I liked "The House that Ruth Built" more than I expected. I certainly underestimated the changes undergoing baseball in the early '20's, and didn't appreciate the effect of introducing a faster ball following the "Black Sox" scandal.
The primary antagonists in "The House that Ruth Built" were John McGraw, who was the purveyor of scientific baseball, grinding out bunts, sacrifices, base steals and strong defence, along with plays and pitches choreographed from the manager to make every run a work of art and effort. Ruth exemplified the opposite - a single swing bringing in a run, or more. McGraw considered Ruth to be animalistic and dangerous to the life of the game, the rest of the world considered Ruth a superman and larger than life in all aspects.
I hadn't known of this evolution before reading the book. I also hadn't appreciated what it would have been like for the new Yankees to be sharing the Polo Grounds with the established, and high achieving, NY Giants. McGraw, a part owner of the Giants actually accellerated the creation of "the Yankee Stadium" by greatly increasing the rent charged to the tenant Yankees. However, he also put up roadblocks, by hamstringing the municipal processes necessary to build the stadium, using his close personal contacts and heritage.
I also hadn't realized how revolutionary Yankee Stadium was - the size of the enterprise, the speed of construction, the creation of multi-location food and beverage (though alcohol was prohibited at the time, a prime reason for the stadium was to be a captive audience for the owner's brewery), the thought that went into the ramps and access to seats.
The book contains lots of gritty stories of the time, which makes the odd, out of sequence story telling forgiveable.
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