Why I Love Baseball [Unabridged] [Audio CD]

Larry King (Author, Narrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2004

Larry King is 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 our country'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 has brought him over the past sixty years. In the course of 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 have 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.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From 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 fancyâ€"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 voiceâ€"the book reads like a fireside chat with this master conversationalistâ€"and, above all, his passion for the sport. Most baseballs fans will adore this love letter to one of America's most enduring institutions.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Larry King is a renowned journalist and bestselling author. As host for the past thirteen years of CNN's highest-rated show, Larry King Live, he is one of the world's most recognized people.

Rabbi Irwin Katsof is the executive vice-president of the Jerusalem Fund of Aish HaTorah, an international educational organization dedicated to the preservation of Jewish religion and heritage. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: New Millennium; Unabridged edition (March 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590073614
• ISBN-13: 978-1590073612
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 5.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,987,004 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A true read!, March 14, 2007

By 

Jeff Smith (New York, New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Why I Love Baseball (Paperback)

You don't have to like both Larry King and Baseball to read this book. If you like just one of the two then this is a book you should read. The range of emmotions covered in this novel are, to say the least, sweeping. I highly recommend the audio version read by The King himself. This man has passion, that's all I can say. This is one of those books you cozy up to at the end of a long day. Sit back, relax, and immerse yourself in all things Larry.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars HORRIBLE -, August 11, 2006

By 

A Reader "Baseball Guy" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Why I Love Baseball (Paperback)

Larry King tells nice recollections from his childhood about the game, and the book did capture my interest, but as I read I notices a plethora of mistakes, inaccuracies, and errors. It seems that a proofreader did not check many of the facts that Larry King recalls. It got to be somewhat comical as I read finding one mistake after the next. It's also very repetitive - and littered with phrases like, "Can you tell I like baseball," "Can you tell I love uniforms," and the like.
As I read this, I had the feeling that Larry just spoke about baseball into a tape recorder and the words were made into a hastily written book.
I expected much better.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Engaging, Entertaining, But Not Much Depth, May 22, 2004

By 

W. C HALL (Newport, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Why I Love Baseball (Hardcover)

As an expression of Larry King's sixty-year love affair with baseball, this would have made an enjoyable magazine article. But as a book...if you strip away the Thomas Boswell article, the slightly misquoted Terry Cashman lyrics, and the other padding, you find what seems to be the result of Larry talking into a tape recorder for a couple of hours, with all the positives and negatives that implies. There's plenty of heartfelt enthusiasm here, but little reflection or depth. And as King should know, memory can be faulty, especially with the passage of time. Take his story about his childhood fight with his friend Herbie Cohen, sparked by their position-by-position debate over which team was superior in 1947--King's Dodgers or Cohen's Yankees. As King tells it, they came to blows over who was superior at second base, where he insisted the Dodger rookie Jackie Robinson had the clear edge. The problem with that? As Cohen himself notes when he's quoted elsewhere in the book, Robinson played first base during his rookie season. (Eddie Stanky still patrolled the hot corner for the Bums; Robinson moved to second the next year, after Stanky was traded to the Boston Braves.) This is an entertaining affirmation of King's true love for the sport, but could have offered the reader a lot more.--William C. Hall