Costas On Baseball

3/5 ( ratings)

The "most admired sportscaster in America" delivers his funny, passionate, insightful and insightful autobiography -- complete with behind-the-scenes looks at some of the greatest American baseball players, and Costas' own views on the true nature of the sport.Bob Costas is the eternal fan. As a boy, Costas spent many summer evenings sitting outside in the family car, fiddling with the radio dials and listening to baseball being played all over the Northeast. Since the car's radio reception was so good, he could pick up Ken Coleman announcing the Red Sox, Chuck Thompson doing the Orioles, and of course, Mel Allen calling the play-be-play for his beloved Yankees. As Costas recalls it now, "It was sports, but it was also storytelling, history and romance. There was a mystique to radio broadcasting. I wanted to be one of those voices in the night".

Bob Costas realized his dream: he became one of those voices. And how: at 22, he got his first job in radio broadcasting; at 27, he joined NBC and began announcing the backup baseball game of the week; at 33, he was named the National Sportscaster of the Year, the youngest announcer ever to win. Now at 43, he seemingly has done it all. Considered by many to be one of the best sportscasters ever, he is deservedly famous for his encyclopedic knowledge, his sly wit, and his easy eloquence.

All of which makes him uniquely qualified to write this hugely entertaining audiobook about his career in broadcasting and more generally, about sports in America. Costas's vantage point is unmatched, and his audio is filled with vivid stories about the players, coaches and owners who have become part of our lives and our national mythology.Sports -- for good and for ill -- has become an American obsession, and here Costas captures both the wonderful innocence of athletic accomplishment and the troubled soul of a pastime that is increasingly tainted by money, ego, and greed.

Written with Buzz Bissinger, the Pulitzer Prize winning writer, this enthralling audiobook has all the qualities of Bob Costas's astonishing voice: it is reverent and irreverent, wise and witty, joyful and sad. It also weaves together the three strands of Costas's equally extraordinary career: the emotional story of his own life and times; his insider's perspective on the famous athletes and broadcasters with whom he has worked; and his own very personal and controversial thoughts about the current state of sports in this country. Even as this landmark book warns us that the pursuit of profit threatens to corrupt the very essence of American sports, it brilliantly captures the glorious excitement that appeals to the eternal fan in us all.