Babe Ruth and the 1918 Red Sox is the first complete account of Boston's fifth World Series championship. The year is famous, but most fans know very little about the season.

During that tumultuous summer, the Great War in Europe cast an ominous shadow over the national game, as enlistments and the draft wreaked havoc with every team's roster. Players and owners fought bitterly over contracts and revenue, the parks were infested with gamblers, and the Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs almost called off the World Series. And a Boston player known as The Colossus — 23-year-old Babe Ruth — began his historic transformation from pitching ace to the game's greatest slugger.

Wood also poses a chilling question: Was the 1918 World Series fixed?

Sports Illustrated called the book "an entertaining and exhaustive account of a tumultuous season" and Robert W. Creamer, author of the definitive biography of Ruth, said "Mr. Wood has lit upon one of the most turbulent and important and at the same time least known years in baseball history. He has done remarkable, revelatory research, and he has a clean, clear way of writing."