He Book Babes

The Man Who Made Babe Ruth

At six-feet-six, the hulking Martin Leo Boutilier (1872-1944) was hard to miss. Yet the many books written about Babe Ruth relegate the soft-spoken teacher and coach to the shadows. Ruth credited Boutilier--known as Brother Matthias in the Congregation of St. Francis Xavier--with making him the man and the baseball player he became. Matthias saw something in the troubled seven-year old and nurtured his athletic ability. Spending many extra hours on the ballfield with him over a dozen years, he taught Ruth how to hit and converted the young left-handed catcher into a formidable pitcher. Overshadowed by a fellow Xavierian brother who was given the credit for discovering the baseball prodigy, Matthias never received his due from the public but didn't complain. Ruth never forgot the father figure who continued to provide valuable counsel in later life. This is the first telling of the full story of the man who gave the world its most famous baseball star.

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Living with Animals

Living with Animals brings a pragmatist ecofeminist perspective to discussions around animal rights, animal welfare, and animal ethics to move the conversation beyond simple use or non-use decisions. Erin McKenna uses a case study approach with select species to question how humans should live and interact with various animal beings through specific instances of such relationships. Addressing standard topics such as the use of animals for food, use for biomedical research, use in entertainment, use as companions, use as captive specimens in zoos, and use in hunting and ecotourism through a revolutionary pluralist and experimental approach, McKenna provides an uncommonly nuanced accounts for complex relationships and changing circumstances. Rather than seek absolute moral stands regarding human relationships with other animal beings, and rather than trying to end such relationships altogether, the books urges us to make existing relations better.