Fridays with Red: A Radio Friendship [Hardcover]

Bob Edwards (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 21, 1993

Wit, wisdom, a silky southern voice--these were the qualities that captivated millions of faithful Red Barber fans each Friday as he chatted with Morning Edition host Bob Edwards on subjects ranging from gardening to sports to the mysteries of life. This affectionate memoir will delight readers.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Red Barber, who made his reputation as a baseball broadcaster in Cincinnati, Brooklyn and the Bronx, spent the years from 1980 until his death in 1992 at age 84 doing five-minute spots on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" with Edwards. This affecting reminiscence is a chronicle of those years, with excerpts from tapes of the show about sports, flowers, cats (Barber was an unregenerate ailurophile) and religion (he was a lay reader in the Episcopal Church, authorized to preach sermons). It is also the account of the friendship that developed between the two men and of a mentor who taught his protege by example. The author includes tales of Barber's glory days and his association with figures from Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese to Ethel Merman and Ethel Barrymore, and goes on to his battles against deafness, blindness and the progression of his beloved wife's Alzheimer's disease. The book should have a wide appeal. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The year is 1950, and Red Barber, the popular voice of Brooklyn, is describing Ebbets Field, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers: "For those of you who haven't seen Ebbets Field, it's a double-decked stadium and the double-decking begins at right field's corner... and there is no stand in back of right field. That's the famous fence or wall, the right field wall." Anyone who heard Barber's voice on National Public Radio's Morning Edition with host Bob Edwards will take pleasure in this book. A baseball announcer for 33 years, Barber popularized the phrase "to be in the catbird seat" (i.e., to be sitting pretty) when he was the play-by-play announcer for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Born in 1908, Red Barber was 84 when he died in October 1992. This informative and balanced biography of a man full of wisdom and pathos is recommended for sports collections. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/93.
- Jim Paxman, Tennessee State Univ., Nashville
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1St Edition edition (October 21, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671870130
• ISBN-13: 978-0671870133
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,068,888 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #46 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Miscellaneous > Sports Broadcasting

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful little book, May 11, 2002

By 

inland sailor "inlandsailor" (Wooster, OH USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Fridays with Red: A Radio Friendship (Hardcover)

This is a beautiful little book about a man dedicated to his craft and the relationship he developed with a radio commentator 40 years his junior. Bob Edwards brings Red Barber to life and anyone fortunate enough to have heard their all too short weekly get togethers will enjoy the background information on the amazing Red Barber.
Edwards voice is familiar to millions but he grew to respect and admire this (perhaps) old fashioned southern gentleman and his gentle ways. Barber was truly a man of strong convictions and a basic goodness that shines through in this book. Heartwarming and fascinating.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delightful book for old-fashioned sports enthusiasts... and for journalists, November 29, 2009

By 

Esther Schindler (Scottsdale, AZ USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fridays with Red : A Radio Friendship (Hardcover)

I remember listening to NPR's Bob Edwards weekly interviews with legendary sportscaster Red Barber -- every Friday at 7:35 Eastern, for four minutes -- only a few years after the interviews began. It was the highlight of my morning commute, even though I could care less, back then, about baseball or any other sport. The interviews were a sunny moment in which a delightful old southern gentleman might share stories about his garden or tell a tale about a baseball hero.

I found this book at a used bookstore, started to read it, and... well, there went the rest of MY day. Bob Edwards' memoir isn't really an in-depth biography of Red Barber. It is, however, a really well-written, immensely readable tribute to the conversations the two men had, and an ode to Barber's accomplishments (he was on the air for almost 63 years). Edwards includes several of their conversations (each was, after all, only four minutes long) and adds comments and context.

If you're a sports fan, particularly a baseball fan of a Certain Age, there's no question that you'll enjoy this book. There's LOTS of wonderful anecdotes, from the historical (Red Barber was the first to televise a major league baseball game), to the people-anecdotal (when WOR first played "A Symphony in D for the Dodgers," said Barber, "I thought [Larry MacPhail] would just break all buttons on his vest"), to the thought provoking (night games were reluctantly adopted even though the owners "said it was against tradition, that you were supposed to play in God's sunlight"). What fun!

