Best Selling Books by Roger Kahn

The legendary sportswriter’s memoir of Brooklyn, baseball, and a life in journalism: “Simply put, this is a marvelous book” (Kirkus Reviews). In this book, the bestselling author of The Boys of Summer shares stories of his Depression-era Brooklyn childhood, his career during a golden era of sports, and his personal acquaintances with a wide range of great ballplayers. His father had a passion for the Dodgers; his mother’s passion was for poetry. Young Roger managed to blend both loves in a career that encompassed writing about sports for the New York Herald Tribune, Sports Illustrated, the Saturday Evening Post, Esquire, and Time. Kahn recalls the great personalities—Leo Durocher, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Jackie Robinson, Red Smith, Dick Young, and many more—and recollects the wittiest lines from forty years in dugouts, press boxes, and newsrooms. “A master at evoking a sense of the past . . . A pleasing potpourri of autobiography, professional memoir, and anecdotal baseball history . . . Of special note to journalism buffs is Kahn’s account of his role in the inception of Sports Illustrated.” —Booklist “As a kid, I loved sports first and writing second, and loved everything Roger Kahn wrote. As an adult, I love writing first and sports second, and love Roger Kahn even more.” —David Maraniss, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author “Roger Kahn is the best baseball writer in the business.” —Stephen Jay Gould, New York Review of Books

"A rich collection of fifty-one stories and articles by Roger Kahn. Written across six decades, this volume shows Kahn''s ability to describe the athletes he profiled as they truly were in a manner neither compromised nor cruel but always authentic and up close"--

This is a book about young men who learned to play baseball during the 1930s and 1940s, and then went on to play for one of the most exciting major-league ball clubs ever fielded, the team that broke the colour barrier with Jackie Robinson. It is a book by and about a sportswriter who grew up near Ebbets Field, and who had the good fortune in the 1950s to cover the Dodgers for the Herald Tribune. This is a book about what happened to Jackie, Carl Erskine, Pee Wee Reese, and the others when their glory days were behind them. In short, it is a book fathers and sons and about the making of modern America. ''At a point in life when one is through with boyhood, but has not yet discovered how to be a man, it was my fortune to travel with the most marvelously appealing of teams.'' Sentimental because it holds such promise, and bittersweet because that promise is past, the first sentence of this masterpiece of sporting literature, first published in the early ''70s, sets its tone. The team is the mid-20th-century Brooklyn Dodgers, the team of Robinson and Snyder and Hodges and Reese, a team of great triumph and historical import composed of men whose fragile lives were filled with dignity and pathos. Roger Kahn, who covered that team for the New York Herald Tribune, makes understandable humans of his heroes as he chronicles the dreams and exploits of their young lives, beautifully intertwining them with his own, then recounts how so many of those sweet dreams curdled as the body of these once shining stars grew rusty with age and battered by experience.

The author remembers eight people who shaped his identity as a father, writer, and friend, from Jackie Robinson and Robert Frost to his athletic scholar son, who died at the age of twenty-three.

The true story of a year in the life of the Utica Blue Sox, a minor league baseball team in upstate New York, by the acclaimed author of The Boys of Summer. Roger Kahn’s The Boys of Summer immortalized the 1950s Brooklyn Dodgers. Good Enough to Dream does the same for players whose moment in the sun has not yet arrived. Here, Kahn tells the story of his year as owner of the Class A, very minor league Utica Blue Sox. Most of the Blue Sox never made it to the majors, but they all shared the dream that links the small child in the sandlot with the superstar who has just smacked one out of the stadium. This is a look at the heart of America’s pastime, a game still sweet enough to lure grown men to leagues where first-class transportation was an old school bus and the infield was likely to be the consistency of thick soup. It is a funny and poignant story of one season, and one special team, that will make us hesitate before we ever call anything “bush league” again. Praise for Roger Kahn “As a kid, I loved sports first and writing second, and loved everything Roger Kahn wrote. As an adult, I love writing first and sports second, and love Roger Kahn even more.” —David Maraniss, Pulitzer Prize winner “He can epitomize a player with a single swing of the pen.” —Time “Roger Kahn is the best baseball writer in the business.” —Stephen Jay Gould, The New York Review of Books

In Rickey & Robinson, legendary sportswriter Roger Kahn reveals the true, unsanitized account of the integration of baseball--a story that for decades has relied largely on inaccurate, secondhand reports. Focusing on Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson, Kahn''s account is based on exclusive reporting and his personal reminiscences, including revelatory material he buried in his notebooks in the ''40s and ''50s. Rickey and Robinson were chiefly responsible for making integration happen. Through in-depth examinations of both men, Kahn separates fact from myth to present a truthful portrait of baseball and its participants at a critical juncture in American history.

A biography of the nation''s first celebrity heavyweight champ retraces the life of Jack Dempsey--hobo, roughneck, boxer, millionaire, movie star, and eventually, a man of compassion and generosity. A New York Times Notable Book. Reprint. 30,000 first printing.

