My review of Jane Leavy’s The Big Fella and Paul Dickson’s Leo Durocher is now online at the Washington Examiner. Actually, it’s been online for a while–and ran in the March 19 print edition, as I found out today. Lesson: it pays to follow up one’s submissions.

The first paragraph…

In 1920, Babe Ruth changed baseball by hitting a then unthinkable 54 home runs. Thanks mainly to the advent of tabloid newspapers, that feat made him a national celebrity. Over the next 15 seasons, 611 more Babe Ruth fly balls would drop to Earth beyond the American League’s outfield fences. No one had ever seen anything like it. No one had ever seen anything like him.

More here.

I could never understand the appeal of Durocher–as a person, as a manager, as a husband or son, as anything. Having read not only Dickson’s bio, but as two new Ernie Banks bios (reviewed for National Review, forthcoming), Leo’s charm continues to elude me. In this review, it was fun to vent my spleen a little.