Easton Press leather edition of Robert Creamer's "Babe: The Legend Comes to Life," a COLLECTOR'S edition, Illustrated with period photographs, one of the LIBRARY OF AMERICAN HISTORY series, published in 1998. Bound in brown leather, the book has paper end leaves of a ballpark, satin book marker, acid-free paper, Symth-sewn binding, hubbed spine, gold gilding on three edges---in Near Fine condition. Unused bookplate is included. George Herman "Babe" Ruth Jr., who lived from 1895 – 1948, was an American professional baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nicknamed "The Bambino" and "The Sultan of Swat", he began his MLB career as a star left-handed pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, but achieved his greatest fame as a slugging outfielder for the New York Yankees. Ruth established many MLB batting (and some pitching) records, including career home runs (714), runs batted in (RBIs) (2,213), bases on balls (2,062), slugging percentage (.690), and on-base plus slugging (OPS) (1.164); the last two still stand as of 2019. Ruth is regarded as one of the greatest sports heroes in American culture and is considered by many to be the greatest baseball player of all time. Ruth was 6' 2" tall and weighed 190 pounds.  He was  smooth muscled, broad shouldered with long arms and long legs.  The famous "skinny" legs looked skinny only because they were supporting a hairy chested beer-barrel torso. In 1936, Ruth was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame as one of its "first five" inaugural members. At age seven, Ruth was sent to St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys, a reformatory where he was mentored by Brother Matthias Boutlier, the school's disciplinarian and a capable baseball player. In 1914, Ruth was signed to play minor-league baseball for the BALTIMORE ORIOLES but was soon sold to the Red Sox. By 1916, he had built a reputation as an outstanding pitcher who sometimes hit long home runs, a feat unusual for any player in the pre-1920 dead-ball era. Although Ruth twice won 23 games in a season as a pitcher and was a member of three WORLD SERIES championship teams with the Red Sox, he wanted to play every day and was allowed to convert to an outfielder. With regular playing time, he broke the MLB singe-season home run record in 1919. After that season, Red Sox owner Harry Frazee sold Ruth to the Yankees amid controversy. The trade fueled Boston's subsequent 86-year championship drought and popularized the "Curse of the Bambino" superstition. In his 15 years with the Yankees, Ruth helped the team win seven American League pennants and four World Series championships. His big swing led to escalating home run totals that not only drew fans to the ballpark and boosted the sport's popularity but also helped usher in baseball's live-ball era. Ruth's conduct off the field, however, was often far less than all-American. Ruth was married to  Helen Woodford, his first wife, and Claire Hodgson.  He had a large appetite for food, women, booze, fast cars and free spending. Women were availa ble and he found them.  "You should have seen this dame I was with last night," he told a teammate.  "What a body. Not a blemish on it." In 1925, a Long Island girl named Dolores Dixon filed a $50,000 paternity suit against him. The charges were dropped but Helen was hurt anyway. Helen liked to go to spring training with him, but once in New Orleans he had turned on her and said, "Why don't you blow out of here?  You cramp my style." Ty Cobb thought that it was Ruth's early stint as a pitcher that let him perfect his all-r-nothing batting style.  Babe played with many of the baseball greats: Ernie Shore, Bob Shawkey, George Sisler, Jacob Ruppert, Johnny Sain, Joe Bush, Joe Dugan, Dizzy Dean, Bill Carrigan, Edward Barrow, Earl Combs, and Ty Cobb. 443 pages, including an index. I offer combined shipping.