The Bambino Secret

By J. Anderson Cross

At once a contemporary mystery and a historical tale, this novel flashes between two eras, linking authentic historical events and actual occurrences of the 1920s to a present day investigation. Babe... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0979517605
• ISBN13: 9780979517600
• Release Date: April 2008
• Publisher: Elkhorn Publishing Inc.
• Length: 366 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.5" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

race, murder, and romance...

The Bambino Secret, by J. Anderson Cross, has taken several weeks to read through and is difficult to relay without revealing the story, however, it reads easily. The character development seems to need more depth. This novel contains sixty short chapters mostly alternating between the current day and past time. This is a story of race, murder, and romance connected to a secret that is like practicing stop and go landings at the airfield because the time period alternating chapters inhibits the story's flow. The secret isn't steroid use. The Bambino Secret has baseball as a background, and centers around a secret involving baseball's legendary Babe Ruth. However, this is not a baseball story, as only a few pages are set on the playing field. In the chapters of Ruth's time period, his character is written as being less than respectable. The story intertwined the lives of the current day main characters wondering if the secret was true and those (a conspiracy plot is proposed) that didn't want the secret revealed. These chapters were the best part of the book. The chapter's dealing with Ruth's time, trying to place a history to the secret, are not needed, in my opinion, to tell this story. --Katharena Eiermann, 2009

The Bambino Secret

This book is a shocker to read. It is classified as fiction. However, facts were carefully researched, archives were examined, newspapers were read, and people were interviewed. The story grew from this. There was a lot of whispering and gossip through all his career. On to the story. An old black man and his niece see a lawyer. He says that he has proof that Babe Ruth was black. He dies. His niece insists that he was killed. Another old man talks to the lawyer, and also 'dies'. The niece is threatened. All of this happens around the story of Ruth, himself, told in multiple, generational, flashbacks. George H. Ruth, Jr, 'Babe Ruth', was born Feb, 6, 1895. The Babe had a secret that he was fiercely protecting. His school-mates called him 'nigger lips' and poked fun at him. He denied being black and was very aggressive about defending himself. As his talent developed, he began playing on 'white' teams. There were no black players on any team with white players at this time and the baseball commissioner was extremely biased. As he became more and more valuable to baseball, he also became worse and worse in his behavior. Rumors followed him all his life. He was a drunkard, a womanizer, and disregarded rules. He was rude and crude and very hard to get along with. He used prostitutes throughout his marriages, and is reputed to have had his first wife killed so he could marry someone else. His behavior didn't change, and even when he found out that his grandmother was a slave he still hid the secret. When he became ill and was dying, he said to the current commissioner that Jackie Robinson wasn't the first black in the majors. He died on Aug 16, 1948. The nation mourned. This is a book worth reading. It brings the era to life.

A story of racism, baseball, love and reconciliation between the races

The premise of the book, that baseball star George (Babe) Ruth (also known as "the Bambino") was part black is a reasonable one, even if you do not consider some of his facial figures. Despite all the laws and social mores to the contrary, there was significant interbreeding between blacks and whites as soon as black slaves first arrived in the United States. Many slave owners thought nothing of being sexually involved with their female slaves, one writer, whose name I cannot bring to mind, wrote about traveling through slave territory and seeing many mulatto children of slaves that looked a great deal like their master. Therefore, the ban on anyone with an African ancestry playing in the major leagues was being broken on a regular basis. Reasonable estimates are that ten percent of the population passing itself off as white in the first half of the twentieth century had some African ancestry. The initial timeframe of this book is the twenty-first century and aging and former Negro league star LeRoy Griffin knew Babe Ruth when he played and holds proof of a great secret, that Ruth had a black grandmother. LeRoy's niece Cammie accompanies him to the office of Darwin Barney, a Preppie white young lawyer in Kansas City. LeRoy's goal is to have the truth of Ruth's black heritage come out. However, there are sinister forces that will do almost anything to prevent that secret from becoming public. These forces resort to murder, threats of murder and beatings in order to get their way, killing LeRoy and others and threatening Cammie. While this seems to be a bit absurd in the modern world, the falsity of this premise does not diminish the quality of the story. The story moves back and forth between the times of Babe Ruth's playing days, the current time of Darwin and Cammie, the time immediately before Babe was born and all the way back to the events in the lives of his ancestors that led to the creation of his family tree. This tactic builds the sequence in pieces, but the emphasis is on the Babe and modern times. While I don't know all the details of Ruth's life, I know enough to understand that he is depicted as he lived. Ruth was largely an immature child in a man's body; he rarely kept a roommate for any length of time. Common complaints against him were that he refused to flush the toilet, ate and drank heavily, was a slob and had a regular rotation of prostitutes in his room. His teammates loved him professionally and hated him personally. Through all the murders, racism and baseball history, this is also a love story and one of reconciliation between the races. In the end, the people are just people, some are ballplayers and others are lovers who find what they are looking for in unexpected places. The story gripped me at the beginning and held me throughout; it is a history of the United States as expressed through baseball.

Sure to please sports fans and those who enjoy a little conspiracy now and then

Looks can be deceiving, and the stupidity of racism knows no bounds. "The Bambino Secret" is a historical novel looking into a strange rumor that would have destroyed his career at the time. The novel switches between Ruth's time and seventy years later. Supposedly, Babe Ruth had black ancestry and only appeared white. Cammie Griffin discovers evidence proving this claim true - but for something that seems so minor in the modern era, there is certainly a lot of backlash regarding the color of a baseball legend's skin. "The Bambino Secret" is a deftly written mystery and thriller, sure to please sports fans and those who enjoy a little conspiracy now and then.

Amazing story!

Reviewed by Carol Hoyer for Reader Views (9/08) The author of this book has done an excellent job of writing a very suspenseful and intriguing story surrounding Babe Ruth. For years rumor mills said Babe Ruth was black but it never could be proved. Having been one of America's greatest heroes does it really matter? During the 20s blacks weren't allowed to do many things and being a baseball player was one of them. It all began when a black man named Griffin needed a lawyer-- he had something very important to tell. Once he told his story, no one believed him and even though in good health, he ended up dead. Was it to have a secret to stay that way, or was it due to natural causes? Babe's career started with the Orioles - he learned fast, stayed away from others and didn't talk about his past. He was loud, drank too much and always had women around him even though he was married. His career was anything but pleasant some of the time-- many suspected him of being black. He didn't really know. Until one day he met his grandparents-- then he knew. But he kept it a secret. No one could touch the Babe-- even to this day can anyone say for fact he was black? This is a very interesting and informative book. "The Bambino Secret" covered many aspects of being black and poor during the 20s, as well as suspenseful in that some information was fact and some was fiction. It is a great read and one book you can't put down.