The Storytellers: From Mel Allen to Bob Costas : Sixty Years of Baseball Tales from the Broadcast Booth [Paperback]

Curt Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 26, 1997

The Storytellers are baseball's play-by-play and color men who have created the legends and lore of the game. From the days of static-filled radio broadcasts to today's internationally televised games, baseball has been shaped into America's pastime by these wizards of the microphone. Assembled in this terrific collection, these great announcers from all over the country share with us some of their favorite stories about the job - their best games, most admired players, preferred parks, biggest tubs and More

With their unique styles of speech, cadences, and catch phrases, these broadcasters have become our friends at the ballpark -- conveying the excitement, celebrating the victories, and commiserating on the defeats. Baseball fans of all ages -- and from the East coast to the West coast -- will enjoy welcoming these ballpark friends into their homes once again. The Storytellers will be released in an audio version in Spring 1997.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Curt Smith takes a stunningly simple idea and executes it in an obvious format: assemble the Homers of baseball and let them rip. The result is an oral history of the game delivered with the crispness and color of the voices in the broadcast booth whose day--and night--job is to bring us the game. There are giants at work here: Mel Allen, Jack Brickhouse, Curt Gowdy, and Ernie Harwell. There are newer voices, too--Bob Costas, Tim McCarver, and John Miller among them--but The Storytellers truly belongs to the sounds of the past brought into the present. Allen on Mickey Mantle is wonderfully stirring, as is Gowdy on Ted Williams. Funny when it wants to be, and poignant without forcing nostalgia, The Storytellers is a bit like coming home, turning on the radio, and hearing the comfortable and exuberant sounds of childhood passion. The writing is a reminder of why, in an era of cold corporate ownership and player greed, the game survives in the heart and somehow endures.

Product Details

• Paperback: 278 pages
• Publisher: Macmillan General Reference; 100 edition (March 26, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0028615107
• ISBN-13: 978-0028615103
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,098,779 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderful Collection of Great Baseball Stories, November 7, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Storytellers: From Mel Allen to Bob Costas : Sixty Years of Baseball Tales from the Broadcast Booth (Hardcover)

The Storytellers is a hillarious and moving collection of baseball stories told by the people who have held our ears for decades. The funniest stories (Ernie Harwell explaining to a baseball usher that it wasn't beer he had spilled . . .)had my wife and I laughing out loud. The most moving (Bob Costas boyhood visit to Yankee stadium) still bring a tear to my eye. A must read for fans of baseball, fans of broadcasting, or fans of oral storytelling. This is a wonderful book to read aloud.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Most enjoyable., July 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Storytellers: From Mel Allen to Bob Costas : Sixty Years of Baseball Tales from the Broadcast Booth (Paperback)

Curt Smith gathers some of the legendary Voices of baseball together to (what else?) tell stories. The anecdotes are invarably interesting, funny, moving, and illuminating, whether or not the reader has actually had the pleasure of listening to any or all of these broadcasters. My only quibble with this book is that author Smith seems to have lifted several passages in toto from his earlier, and even more fascinating, "Voices Of The Game." This seems like unnecessary duplication and can be mildly annoying for those of us who've read both. Still, it's well worth the time of anybody who loves the Summer Game.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Stories, Great Storytellers, April 24, 2002

By 

Brian McKain (Haymarket, VA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Storytellers: From Mel Allen to Bob Costas : Sixty Years of Baseball Tales from the Broadcast Booth (Hardcover)

The stories are varied, entertaining, and required reading for anyone that enjoys listening to baseball on the radio while sitting on their porch on a warm summer's evening. I could have done without Curt Smith's introduction to each chapter, as his over-the-top prose didn't seem to fit with the simplicity of the language of the anectdotes.
From coast to coast, this is a winner. New Yorkers will be particularly fond, however, of the pre-California baseball tales.