Review of "Babe & Me," by Dan Gutman

Review of

Babe & Me, by Dan Gutman ISBN 0439784778

Five out of five stars

 Joe Stoshack is a boy that is a passionate baseball fan, he studies the old players and knows all the best legends about them. He also has the skill of being able to take a baseball card of an old player and somehow channel energy that allows him to travel back in time. To return, he uses a card of a modern player. When he travels back in time, he is automatically sent to a location very close to where the players are in physical and temporal space.

 In this story, Joe is fascinated by the legend of Babe Ruth in the third game of the 1932 World Series between the Yankees and the Cubs. According to the story, Babe openly pointed to centerfield moments before he hit the ball to that spot. This legend is a fabrication, every player present said that Babe was being heckled by the Cubs bench and held up one or two fingers and said that he only had two strikes on him or that he had one strike left. His fingers just happened to be pointing that direction.

 Joe decides that he wants to attend the game and see the action for himself. His parents are aware of his unique talent, so his dad decides to go with him. Unfortunately, his father spoils much of the story by turning greedy in trying to deposit money so it will draw interest for nearly seventy years, get the Babe to autograph a bag full of baseballs for resale when they return to their own time and to gamble on the known outcome of the series.

 Babe Ruth is depicted as an incredibly generous and often irresponsible person. He was in the later stages of his career during this timeframe, when he was overweight and struggled in the field. In many ways he was also sad, reflecting on his childhood when he was abandoned by his father. Some history is also injected into the story as there is the backdrop of the rise of Adolph Hitler to the leadership of Germany.

If you understand the legend of Babe Ruth and how famous he was when he played, then you will understand all aspects of the story. Absent that, you may need to do some supplemental reading. Even though there are modern superstars of sports, none has yet to achieve the incredible fame that was the Babe Ruth persona.