Note: Thank you to NetGalley, Familius Publishing, and authors Kelly Bennett, Brent Stevens, and Stu Dressler for the advanced reader copy of this book. This review will also be posted on NetGalley. What follows is my unbiased review of the book.

Even if you’re not a fan of baseball, you’ve probably heard of Babe Ruth. He was really the reason baseball gained such popularity in the 1920s following the Black Sox scandal. In many ways, the man, the myth, and the legend are all true as well as being exaggerated, which makes it hard to know fact from fiction.

This coffee table book about Babe Ruth was compiled with the blessing of his family. Julia Ruth-Stevens was a longtime resident of the area I live in and was quite respected in her own right. Just about every spring until she passed away, she would visit the local high school to encourage that year’s baseball team. Her grandson is one of the authors of Out of the Mouth of Babe.

The book is a wonderful assembly of Babe Ruth’s story, as well as direct quotes by him. There are some pictures that were the property of the Ruth-Stevens family and haven’t been seen before. The book is not exactly in chronological order. Although his story does follow his life, there are many spots where it jumps around. This can be a bit distracting at times, but overall I thoroughly enjoyed it.

One thing that is emphasized in several places is Ruth’s barnstorming days and his desire to play against Negro League ballplayers. For a boy who grew up in an orphanage, it’s remarkable that he didn’t share the views about the separation of the races. There’s even a quote by him where he laments that he can’t play against the Negro League players in the Major Leagues, but states, “that’s just how it is.” His barnstorming days fascinated me, especially since his first efforts in this endeavor ended with a suspension for part of the following season, based on the rules of the day (which were changed soon after).

Although Ruth was paid quite well for his day, players were not the multi-millionaires they are today. Barnstorming was a way for them to make more money, as well as reach out to fans who didn’t live near a city that housed a Major League ballclub. The only media at the time were the newspapers, and they all seemed to gravitate towards this man and his larger-than-life personality.

As someone who has read numerous books about baseball and Babe Ruth, there was nothing here that really stood out to me except the details about his barnstorming. Based on the title, I thought there would be a lot more quotes by Ruth and context provided for those quotes. There are plenty of quotes here, but the majority of the book is Babe’s biography, which I already knew. If you want one book about Babe Ruth in your home or on your coffee table, I would recommend this one. If you feel the need to collect everything about Babe Ruth, I can see buying the book due to his descendant’s involvement. It’s not a bad book by far, but it just didn’t have much new information for me.

My other complaint is that unless you are buying the physical hardcover book, it’s difficult to read. I started out reading it on my Kindle Paperwhite, but gave up and tried my phone, followed by my iPad. The formatting for the book didn’t allow me to increase the size of the font, and it was really small on the screens of my Kindle and my phone. I could treat each page like a photograph and enlarge the entire page, but when I made the words large enough for me to read (even with my readers on), then the words were outside the edge of the screen, and I kept having to shift the viewing area around to read them. Pictures also didn’t really show up on the Kindle. The best format for viewing them was on my iPad for sure.

In short, if you want one Babe Ruth book in your collection, this would fit the bill. It’s a good overview of his life and times with excellent pictures. There’s nothing really controversial in the book, as that’s the way the family wanted it. There are quotes by both of his daughters in the book, as well as they remember what it was like to have Babe Ruth as a father. If you’re going to buy it, I’d go with the physical specimen.