Curt Smith has 2 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 2 narrators. The most-rated is Pull Up a Chair.
The Presidents and the Pastime
Summary
The Presidents and the Pastime draws on Curt Smith's extensive background as a former White House presidential speechwriter to chronicle the historic relationship between baseball, the "most American" sport, and the US presidency. Smith, who USA Today calls "America's voice of authority on baseball broadcasting", starts before America's birth, when would be presidents played baseball antecedents. He charts how baseball cemented its reputation as America's pastime in the 19th century, such presidents as Lincoln and Johnson playing town ball or giving employees time off to watch. Smith tracks every US president from Theodore Roosevelt to Donald Trump, each chapter filled with anecdotes: Wilson buoyed by baseball after suffering disability; a heroic FDR saving baseball in World War II; Carter, taught the game by his mother, Lillian; Reagan, airing baseball on radio that he never saw by "re-creation". George H. W. Bush, for whom Smith wrote, explains, "Baseball has everything." Smith, having interviewed a majority of presidents since Richard Nixon, shares personal stories on each. Throughout, The Presidents and the Pastime provides a riveting narrative of how America's leaders have treated baseball. From Taft as the first president to throw the "first pitch" on Opening Day in 1910 to Obama's "Go Sox!" scrawled in the guest register at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2014, our presidents have deemed it the quintessentially American sport, enriching both their office and the nation.
©2018 Curt Smith (P)2019 Tantor
Pull Up a Chair
Summary
Since 1950, the instantly recognizable voice of Vin Scully has invited listeners to “pull up a chair” for his peerless play-by-play sports reporting. Recruited and mentored by the legendary Red Barber, Scully has narrated NBC’s Game of the Week, 12 All-Star Games, 18 no-hitters, and 25 World Series, describing players from Duke Snider to Orel Hershiser to Manny Ramirez, with hundreds in between. Scully has made every sportscasting Hall of Fame, received an Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and been named Sportscaster of the 20th Century by the American Sportscasters Association. This long overdue biography of Vin Scully is written by Curt Smith, called “the voice of authority on baseball broadcasting” (USA Today).
©2009 Potomac Books, Inc. (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.