Jane Leavy - foreword has 2 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 2 narrators. The most-rated is The Babe Ruth Deception.
Out of My League
Summary
The baseball classic that Ernest Hemingway called "beautifully observed and incredibly conceived", now recorded and including a foreword from Jane Leavy. The first of Plimpton's remarkable forays into participatory journalism, Out of My League chronicles with wit, charm, and grace what happens when a self-professed amateur has the chance to answer every fan's question: could he strike out a major league star? Plimpton's inspired idea - to get on the mound and pitch a few innings to the All-Stars of the American and National Leagues - begins as a fun-filled stunt and comes to a deeply hellish, nearly humiliating end. This honest and hilarious tale features Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Whitey Ford, Ralph Houk, and other baseball greats and is "a baseball book such as no one else ever wrote, and one of the best ever". (New York Herald Tribune)
©2003 George Plimpton (P)2016 Hachette Audio
The Babe Ruth Deception
Summary
Babe Ruth, the Sultan of Swat, is having a record-breaking season in his first year as a New York Yankee. Larger than life on the field and off, Ruth is about to discover what the Chicago White Sox players accused of throwing the 1919 World Series are learning - baseball heroes are not invulnerable to scandal. With suspicion in the air, Ruth's 1918 World Series win for the Boston Red Sox is now being questioned. Under scrutiny by the new baseball commissioner and enmeshed with gambling kingpin Arnold Rothstein, Ruth turns for help to Speed Cook - a former professional ballplayer himself before the game was segregated and now a promoter of Negro baseball - who's familiar with the dirty underside of the sport. Cook in turn enlists the help of Dr. Jamie Fraser, whose wife Eliza is coproducing a silent film starring the Yankee outfielder. Restraint does not come easily to the reckless Ruth, but the Frasers try to keep him in line while Cook digs around. As all this plays out, Cook's son Joshua and Fraser's daughter Violet are brought together by a shocking tragedy. But an interracial relationship in 1920 feels as dangerous as a public scandal - even more so because Joshua is heavily involved in bootlegging. Trying to protect Ruth and their own children, Fraser and Cook find themselves playing a dangerous game....
©2016 David O. Stewart (P)2020 Tantor