But I got the most out of this book from my professional persona as a journalist. Because, after all, that's what Red Barber was; he spent several hours at a time telling people what he saw, and bringing a game to life. I learned a lot from the attitudes he shared. Primarily among them was to avoid partisanship. In one interview, he told Edwards, "I did everything I could not to be a rooter, Bob, because...I was describing to millions of people who could not see the event for themselves... And I felt it was up to me to describe what happened to the ball and to the people who touched the ball, and then let each listener in her or her way have whatever rooting interest they wanted to have." I don't think I could better express what journalists aim for.

He was also a master at painting a picture in words. As Edwards writes, "Red painted pictures more real than the work of any artist." He's famous for bringing folksy expressions to the game: "the catbird seat," "ducks on the pond," and a close game as "tighter than a new pair of shoes on a rainy day." I dare say many younger baseball fans (at least those who haven't watched Baseball - A Film By Ken Burns) will be surprised by how much of the game's lingo came from Barber.

I was particularly touched by Barber's awareness of his own personal growth, with the most famous example of his relationship with Jackie Robinson. "Red Barber had grown up in a completely segregated world," writes Edwards. "He said, 'In the words of the song in South Pacific, I had been "carefully taught."' Red would have to make a lot of adjustments in attitude before he could broadcast a game in which a black man was equal to a white man." To use one of his own expressions, Barber won his own battle and he beat himself. Barber explained that he remembered back in 1935 when Judge Landis told broadcasters that their only duty was to report, and to leave their personal opinions back in their hotel rooms; that helped him adjust to the upcoming black player. "What was my assignment in this? Only to report. And suddenly all the scales fell off of my eyes and I had no problem whatsoever. All I did about Jackie Robinson, and the other black players who followed, was simply to report, report them as I did any other ballplayer."

That's a lesson that I think a lot of today's journalists can learn, when it comes to sharing one's own opinions and perceptions in print.

But not every one of these conversations is so deep. Red Barber gave a bit of broadcasting advice that I hope to apply to my own writing, though it's in a wholly different genre: Follow the ball. "You follow the ball... at the moment it's hit. But then you pick up the defensive ballplayer, especially the outfielder. A lot of broadcasters make the mistake of trying to judge that a ball's going to go into the stands and then it gets caught and then they've got egg on their face. ... Always go with the outfielder, and he will tell you. And if the ball goes into the stands, he will look up and watch it go into the stands with you."

This is a fun book for anyone, though. Imagine the chats you'd have over your backyard fence, if you happened to live next door to a man who defined an era.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Man In The Booth, November 10, 2009

By 

Don Reed "Don" (Cliffside Park NJ) - See all my reviews

This was supposed to be an "easy read" - the equilibrium-restoring counterbalance to Hank Greenspun's superlative but intense memoir, Where I Stand.

I expected nothing. What I discovered was a book that could not have been better written had its author been E.B. White.

"Growing up, we didn't know we were poor." Now I know that I, too, had "grown up poor," in a way - not having known about or listened to National Public Radio's four-minute weekly radio broadcasts of the conversations between Bob Edwards and Red Barber, aired for twelve years in the 1980s-90s.

Walter Lanier Barber [1908-1992], baseball announcer for the Cincinnati Reds, Brooklyn Dodgers, and N.Y. Yankees, really must have been a saint. Who else could have seen the good side of the insufferable egotist who had publicly humiliated Julius De Rosa on his prime time TV show? (Red, on Arthur Godfrey: "He was completely himself." Yes, unfortunately, he was). Edwards provided the second reason why Red should have spent his entire career with the California Angels: "We couldn't talk about basketball. I love it; he hated it."

Born in 1952, I listened to countless games described on the radio by Red and Mel Allen, one of my childhood heroes. Mel remains forever unforgettable. But oddly, today - after listening to Red on You Tube postings - I could not recall having heard the sound of his voice. This was more than compensated for by FWR, who introduced me to the Red Barber whose complexity, generosity, & spiritual wealth I never knew existed.

