As a pioneering female sportswriter, Jane Leavy eventually turned her talent to books, penning three of the all-time best baseball biographies about three of the all-time best players: Sandy Koufax, Mickey Mantle and Babe Ruth. But when she went searching for a fourth biographical subject, she realized that baseball had faltered. The Moneyball era of the last two decades obsessed over data and slowed the game down to a crawl. Major League Baseball has begun to address issues too long ignored, yet the questions linger: How much have these efforts helped to improve the game and reassert its place in American culture? Leavy takes a whirlwind tour of the country seeking answers to these questions. What she uncovers is not only what’s wrong with baseball --- and how to fix it --- but also what’s right with baseball.

After hitting his 60th home run in September 1927 --- a total that would not be exceeded until 1961, when Roger Maris did it with the aid of the extended modern season --- Babe Ruth embarked on the mother of all barnstorming tours, a three-week victory lap across America, accompanied by New York Yankees teammate Lou Gehrig. Business manager Christy Walsh called the tour a "Symphony of Swat." The Omaha World Herald called it "the biggest show since Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey, and seven other associated circuses offered their entire performance under one tent." Jane Leavy recreates that 21-day circus, and in so doing captures the romp and the pathos that defined Ruth’s life and times.

Meticulously reported and elegantly written, THE LAST BOY is a baseball tapestry that weaves together episodes from Jane Leavy’s weekend with The Mick after he was banned from baseball, with reminiscences about the boy from Commerce, Oklahoma.