The story of Babe Ruth's bittersweet farewell at Yankee Stadium has been part of sports lore for generations. Shockingly stooped and frail, the slugger came to the Bronx ballpark on June 13, 1948, to put on the pinstriped uniform a last time and hear the roar of the faithful once more.

He died only two months later, on August 16, at age 53, by most accounts of throat cancer, brought on at least in part by a well-chronicled fondness for tobacco and liquor. But that's all wrong, says a Westchester County, N.Y., dentist with a passion for baseball history. And he's trying to set the record straight.

Maloney uncovered little-known information about the experimental treatment that the doomed baseball titan agreed to take part in, the kindness Ruth showed toward medical staff during his difficult final days and the rare form of cancer he actually died from, nasopharyngeal carcinoma (it causes less than 1 percent of the cancer deaths in the U.S. today).