The seventh Babe

by Jerome Charyn

In the Babe Ruth era Babe Ragland, a gangly orphan from Baltimore, walks into a tryout for the Boston Red Sox, wins a spot as third-baseman, and becomes the league's seventh Babe. But as he rises to superstardom, Jerome Charyn gives the novel a magical turn that sets Babe in a new direction and transforms a conventional story line into something rich and wonderful. Upon discovering The Seventh Babe by chance or through the recommendations of friends, readers have devoted their energies to removing it from American literature's short list of best kept secrets. Place The Seventh Babe beside the sports fiction of Irwin Shaw, Mark Harris, Bernard Malamud, and W. P. Kinsella. It's one of the overlooked masterworks of the genre.