Leigh Montville has 4 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 4 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4★ across 2 ratings. The most-rated is Evel.
The Big Bam
Summary
Babe Ruth was more than baseball's original superstar. For 85 years, he has remained the sport's reigning titan. He has been named Athlete of the Century...more than once. But who was this large, loud, enigmatic man? Why is so little known about his childhood, his private life, and his inner thoughts? In The Big Bam, Leigh Montville, whose recent New York Times best-selling biography of Ted Williams garnered glowing reviews and offered an exceptionally intimate look at Williams's life, brings his trademark touch to this groundbreaking, revelatory portrait of the Babe. Based on newly discovered documents and interviews, including pages from Ruth's personal scrapbooks, The Big Bam traces Ruth's life from his bleak childhood in Baltimore to his brash entrance into professional baseball, from Boston to New York and into the record books as the world's most explosive slugger and cultural luminary. At a time when modern baseball is grappling with hyper-inflated salaries, free agency, and assorted controversies, The Big Bam brings back the pure glory days of the game. Leigh Montville operates at the peak of his abilities, exploring Babe Ruth in a way that intimately, and poignantly, illuminates a most remarkable figure.
©2006 Leigh Montville (P)2006 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.
Evel
Summary
From New York Times best-selling author Leigh Montville, this riveting and definitive new biography pulls back the red, white, and blue cape on a cultural icon - and reveals the unknown, complex, and controversial man known to millions around the world as Evel Knievel. Evel Knievel was a high-flying daredevil, the father of extreme sports, the personification of excitement and danger and showmanship... and in the 1970s, Knievel represented a unique slice of American culture and patriotism. His jump over the fountains at Caesar's Palace led to a crash unlike anything ever seen on television, and his attempt to rocket over Snake River Canyon in Idaho was something only P. T. Barnum could have orchestrated. The dazzling motorcycles and red-white-and-blue outfits became an integral part of an American decade. Knievel looked like Elvis... but on any given Saturday afternoon, millions tuned in to the small screen to see this real-life action hero tempt death. But behind the flash and the frenzy, who was the man? Best-selling author Leigh Montville masterfully explores the life of the complicated man from the small town of Butte, Montana. He delves into Knievel's amazing place in pop culture, as well as his notorious dark side - and his complex and often contradictory relationships with his image, the media, his own family, and his many demons. Evel Knievel's story is an all-American saga, and one that is largely untold. Leigh Montville once again delivers a definitive biography of a one-of-a-kind sports legend.
©2011 Leigh Montville (P)2011 Random House
Ted Williams
Summary
He was one of the greatest figures of his generation and arguably the greatest baseball hitter of all time. But what made Ted Williams a legend and a lightning rod for controversy in life and in death? New York Times best-selling author Leigh Montville delivers an intimate, riveting account of this extraordinary life. Still a gangly teenager when he stepped into a Boston Red Sox uniform in 1939, Williams' boisterous personality and penchant for towering home runs earned him adoring admirers (the fans) and venomous critics (the sportswriters). In 1941, the entire country followed Williams' stunning .406 season, a record that has not been touched in more than six decades. At the pinnacle of his prime, Williams left Boston to train and serve as a fighter pilot in World War II, missing three full years of baseball. He was back in 1946, dominating the sport alongside teammates Dominic DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky, and Bobby Doerr. Ted Willams' personal life was equally colorful. His attraction to women (and their attraction to him) was a constant. He was married and divorced three times, and he fathered two daughters and a son. He was one of corporate America's first modern spokesmen, and he remained, nearly into his 80s, a fiercely devoted fisherman. With his son, John Henry Williams, he devoted his final years to the sports memorabilia business, even as illness overtook him. In death, controversy and public outcry followed Williams, the result of disagreements among his children over the decision to have his body preserved in a cryonics facility; a fate, many argue, Williams never wanted. With unmatched verve and passion, and drawing upon hundreds of interviews, acclaimed best-selling author Leigh Montville brings to life Ted Williams' superb triumphs, lonely tragedies, and intensely colorful personality in a biography that is fitting of an American hero and legend.
©2004 Leigh Montville (P)2004 Books on Tape
The Mysterious Montague
Summary
He was a 1930s golf legend and Hollywood trickster who adamantly refused to be photographed. He never played professionally, yet sports-writing legend Grantland Rice still heralded him as "the greatest golfer in the world". Then, in 1937, the secrets of John Montague's past were exposed - leading to a sensational trial that captivated the nation. John Montague was a boisterous enigma. He had a bagful of golf tricks, on and off the course. He could chip a ball across a room into a highball glass and knock a bird off a wire from 170 yards. And when the big man arrived in Hollywood in the early 1930s, he quickly became a celebrity among celebrities. He lived for a time with Oliver Hardy (whom he could lift, one-handed, onto the country club bar) and played golf with everyone from Howard Hughes and W. C. Fields to Babe Ruth and his close friend Bing Crosby, whom he famously beat while playing only with a rake, a shovel, and a bat. Yet strangely, Montague never entered a professional tournament, and in a town that thrived on publicity, he never allowed his image to be captured on film. The reasons became clear when a Time magazine photographer snapped his picture with a telephoto lens - and police in upstate New York quickly recognized Montague as a fugitive wanted for armed robbery. As Montague was indicted in the tiny upstate town of Jay, New York, hordes of national media descended and turned a star-studded legal carnival into the most talked about trial of its day - the trial of "the Mysterious Montague". From the glamour of 1930s Hollywood, to John Montague's extraordinary skill and triumphs on the golf course, to the shady world of Adirondack rumrunners and bootleggers, three-time New York Times best-selling author Leigh Montville captures a man and an era with extraordinary color, verve, and energy. The Mysterious Montague is Leigh Montville's most entertaining achievement to date.
©2008 Leigh Montville (P)2008 Books on Tape