Nogo on MLB Radio!
Here's my interview with Ed Randall and Kevin Kennedy
Greetings, readers, fans, friends, baseball folks. On Saturday morning, right after Hall of Famer Tom Glavine chatted with hosts Ed Randall and Kevin Kennedy about what he’s seeing from today’s major-league pitchers — as I wrote recently, a lot of heaving, not much pitching — yours truly got a chance to spend 20 minutes chatting with the “Remember When” hosts on the nationally syndicated “Remember When” show on MLB Radio. It was cool! They even asked about my one-pitch win, which I think most of us would agree hasn’t received the national notoriety it deserves.
HERE’S THE AUDIO OF THE SHOW
The MLB Radio interview was just a fun time — as I saw with Rick Ballou and Jeff Cameron — it makes such a difference when they’ve read the book and can really dig in. You bet these guys know their stuff — and the minutes flew by and they asked some great questions as I chatted away happily about the book, which they said was “wonderful.” Awfully kind of both of them.
FATHER’S DAY IS FAST APPROACHING!
Is Dad a baseball fan? He might really enjoy “Diamond Duels” which available locally. As some of you loyal readers already know, “Diamond Duels” came about because John had a golf date set up with former Dodgers’ reliever Phil Regan, whom Sandy Koufax dubbed “The Vulture” after he went 14-1 in relief in 1966 for the Dodgers, getting wins in relief stints of his and Don Drysdale’s innings.
In order to give John some conversational fodder like “Hey, Phil, how come you couldn’t get Roberto Clemente out?” when he was lining up a putt, I found a fantastic website called Stathead that had everything. And I mean everything!
So, Stan Musial had 356 lifetime at bats against Warren Spahn? You don’t say. Whitey Ford only had 42 lifetime starts against the Boston Red Sox and 73 against the Chicago White Sox? WHAT? Tony Gwynn hit .050 against who? Frank DiPino? WHO?
And what about the great Christy Mathewson, Hall of Fame pitcher, baseball’s first matinee idol, a college graduate and a bit of an author? The New York Times hires him to cover the 1919 World Series (which was FIXED!) and Christy writes a lot, downplaying the very real talk he’s hearing about a fix, sits next to the reporter (Hugh Fullerton) who broke the story the next year, even reputedly keeping a separate scorecard to mark down fishy plays. Yet doesn’t write that, says there’s no way to pull it off a World Series fix. He knew better.
Then I catch a YouTube program called “The Glory Of Their Times,” which was a video representation of Lawrence Ritter’s great baseball book of the same name and somebody evidently bought the tape recordings of his interviews. The first one I hear is from Christy Mathewson’s roommate for seven years, Rube Marquard. And he tells us that Christy “loved to gamble. He’d wake up every morning with a pair of dice and deck of cards in his pocket and $1,000 cash and I’d seen him lose as much as $700-$800 dollars in a single night.” This was 1905. Do you know how much money that translates to in our day? Now, those quotes were edited out of “The Glory of Their Times.” Hmmmm. I wonder why? You can read all about it in “Diamond Duels.”
And while I’m at it, thanks to Books A Million, Midtown Reader and especially, Barnes & Noble, local bookstores that truly do try to help local authors. Why, at Barnes & Noble, you can even get a signed copy!
So thanks, Ed and Kevin, my friends at our Tallahassee area bookstores, Ward and Bob and Tara and Sally and Jess and my radio friends Rick Ballou and Jeff Cameron, who were so kind in helping me get the word out about “Diamond Duels.”
And lastly, let me drop this little hint: Father’s Day is coming!! Thank you, friends!
P.S. My fellow baseball writer Howard Cole, who lives in Los Angeles and covers that Dodger ballclub, recently gave “Diamond Duels” the Howard Cole Seal Of Approval and ran an excerpt about Hank Aaron vs. that famous side-arming Dodger Don Drysdale. Enjoy!
If you’d like a peek: https://substack.com/home/post/p-164684282