RIP, Robert Creamer

"Foul", the book about Connie Hawkins, was an excellent sports biography which came out in about 1970 or 1971.

"The Hustler's Handbook" by Bill Veeck wasn't strictly a biography but I think this was a better book and was more entertaining than "Veeck as in Wreck" (which was an excellent book).

Milton Shapiro's books - I read a lot of them when I was young in the 1960s - were really just kids or young adult books. Gene Schoor's sports books were worse than Milton Shapiro's. As for Al Hirshberg - he did "As told to" biographies on athletes in the Boston area.

Curt Flood's book "The Way It Is" preceded Creamer's book by a couple of years. There were a couple of other Ruth biographies, one by Marshal Smelser (The Life that Ruth Built) and one by Kal Wagenheim (the title escapes me - I had his wife as a history professor and she was pretty cool) which came out around the same time.

I'm not arguing that Creamer's book isn't outstanding, but the other books at the time were excellent. I remember when Creamer's book came out and I didn't think of it as a ground-breaking book. "Ball Four" was a ground-breaking book. When Ball Four first came out, I was a junior in high school. A friend loaned it to me and I read it in one afternoon and night.

There were good sports books before Creamer.

 

He was one of the best, and his book on Babe Ruth (as well as much of his other stuff) influenced many, many young writers -- including me. Prayers for Robert and his family. He will be missed.

 

None of those you mentioned struck me as even close to what Creamer accomplished with his book on Babe Ruth, including Ball Four. The Creamer book was both scholarly and very readable. He definitely was one of the best.