Why I Love Baseball

by Larry King Narrated by Larry King

Overview

Larry King was a true-blue baseball fanatic. A lifelong love affair began the night he attended a Dodgers game at Ebbets Field as a kid in 1940s Brooklyn. That was a simpler era in America's history, a time when tickets to a game cost fifty cents and parish priests prayed for Gil Hodges to break out of a slump.

In this heartfelt valentine to America's favorite pastime, King recalls the many pleasures the game brought him for more than sixty years. During his broadcasting career, King had the opportunity to meet and interview many of the legends of his youth. Jackie Robinson, Casey Stengel, Ted Williams, Leo Durocher, Stan Musial-they're all here-plus many, many more. From the golden days when Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, and Duke Snider were all playing center field for New York teams at the same time, to the Subway Series in 2000 and the stirring first ballgame in New York after 9/11, this unique history is full of wonderful anecdotes. Friends and fellow baseball fanatics Bob Costas, Charlie Bragg, and Herb Cohen also contributed essays on their love for the game, and King discusses his favorite books, movies, and songs about the sport. This ode to baseball is a must for all fans and will be treasured by lovers of the game everywhere.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

There's more padding in this book than in all the chest guards worn by major league umpires and catchers, but once readers strip that away, they'll find a charming, sweet and savvy paean to the national pastime. Baseball wins most fans during childhood, and King starts with his own, when, at age 17, in 1951, he watched Bobby Thomson hit the home run that won the pennant for the Giants, against King's beloved Brooklyn Dodgers ("the saddest day in my life"). He then backtracks to even younger days, extolling the smell of popcorn, beer and hot dogs, the sight of brown dirt against green grass and the "crisp, white uniforms of the Dodgers." (King is now a Baltimore Orioles fan.) He goes on to cover the sports' eccentricities and eccentrics, the WWII years, old timers' games, Jewish players, baseball songs, stadiums, the joys of the box score, really just about anything that strikes his fancy including, occasionally, dramatic baseball issues such as its early exclusion of nonwhite players and its current labor troubles ("millionaires arguing with billionaires"; King calls for a payroll floor as well as a tax on high payrolls). A good deal of the baseball lore King relates will be familiar to seasoned fans, and he stuffs the book with others' tales or writings; a full 23 pages are devoted to a reprint of a 1987 Washington Post Magazine article of 99 reasons why baseball is superior to football. Still, what glues it all together and gives it a memorable spin is King's distinctive voice the book reads like a fireside chat with this master conversationalist and, above all, his passion for the sport. Most baseballs fans will adore this love letter to one of America's most enduring institutions. (Apr.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Talk-show host King grew up in Brooklyn and became a Dodgers fan, but when the team moved a continent away to California, he, like many others, suddenly became an ex-admirer, eventually switching loyalties to the Baltimore Orioles. King's career kept him in, or close to, major league baseball cities and enabled his contact with players, managers, and owners who all share his love for the game. In this brief book, the author recalls his meetings and interviews with baseball people and shares his reminiscences of the game's influence on his life. There is nothing really new here, but the content will be interesting and mildly fascinating to those listeners who did not grow up with their ears glued to the voices of Mel Allen, Red Barber, Joe Buck, and company folks different from those who still look at the box scores in the newspaper before reading the front page. King's reading is a plus, and listeners will certainly enjoy the lyrics to his favorite baseball songs, unlikely to be heard anywhere else. Recommended for sports collections. Cliff Glaviano, Bowling Green State Univ. Libs., OH Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

AUG/SEP 04 - AudioFile

Even casual Larry King fans know that he loves baseball--with a passion greater than his love of suspenders. In WHY I LOVE BASEBALL, King shares his devotion to the American pastime, mixing stories from his youth with anecdotes from the present or recent past. In particular, lifelong baseball fans will share King’s unbridled enthusiasm about his meetings with the who’s who of the sport; more importantly, they will understand why King would seemingly give up his career if he could, somehow, transform baseball into his life’s work. If there’s one minor flaw with the production, it’s King’s tendency to speak a tad too quickly. But even that shortcoming will matter little to true baseball aficionados, who will want to hear each story as quickly as possible. D.J.S. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940175108652
Publisher:	Phoenix Books, Inc.
Publication date:	03/01/2004
Edition description:	Unabridged

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