Jane Leavy's Blog, page 4

The Big Fella’s a Finalist!

PEN America announced its 2019 Literary Award finalists, and The Big Fella is one of five in the Literary Sports Writing category. The winners will be celebrated at the 2019 PEN America Literary Awards Ceremony on February 26 at the NYU Skirball Center in NYC. The National Book Critics Circle also announced finalists for its 2018 Awards, and The Big Fella is nominated for biography. […]

“Big Fella” a Best Book of 2018

There are a number of people bound to inspire biographies as long as the trees hold out. Abe Lincoln and Muhammad Ali are among that number. Jane Leavy has demonstrated that Babe Ruth belongs on the list, too. Her take? That Ruth, who played during the first flowering of mass media, became the first modern […]

A Santa Story from the Babe

In 1902, 7-year-old George Herman Ruth was sent away to St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys. “The little boy his family called ‘Little George,’ they abandoned to a reform school on the far western edge of Baltimore City,” writer Jane Leavy says. “And these boys slept head to toe. They bathed together, they ate together, […]

Big Fella Reviews from NY to the Nation to Canada, Too

Catch up on these interviews and reviews from October, November, and December: Catching up with Dave Zirin, Sports editor of The Nation: Leavy’s study of the man who hit 714 career home runs in Major League Baseball (including 60 in one year, the latter a record unbroken until long after his death) playing for three teams […]

Who Was Babe Ruth?

Jane joins Smerconish to talk about the legend. He hit more home runs than any player in his era – and was one of our first national celebrity brands. But what was Babe Ruth like behind the scenes?  Source: CNN | Air date: December 15, 2018

Schmuck: Babe Ruth created the cult of celebrity

There was one big takeaway from author Jane Leavy’s appearance Saturday at the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum to autograph and answer questions about her latest book. The Babe can still draw a crowd. Leavy, the former Washington Post writer who also has authored bestselling biographies of Sandy Koufax and Mickey Mantle, certainly isn’t the […]

The Myths of the Babe

Jackie Atkins of The Philadelphia Inquirer breaks down three myths surrounding Babe Ruth in her review of The Big Fella, of which she writes: In The Big Fella, Jane Leavy, former Washington Post sportswriter, goes a long way toward filling in many of the blanks in the story of George Herman “Babe” Ruth, and in the myths surrounding […]

The Big Fella on the Small Screen

Catch these clips from the MLB Network On Hot Stove: With Chris Russo from Studio K With Brian Kenney

Forbes, Newsday and The Voice of San Diego

Forbes: Epic Babe Ruth Bio By Jane Leavy Captures His Life And Times Jane Leavy’s second book, a critically acclaimed, New York Times best-selling biography of Mickey Mantle in 2010, has sold 211,000 copies in hardback and 60,000 in paperback. Such commercial success in today’s publishing world is like a big leaguer hitting 85 homers in a […]

The theme music behind the Curse of the Bambino

Jane Leavy, the author of New York Times bestsellers Sandy Koufax, a Lefty’s Legacy, and The Last Boy, Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood, takes on baseball’s greatest legend in The Big Fella, a biography of Babe Ruth published this week by HarperCollins. Using the 21-day barnstorming tour that Ruth took with Lou […]