The Storytellers: From Mel Allen to Bob Costas: Sixty Years of Baseball Tales from the Broadcast Booth

The stories are varied, entertaining, and required reading for anyone that enjoys listening to baseball on the radio while sitting on their porch on a warm summer's evening. I could have done without Curt Smith's introduction to each chapter, as his over-the-top prose didn't seem to fit with the simplicity of the language of the anectdotes.From coast to coast, this is a winner. New Yorkers will be particularly fond, however, of the pre-California baseball tales.

Curt Smith gathers some of the legendary Voices of baseball together to (what else?) tell stories. The anecdotes are invarably interesting, funny, moving, and illuminating, whether or not the reader has actually had the pleasure of listening to any or all of these broadcasters. My only quibble with this book is that author Smith seems to have lifted several passages in toto from his earlier, and even more fascinating, "Voices Of The Game." This seems like unnecessary duplication and can be mildly annoying for those of us who've read both. Still, it's well worth the time of anybody who loves the Summer Game.

The Storytellers is a hillarious and moving collection of baseball stories told by the people who have held our ears for decades. The funniest stories (Ernie Harwell explaining to a baseball usher that it wasn't beer he had spilled . . .)had my wife and I laughing out loud. The most moving (Bob Costas boyhood visit to Yankee stadium) still bring a tear to my eye. A must read for fans of baseball, fans of broadcasting, or fans of oral storytelling. This is a wonderful book to read aloud.