Publisher Description

Baseball''s most celebrated chronicler on the history and evolution of the greatest mental and physical duel in sports-between the picture and the batter.

The seventh game of the World Series is about to be played, and more than the world championship is at stake. A man''s destiny is on the line. Johnny Longboat, one of baseball''s greatest pitchers, is taking the mound for the New York Mohawks in what may be his final game. With millions of eyes upon him, only he is aware of the conflicts tormenting him. At forty-one, Johnny is a man trying to make sense of his past while fearing what the future could bring when his playing career ends. As the deciding seventh game of a bitterly fought World Series suspensefully moves, inning by inning, toward its dramatic climax, and before the seventh game is over, Johnny Longboat is ready to make some hard choices. He''s ready to find out just how much strength is left in his arm—and in his soul. Praise for Roger Kahn: "As a kid, I loved sports first and writing second, and loved everything Roger Kahn wrote. As an adult, I love writing first and sports second, and love Roger Kahn even more." —Pulitzer Prize winner, David Maraniss "He can epitomize a player with a single swing of the pen." —Time magazine "Roger Kahn is the best baseball writer in the business." —Stephen Jay Gould, New York Review of Books "A work of high moral purpose and great poetic accomplishment. The finest American book on sports." —James Michener on The Boys of Summer "Kahn has the almost unfair gift of easy, graceful writing." —Boston Herald

"A fine anthology." —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY In these essays, written between 1954 and 1990, bestselling author Roger Kahn touches on locker-room controversies and politics, while inviting readers to share in the passion, grace, energy, and intense concentration involved in playing sports. Kahn pays warm tribute to his special heroes, Jackie Robinson, Roger Maris and Carl Furillo, along with those he particularly admired in the press box, John Lardner and Red Smith. Kahn also esteems football lineman Merlin Olsen, hockey goalie Glenn Hall, cager Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, outfielder Mickey Mantle, boxing promoter Don King, and last piece, "Story Without a Hero," about Pete Rose. Praise for Roger Kahn: "As a kid, I loved sports first and writing second, and loved everything Roger Kahn wrote. As an adult, I love writing first and sports second, and love Roger Kahn even more." —Pulitzer Prize winner, David Maraniss "He can epitomize a player with a single swing of the pen." —TIME magazine "Roger Kahn is the best baseball writer in the business." —Stephen Jay Gould, New York Review of Books "Kahn has the almost unfair gift of easy, graceful writing." —BOSTON HERALD

“Two legendary figures assume humanity…Poignant, humorous, and convincing.” —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY To the public, it was a match made in heaven. In private, it was nine months of hell. This is the riveting story of what went wrong with one of the world’s most dazzling romances. His dark jealousy…her need for love. His temper…her affairs. His pride…her ambition. A searing drama of powerfully clashing egos. A tense tragedy of taut emotions and driving passions. And, finally, a bittersweet monument to the devoted friendship that endured despite it all. Praise for Roger Kahn: "As a kid, I loved sports first and writing second, and loved everything Roger Kahn wrote. As an adult, I love writing first and sports second, and love Roger Kahn even more." —Pulitzer Prize winner, David Maraniss "He can epitomize a player with a single swing of the pen." —TIME magazine "Roger Kahn is the best baseball writer in the business." —Stephen Jay Gould, New York Review of Books "Kahn has the almost unfair gift of easy, graceful writing." —BOSTON HERALD

Novelist W. P. Kinsella wrote that baseball is "a game where little gems of wisdom or whimsy can be created in the dugout, the bullpen, or the press box during long, hot afternoons and evenings of baseball." The Little Red Book of Baseball Wisdom unearths a treasury of quotes reflecting more than a century''s worth of history from our national pastime. Featuring contributions from Hank Aaron to Walt Whitman, Yogi Berra to John Updike.

The author of The Boys of Summer writes about an array of legendary figures in this collection of essays and interviews from the late 1950s to the 1970s. “… In the end, the range, like the style, reflects myself. Let the present, then, and the recent past, the ball players, poets, policemen, professors, musicians—in short, these emperors and clowns—stride before you, each hoping, as the author does, to please.” Robert Frost, Claudio Arrau, John Lardner, Jackie Robinson, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Leo Durocher, Bobby Thomson, Al Rosen, Jascha Heifetz, and other celebrities in their years of glory, in their times of trial. This is a book about people to be remembered, and what it was like in America at a very special time. “Beautiful…persons and events through the eyes of a sharp, articulate observer.”—New York Times “No one else has written a piece so startling about the legend of Babe Ruth…After reading this book you will never feel the same about a lot of legends…A very special book…A book to treasure.”—Chicago Sun-Times “Irresistible…You can’t stop reading!”—Chicago Tribune

