Customer Reviews

Umpire Strikes Back

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a great book about umpiring. A lot of it is irreverent, but that is Luciano -- respectful, but humorous. The book is easy to read and broken into sections that make for easy reading a couple pages at a time (ahem, for reading in the family "library"). There is a lot more here than just umpiring. You get the inside scoop on players, managers and some owners. Interesting reading that is a little off the beaten path.

THIS IS ONE OF THE FUNNIEST BOOKS I HAVE READ. MR. LUCIANO IS HILARIOUS IN HIS RETELLING OF MANY ENCOUNTERS WITH EARL WEAVER, BILLY MARTIN, AND MANY OTHERS. JUST READ THIS BOOK AND IT WILL HELP BREIGHTEN UP YOUR DAY WITH HIS WIT AND HUMOR. VERY VERY RECOMMENDED.

Being an umpire myself, I truly enjoyed reading how one mancould turn his job into something he really enjoyed. I saw Ron Lucianoump several times when I was a kid and didn't totally understand his antics on the field. In his book, he details his career as the umpire everyone loved to watch; everyone except Earl Weaver. You will love hearing how he ejected Earl even before the first pitch of the game and how Earl literally "stole" second base. You will enjoy hearing how he played third for one player as he umped the game and how rookies would beg him not to "shoot" them out at firstbase. This book is full of stories from one of the men who helped make baseball America's most entertaining past-time.

I'm too young to remember Ron's umping days; so naturally I was skeptical that a book by an umpire would be that funny. But, believe me, folks, this is one of the funniest books you will ever read. His story about how he got Harmen Kilibrew picked off second made me laugh so hard I almost choked. Not only was he a funny person, but he was also a great writer and had a very clever style.

Ron Luciano, a former major league umpire, does a wonderful job of conveying some of what goes on inside the major leagues. His stories are humorous and occasionally hysterically funny. This book is a must for any baseball fan with a sense of humor.

I'm a person who really just got into baseball so Luciano's way of telling his great experiences really pulled me in. His stories are very funny and informative on the true ways of the game.

I must admit I was skeptical before I started to read this book. I figured a book written by an ex-umpire would be boring. In fact, it was quite interesting and fun to read. If you grew up watching baseball during the late 60's and early 70's you should read this book. There are many entertaining baseball anecdotes about the players from that era. However, at times Mr. Luciano becomes a bit pompous. Especially regarding his feud with Earl Weaver. Overall, it was a diverting and enjoyable baseball book.

Great baseball anecdotes from a perspective you may not have explored: the umpire's. I learned a lot from this book, and laughed aloud many times. My affinity with Ron Luciano is that we both mentally measure half-hour blocks of time as "episodes of Gilligan's Island."

Compared with other decades, the 1970s do not rate high on baseball's scale of "golden ages". In spite of the classic 1975 World Series and the many Hall-of-Famers that passed through the portals, the 1970s are considered kind of bland and colorless as baseball decades go. With the birth of free agency in 1975, it was the last time when players could be admired as down-to-earth, blue-collar heroes, even to the point where bench-warmers and utility infielders would file for unemployment benefits during the off-season to make ends meet. Into this tableau stepped Ron Luciano. He was certainly not major league baseball's first celebrity umpire, but rather its first umpire to become a well-known media figure. His relatively brief career on the field (1968-79) will prevent him from ever being enshrined in Cooperstown, but he will be remembered by all who saw him in the same way that John Madden will be remembered as more than just a football coach and color commentator. Both transcended their respective sports.

This is the first of Luciano's five books and the only one you really need. Nobody was more surprised at its success than Luciano himself, so of course he used all his best stories in this book, not knowing there would be a demand for more. In his later books, he portrays himself as "baseball's great storyteller" and spends most of his time recounting events he was not a part of. No matter how well a tale is told, it loses something without the authority of being an eyewitness, and we never know if his co-authors are just relating great baseball lore in the Luciano persona.

Did I mention this book is funny? His Lettermanish sense of humor was way ahead of its time and landed him in a lot of trouble with his contemporaries. One would have to be completely clueless about baseball or have the proverbial ice-water in one's veins to not laugh at some of these stories. All the same, there are also many times when he's trying just too hard to be humorous and it's clearly not working. It's like he's attempting to live up to his media reputation as a "funny guy" when he should just tell the story and let the readers think and enjoy for themselves. Sports in general have a built-in light-heartedness that doesn't take too much effort to communicate to the average fan. Some of the book's best moments and biggest surprises come when Luciano just tries to be himself. Who knew, for instance, that he was a bird-watcher, having charted over 275 different varieties? He tells his bird stories from pages 212-215.

One would be remiss if one did not mention the pall that hangs over the humor upon learning that Luciano committed suicide via carbon monoxide in 1995. I've owned this book almost since the day it came out in paperback and never tire of re-reading it, which makes the author's demise that much sadder. Perhaps the continuously exhibited boisterousness and exuberance was really just a front. While the reader is exposed to a lot of great stories, we never really get to know the human being behind the mask, which was probably very different from his media image. We come closest in the book's final sentence, where he best expresses his love for the game of baseball: "I wanted to tell them all, thanks for letting me be part of it."

I had read this book before, and bought this as a gift for a friend. It was in decent shape, and I was satisfied with the transaction. Thanks for this sevice.