It Was Never About the Babe

The Red Sox, Racism, Mismanagement, and the Curse of the Bambino

By: Jerry M. Gutlon

Narrated by: Pete Larkin

The first book to tell the entire story of why the Red Sox are now a dynasty - and what kept them from winning for more than eight decades.

For years, Red Sox fans were told that their team was cursed because the Sox sold Babe Ruth to the hated Yankees. But as Jerry Gutlon reveals in It Was Never About the Babe, there is much more drama to Red Sox history than the “Curse of the Bambino.” The truth is more shocking than any myth.With the thorough research of a seasoned journalist and the zeal of a lifelong Red Sox fan, Gutlon explains why the Sox came up short season after season: ownership chose managers and players not based on their talent, but on whom they drank with; before and after baseball integrated, personal and institutional racism affected their decision-making; and their teams consistently lacked the talent, leadership, chemistry, and luck needed to win championships.Most fans don’t know that Babe Ruth was sold not just to produce a Broadway play, bust also because commissioner Ban Johnson was trying to run Sox owner Harry Frazee out of baseball and because Ruth was a major disruption in the Sox clubhouse. They will be surprised to learn that Jackie Robinson tried out at Fenway Park and shocked to learn that much-admired Tom Yawkey, along with owning the Red Sox, also owned a brothel for decades.

Covering the early Red Sox championship dynasty of Ruth, the never-good-enough teams of Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, and Carlton Fisk and Curt Schilling, It Was Never About the Babe is an eye-opening read for every baseball fan, and a must-own book for every fan in Boston.

©2009 Jerry M. Gutlon (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

The whole truth.

I have been waiting for a book like this to be written, and read, At last, as a Red Sox fan, I now have the entire story, Hard as it is to hear, about my team. If you want to hear the facts about the team ownership from 1933-2001, this is the book for you.

Author JUST read old news papers for research

RED SOX Nation by Peter Glenbrook was much more accurate and entertaining, especially regarding Ted Williams. I had to stop listening when the author Jerry Gutlon misquoted Ted Williams. Anyone can read old news papers and write a paper, he'll I did it in grade school... I wish I could get my money back.

Really disappointing in many areas

It's hard to find many positives in the 8 1/2 hour listen. I'm not a Red Sox fan, for clarity and objectivity sake. The bullet points:

1. I've never read a "sports" book that was more race obsessed and desperately in search of a racist narrative. Gutlon, obvously a massively partisan leftist, does not stray from his narrative about the Red Sox organization and racism for more than 10-15 minutes at a time. If you'd like to push off feelings of guilt onto a baseball organization, than this 8 1/2 hours are for you.
2. There are precious few details about the things that happened on the field and the explanation of why they are unrelated to any sort of curse, in fact the author seems to be pushing the narrative that these things all happened because the Red Sox organization was racist and incompetent. Which had nothing to do with World Series failures or Bucky Dent homers or Aaron Boone homers, he basically replaces one hokey belief with another. The point of all this, or so I thought, was how does an organization get into position as often as the Red Sox did and not win. I was apparently wrong.
3. "The Red Sox faltered in 1987" is about as in depth as Mr Gutlon goes into what happened AFTER these massive choke jobs, when if you're pushing the narrative that they just weren't good enough, shouldn't you talk about how the Blue Jays rose and surpassed them, I mean he could talk about the integrated Blue Jays beating them if he wanted to beat the dead horse some more, at least that would be consistent. The "Red Sox won again in 1988 but completely fell apart in the ALCS against the Oakland A's" passes for commentary. No mention of the A's winning 104 games in 88 or why they were better built than the Red Sox so they overcame their choke moment in the 1988 World Series to be right back in 1989 and 1990 to win one of the three?
4. There are precious few details about the actual players involved other than petty peccadillos and spats. Players are therefore as one dimensional as they were in their trading cards, which essentially is the level of depth we are talking about here. Especially minority ballplayers who are basically reduced to their level of activism in the face of racism, real or perceived. Particularly distressing was how Jim Rice was seemingly not willing to turn getting snubbed at some Boston eatery into a front page brewha, but a reporter who witnessed it wanted to and Rice essentially begged him to leave it alone. Which makes me admire Jim Rice even more than I did before, seems to upset Mr Gutlon, who wants to tell Jim Rice what is and isn't worth making a stink over with regard to race. I think Jim Rice has that covered.
5. The chapters that drone on about the 20s, 30s and 40s will be torture if you have no concept of the era of baseball or don't care about "No No Nannette" or the various other endeavors of Boston's owner that sold Babe Ruth for cash. I barely got thru them without nodding off, I can't imagine what someone in the 20s or 30s would think.
6. Dan Shaunnessy(Sp, cause I'm not looking him up) gets so much time in this book, I have to wonder if there's something personal there. The guy's a hack sportswriter, that's why he did the same job for a hundred years. But Mr Gutlon's seeming hatred for this fish hack permeates entire chapters and it's boring and pointless. You're both hacks, sir.
7. Generally I do not complain about length, I've listened to 15/16 hour audio books, I think even a couple 20 hour books, this one was 8 1/2 hrs and felt 20-25. It was that redundant and quite frankly boring.

Glad it was free on Amazon Plus, I'd be angry if I wasted a credit on this, I can't imagine anyone finding this all that great or even interesting.

Nothing New

If you're a fan of the Red Sox who isn't aware of the details of the teams history; this is a listenable selection. If you're already familiar with the team's history you'll find most of the info in this book redundant. The text is also a bit didactic in nature as well as so totally focused on the team's lamentable racial history. I found the amount of detail about the history of the team's management issues impressive though there were precious few stories about the players. There was also far too much from Dan Shaughnessy whose invented the Curse of the Bambino, and rode it for way too many years in order to fill his bank account and hope to make himself relevant; uh Dan, it didn't. For the hardcore Sawx fan whose knowledge of the team begins with Clemens and Pedro there is a chance to learn historical knowledge about the franchise from this selection. I recommend it, with reservations, for baseball fans those without a deep knowledge of the team's history.