"I WAS NO WORSE OFF THAN THE OTHER KIDS WITH WHOM I PLAYED AND FOUGHT": BABE RUTH’S ADVICE ON PLAYING THE GAME, WITH SCARCE ORIGINAL DUST JACKET

RUTH, Babe. Babe Ruth's Own Book of Baseball. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1928. Octavo, original blue cloth gilt, photographic endpapers, original dust jacket. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $4200.

First trade edition of Babe Ruth’s impressions of the American pastime and its strategic play, with frontispiece portrait and 30 candid photographs, in scarce original dust jacket.

"Millions of words have been written about Babe Ruth since he first donned a major league uniform in 1914." This is his own take on the game and how it is played, ending with the famous quote from Whitey Witt following a Walter Johnson intentional walk of the Babe with two men on and two out, "That's right, better four balls for one base than one ball for four bases anytime." Issued the same year as a signed limited edition of 1000 signed copies, no priority established. Smith 18825. Grobani 27-7. Original owner ink signature dated 1928; bookseller label to rear pastedown.

Text clean, cloth near-fine, scant evidence of old tape repairs to dust jacket flaps and pastedowns. Scarce original dust jacket with mild toning to spine, clean and with little wear. An extremely good copy.