Through visiting the game''s players and veterans of all ages and skill levels, a writer chronicles the state of baseball in the summer of 1976. For one full baseball season in 1976, Roger Kahn returned to his favorite sport to see how it was doing and find out whether it still had the same old magic. His search led him from small college teams in rural Arkansas, whose every member hopes to make the Majors, to Houston for a look at the financial disaster of the Astros and the Astrodome, and to Los Angeles to explore the modern miracle of Walter O''Malley''s Dodgers. It brought him interviews with old friends like restaurateur Stan Musial, boat salesman Early Wynn, and the courageous baseball maverick Bill Veeck, now owner of the Chicago White Sox. He was able to observe a superb New England Class A team that plays to empty stands because of TV, and the phenomenon of baseball enthusiasm on Roberto Clemente''s Caribbean island. Finally, it gave him the chance to get to know the incomparable Johnny Bench and to spend part of the 1976 Yankees-Reds World Series in the company of the Series'' most valuable player. More than a book about baseball, A Season in the Sun, like Kahn''s classic The Boys of Summer, is a warm and affectionate evocation of small-town and big-city America. Praise for Roger Kahn "He can epitomize a player with a single swing of the pen."— Time Magazine "Kahn is the best baseball writer in the business."—Stephen Jay Gould, New York Review of Books "Kahn has the almost unfair gift of easy, graceful writing."— Boston Herald

Pete Rose tells the story behind his expulsion from baseball.

DNA evidence collected from death scenes is an essential tool for law enforcement, death investigators, and forensic pathologists providing insights into cause and manner of death as well as the identification of the responsible person or persons. Ineffective collection procedures raise the risk of evidence being altered or lost during transportati

Recounts one of the great summers of baseball history, 1978--the year the Yankees won the World Series after a tumultuous season.

Jackie Robinson changed the face of baseball and captured the attention and hearts of America in 1947. "The Jackie Robinson Reader" gathers writings that demonstrate the cultural impact of Robinson''s actions and the life of the man himself. 8-page photo insert.

"How Crested Butte Became a Tourist Town," is a fun-filled social history about the evolution of a once tiny, working-class, ethnic, mining town into one of today''s major destination tourist towns and recreation communities that cater to the recreation needs of both its upper-middle class visitors and residents alike. That transformation occured in the post-WWII period as our nation was moving from the industial revolution into the industrial age, and more people were "living lives of not such quiet desperation (to paraphrase Henry David Thoreau) and needed time to play and rejuvenate themselves and had more disposable income to do that. The book focuses on the early stages of that transformation, from the late 1960''s to the latter part of the ''70''s. the days that were the most racous, wild, and conflict ridden. That was the period when new young immigrants to the town laid the foundation for what exists today, and fought with the old-timers and among themselves in order to do that. Advanced readers heaped praise on the work. One of them, the current mayor who has been a local elected official for almost 30 years said, "... tells the story of a town emerging from a domant cocoon ...its identity being pulled from divergent groups from old time miners to the counterculture radicals of the 60''s ...[shows] how civilization is shaped by strong personalities..." Another one, the long time editor of the local newspaper commented, "a love story to ... Crested Butte ... [that] probably describes a number of ... outposts in the mountains of America ... in the 60s, 70s, and 80s." A professor emeritus of geography at the University of New Mexico at Los Alamos wrote, "...a detailed perspective on the transformation and evolution of community ... defines the journey that many communities ... have taken, are taking, and will take ..." The executive director of the Crested Butte Heritage Museum noted, "Drawing on extensive interviews, archival research and personal experiences, Kahn vividly describes the social forces that defined [the] 1960s and 70s in Crested Butte. ... a wild time in a wild place." Ten years in the making, this work is based on about seventy-five 2-6 hour interviews with people who were full-time residents, "locals," in the 60s and 70s, extensive and detailed readings of the two local newspapers during that era, listening and watching audio and video tapes of old-time miners, ranchers, and the new recreationists from that period, as well as other written materials about that era. Despite the sociological and other social science content of the book, it is not written in "ologese"; it is written in plain English. Enjoy the book!

The author of the classic sports bestseller, The Boys of Summer, presents an affectionate re-creation of one of the most famous and moving love stories of modern times--that between Joe Dimaggio and Marilyn Monroe. 16 pages of black-and-white photographs.

In Rickey & Robinson, legendary sportswriter Roger Kahn at last reveals the true, unsanitized account of the integration of baseball, a story that for decades has relied on inaccurate, second-hand reports. This story contains exclusive reporting and personal reminiscences that no other writer can produce, including revelatory material he''d buried in his notebooks in the 40s and 50s, back when sportswriters were still known to "protect" players and baseball executives. That starts, first and foremost, with an in-depth examination of the two men chiefly responsible for making integration happen: Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson. Considering Robinson''s exalted place in American culture (as evidenced by the remarkable success of the recent biopic), the book''s eye-opening revelations are sure to generate controversy as well as conversation. No other sportswriter working today carries Kahn''s authority when writing about this period in baseball history, and the publication of this book, Kahn''s last, is a true literary event. In Rickey & Robinson, Kahn separates fact from myth to present a truthful portrait of baseball and its participants at a critical juncture in American history.

Repetitive questions and exclamations invite children to share in the reading about a little frog who tries to catch a fly.--Horn Book