Here is the first full, in-depth, adult biography ever written about Babe Ruth, the most spectacular and legendary figure that American sport has ever produced. Robert W. Creamer, the dean of Sports Illustrated's baseball writers, has spent years, as a labor of love, ferreting out the whole and true story of the Babe. He has traveled the length of the country, interviewing old friends (and enemies), family, teammates, and anyone who has something to contribute to what is truly an American saga of success.

The Babe, the poor "bad kid" who was shunted off to spend his growing years at St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys in Baltimore, became (along with another alumnus, Al Jolson) the idol of the nation. His years with the Yankees saved baseball from the catastrophe of the 1919 Chicago "Black Sox" scandal. His name became synonymous with the sport and the sport became synonymous with America.

It is all here: the games, the gargantuan eating and drinking, the flaring temperament combined with the perpetual small-boy charm and penitence, the women, the association with other immortals of the era, the human tragedies and glories. The Babe Ruth story has been told in journalism and in boys' books before, but no one ever researched it all in every aspect until Robert Creamer set himself the task of separating the wheat from the chaff, the true from the false, the real character from the legend.