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The Called Shot
Babe Ruth, the Chicago Cubs, and the Unforgettable Major League Baseball Season of 1932
Author: Thomas Wolf
Narrator: Barry Abrams
Unabridged: 10 hr 59 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc.
Published: 05/29/2020
Category: Sports & Recreation - Baseball - History
Synopsis
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?
". 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." ---AudioFile