Description
Book SynopsisA Booklist Top 10 Sports and Recreation Book This biography of sports announcer Red Barber (1908–92) puts his life and broadcasting career in the context of twentieth-century American life and explores his own personal journey.
Trade Review"The 'Old Red Head' made his fame . . . with the Dodgers at Ebbets Field, where he spiced his calls with folksy Barberisms like 'rhubarb' for arguments and fights on the field, 'the catbird seat' for dominance, and 'the bases are F.O.B.'—'full of Brooklyns.' Now his story is enshrined. . . . It's quite a tale. . . . Red Barber was that voice—with, as the authors write, ‘the unique perspective and gifts of the storyteller’—that burnished baseball in one of its golden ages."—
Wall Street Journal"
Red Barber is a first-rate biography of an extremely important figure in baseball history."—
Spitball Magazine"A compelling portrait of a sportscaster endowed with a rare breadth of social and psychological understanding."—
Booklist, starred review
"A thoroughly researched work with rich detail."—Bob D'Angelo,
Sports Bookie"Hiltner and Walker are to be commended for their look into the life of a man who is largely forgotten but whose skills and character influenced sports announcers and fans for decades."—Alan L. Griggs,
NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture"Anyone who wants to know what broadcasting was like before the advent of spin rates and exit velocity, reading
Red Barber would be a good place to start."—Chip Ainsworth,
Daily Hampshire Gazette“Red Barber is one of the greatest and most influential baseball broadcasters ever to occupy the ‘catbird seat,’ as the ‘Ol’ Redhead’ called it. From Jackie Robinson’s debut to Bobby Thomson’s Shot Heard ’Round the World. From Brooklyn’s beloved ‘Bums’ to the Mantle/Maris Yankees, to mentoring a young Vin Scully, Barber’s life and career are an important part of baseball history and the history of the craft he mastered. This complete and carefully researched biography is both merited and most welcome.”—Bob Costas, twenty-nine-time Emmy Award–winning broadcaster and 2018 Ford C. Frick Award honoree
“Red Barber was the lilting voice of the Reds, the Dodgers, the Yankees, and National Public Radio. But more than that, he was the conscience of baseball, a man who believed in the power of broadcast for the good of the game and its listeners. Red was perched in the catbird seat while big-league baseball grew in ways he could barely have imagined; he grew with it, as an announcer and as an American. With
Red Barber: The Life and Legacy of a Broadcasting Legend, the authors have given this complicated, important figure the biography he deserves.”—John Thorn, official historian, Major League Baseball
“At last a full biography of a legendary sports broadcasting pioneer. Red Barber balanced responsible reporting with charming entertainment. Judith Hiltner and James Walker explain how the Old Redhead retained his personal integrity in a field where baseball, broadcasting, and sponsors want total control.”—Bob Edwards, author of
Fridays with Red: A Radio Friendship“Red Barber’s voice was my lullaby. He sang me to sleep from the catbird seat, his honeyed literacy suffusing my dreams and forming the bedrock of my writing life in baseball. When I stupidly sent him my raunchy, fictional love letter to the game, hoping he would embrace it, it showed just how little I knew about this complex and courtly gentleman, the seminal voice of baseball broadcasting. Now, thanks to Judith Hiltner and James Walker, Walter Lanier ‘Red’ Barber has belatedly received the serious and definitive biography he deserves.”—Jane Leavy author of
The Big Fella: Babe Ruth and the World He CreatedTable of ContentsList of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Three Scenes
Prologue: Walter Lanier “Red” Barber
Part 1. Foundations in the Old South: “I Was Carefully Taught”
1. Cultured Roots
2. Celery Capital of the World
3. Bumming Corner
4. “Certain Aspects of Bovine Obstetrics”
Part 2. Cincinnati: Big Break
5. Pay Cut
6. Rising Expectations
Part 3. Brooklyn: The Barber of Flatbush
7. Making of a Legend
8. “Blood” on the Radio
9. On the Home Front
10. “Oh, Doctor!”
11. Losing Control, Gaining a Purpose
Part 4. Yankee Years: Never at Home
12. Stadium Work
13. Breakfast in Manhattan
Part 5. Return to Florida: A Writerly Broadcaster
14. A Developing Writer, A Darker Vision
15. Hall of Fame Broadcaster
Part 6. Red’s Renaissance: “Red Barber Moved People”
16. National Public Radio
17. A Closed Family
18. Legacies
Epilogue: Walter Lanier “Red” Barber, Revisited
Notes
Bibliography
Index
