, pop culture, American history, and baseball. Going far beyond the games on the field, Thomas Wolf’s book gives readers a glimpse into a season they only thought they knew.”—William Steele, author of Going the Distance: The Life and Works of W. P. Kinsella

Sports Bookie - Bob D'Angelo

"The Called Shot is a satisfying read and provides depth and context to a memorable baseball season. As the reader will discover, the 1932 season was more than just Babe Ruth’s most iconic moment."—Bob D'Angelo, Sports Bookie

Jack Bales

“In 1932 the Chicago Cubs defied the experts and won the National League pennant despite such distractions as a jilted lover shooting their shortstop and a front-page gambling scandal embarrassing several star players. Thomas Wolf provides a thoroughly researched, gripping account of one of the most fascinating eras in baseball history, capturing both the spirit of the times and its memorable figures in colorful, vivid detail.”—Jack Bales, author of Before They Were the Cubs: The Early Years of Chicago’s First Professional Baseball Team

Lee Lowenfish

“The gifted writer Thomas Wolf has dug deeply into the colorful and tumultuous culture of the United States between the world wars. He has produced a memorable and readable book that sheds new light on both baseball history and American history.”—Lee Lowenfish, author of the award-winning Branch Rickey: Baseball’s Ferocious Gentleman

OCTOBER 2020 - AudioFile

Wolf’s chronicle of the 1932 baseball season is ambitious in scope, covering much more than the events on the field, including the Great Depression and the rise of President Roosevelt. At almost 11 hours, it needs a narrator with a brisk and confident pace, and Barry Abrams carries this off whether he’s relating anecdotes about baseball, politics, or social history. He strikes the right balance between breezy and authoritative except when he makes the poor choice to read direct quotes with imitative voices. Fortunately, these are rare. Wolf can’t be definitive about whether Babe Ruth really pointed to the center field bleachers before hitting a mammoth home run in Game 3 of the World Series, but he provides all the context listeners need to make their own calls. D.B. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940177337159
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	05/29/2020
Edition description:	Unabridged

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