Gehrig & the Babe

The Friendship and the Feud

By: Tony Castro

Narrated by: Barry Abrams

Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's summary

Gehrig & The Babe: The Friendship and the Feud is the emotionally gripping, electrifying account of the relationship of legendary New York Yankee icons Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth and the tragic behind-the-scenes fight that bitterly tore them apart until Gehrig was dying of a horrific disease.

Written by historian and best-selling author Tony Castro, this critically acclaimed book tells their remarkable story that has often been lost between the pages of individual biographies of the American icons but here is explored in such scope and detail that the Wall Street Journal called Gehrig & the Babe "...the 'Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid' of baseball." ESPN's Jeremy Schaap called Gehrig & the Babe "a fascinating story told in full really for the first time, seventy-plus years after their death."

Tony Castro, whose Mickey Mantle: America's Prodigal Son has been hailed by the New York Times as the definitive biography of the Hall of Fame legend, worked almost a decade on Gehrig & the Babe, interviewing hundreds of their surviving former teammates, associates, and friends while also extensively researching their lives in New York, Baltimore, Boston, and Los Angeles as well as studying years of newspaper accounts of the era in which they played.

©2018 Tony Castro (P)2019 Tantor

amazing

a must read for every baseball fan. This dives into the history of two legends.

Not bad - not great

Nothing new in the book but if one is looking for an abbreviated bio on these two players it’s worth a listen. One thing I found very annoying was the narrator’s attempts at the various subject’s voices. He should just read the book.

Too much bouncing back and forth through time.

The author likes to jump around rather than maintain a chronological timeline. This results in repeating the same story, in detail, more than once and reusing the same quotes two or three times throughout the book. Had he simply started at the beginning and finished at the end, it would have made more sense to the reader/listener (we will be hearing about something from the 1931 season and then all of a sudden we are told about a pennant race and stats from the 1927 season, for example) and would have cut the need for repetition of quotes and stories.

I have already heard or read nearly everything the author covers about both men and their careers and lives, but there are a few details I had not heard about their falling out, which was interesting to me. A solid book if you want a refresher about Gehrig and Ruth, or have not read much about either before.