(FWR also led to the discovery that in September 1966, Red & I had shared a common fate, both lives having been steamrolled by brutal change. The era of the Yankee management hiring spineless announcers had begun, & Red was out. A few miles away, my cherished Riverdale had abruptly ceased to be home).

Like financial inheritances received by wastrels, Red's legacy has been squandered.

He hated untrained, unprofessional, hyper-ventilating ex-jocks behind microphones & in front of TV cameras. But they were the wave of the future in 1966, when his career with the Yankees ignominiously ended after bluntly being told just before the end of the season that he wasn't coming back in 1967 (he never had a chance to say farewell, publicly. The three last meaningless Yankee games were all washed away by the autumn rains).

Vin Scully, trained by Red and now the last link to the Red Barber era, must be appalled by today's sports media. Chris Collinsworth, Gary Myers, and a very few other excellent play-callers and color commentators are outnumbered 15-1 by verbose yahoos who, like high school truants, are cowards - deadly afraid of being thought to be different, or distinguished, or God forbid, well-educated.

(State repeatedly during your ESPN job interview: "We talked about"..."kind of"..."a little bit"..."sort of"..."these things drive coaches crazy"..."we talk about"..."a little bit"..."kind of." Assert the existence of non-existent "ironies." Wave your arms repeatedly, demonstrating that you know how to visually distract the viewers from the point you're trying to make. Claim that significant "history" had been made in an insignificant game. You're hired.)

People who recognize and appreciate actual ironies need not rely on ESPN's ghost events; FWR provides a good one.

The imperious owner of the Dodgers, Walter O'Malley, had demanded that Red not announce the miniscule attendance of a Dodger home game - nonsensically insisting instead on trying to "shame" the absent fans by televising the thousands of empty seats. Red defied his boss.

Then, in 1966, it was Red himself who had demanded that the empty seats of Yankee Stadium - at the end of the worst year the Yankees had ever had - be televised. His TV director - almost certainly having been ordered by management not to do it - repeatedly refused. Stymied, Red stated on the air that only 413 fans had paid their way in. Career over.

Two things do not ring true. Red lauded the achievements and character of William Paley, his former CBS boss. Yet, Paley in the 1960s was ultimately responsible for what had made Red furious - pouring money into increasingly moronic prime-time shows while the Yankees - at that time, owned by CBS - were self-destructing because CBS refused to pay the salaries of the best baseball players on the market. This incongruity went unmentioned (perhaps, intentionally).

And an analogy crafted by the author misfires. The hypothetical scenario of Eisenhower in World War II asking a reporter not to report the news of the Allied invasion of France in D-Day cannot be compared to pressure being exerted on a broadcaster not to explicitly state that a baseball no-hitter is in progress.

Red wasn't perfect, but at least his stern emphasis on attention to detail (ESPN interviewee: "That kind of drove his co-workers and subordinates crazy!") was justifiable. He didn't tolerate people who were coasting on about half of their innate talent or refusing to be as well-prepared as Red.

What I don't understand and was stunned by was his justification of Howard Cosell's schtick, saying that it was essential for Cosell to stand out in a crowded media field.

Red, you would not know the world today, were it possible for you to see the teenagers (age 50), obnoxious "personalities," & obsequious court-jesters on sports television. Then again, maybe you would. Their "schtick" isn't really that much different from what Cosell - who ended up making Arthur Godfrey look like a saint - had originally devised.

The lack of a chronology detailing the events in Red's life is an oversight. But at least there's an index - something that publishers today, 16 years later, idiotically consider an unnecessary luxury instead of an indispensable asset (if you want a workable analogy, this attitude is the exact equivalent of today's media sports executives considering intelligent broadcasters to be a liability).

No matter. If I could, I'd give FWR six stars.

Acquire this book. You'll write your own review, entitled "Thank God It's 'Fridays.' "