Why I Love Baseball
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- 6,49 €
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- 6,49 €
Publisher Description
Larry King is a true-blue baseball fanatic. Going to his first game as a kid in 1940’s New York was the start of a lifelong love affair. This heartfelt valentine to America’s game evokes a simpler time in our country’s history: complete with the smells of popcorn, beer and hot-dogs; the sight of the green, closely-mowed infield; the dark brown dirt paths; the crisp white uniforms; the sound of the excited voices of announcers; the crack of the bat; and the roar of the crowd. Baseball, he discovered, is its own unique universe.
When he finally had the opportunity to personally interview legendary manager Leo Durocher, Larry was so happy that he kept the return phone call for twenty years, just so he could look at it and remember the day. Over his long and distinguished career he’s had the opportunity to meet and interview such heroes as Casey Stengel, Jackie Robinson, and Ted Williams. Passion for the game has suffused his life. Even now, he revels in the Orioles and the Mets. Every reason to love baseball is laid out in this nostalgic book, as King gives an inside view to the trading cards, the scuffles the most classic plays, the labor disputes, and the personalities that pervade the sport. It is the only team game without a clock or a designated ending time. Larger-than-life personalities make up its history. Why I Love Baseball will appeal to anyone who recognizes baseball as America’s favorite pastime.
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.