SEASONS TO REMEMBER

Name: SEASONS TO REMEMBER
Author: Curt Gowdy
ISBN: 0-06-018228-8

THE WAY IT WAS IN AMERICAN SPORTS 1945-1960

by Curt Gowdy & illustrated by John Powers ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 1993

An unabashedly nostalgic, silky-smooth memoir spanning a 15- year period that fiftysomething or older people tend to regard as a golden age in American sports. With assistance from Pulitzer-winning journalist Powers (coauthor, One Goal, 1984, etc.), Gowdy makes unobtrusive use of his long career in broadcasting to recall notable post-WW II teams and events. He was at the local mike, for instance, when Bud Wilkinson began making Oklahoma a college-football power and Hank Iba's Oklahoma A&M basketball squads were beating almost all comers. Moving east in 1949 to become Mel Allen's junior partner in broadcasting New York Yankees games, the author was an eyewitness to the dynastic renaissance of the Yankees, who, under the quirky aegis of Casey Stengel, dominated pro baseball for much of the 1950's. Offered a chance to be number one, Gowdy decamped for Boston in 1951 to air Red Sox games, a job that let him become the first voice of the Celtics as well. While he focuses on his era's storied contests and notables (e.g., Red Auerbach, Doc Blanchard, Glenn Davis, Joe DiMaggio, Bill Russell, Tom Yawkey), the author doesn't shrink from recounting its low points—in particular the point-shaving scandals that cost college basketball a full measure of innocence. Gowdy nonetheless manages to end his anecdotal, episodic narrative with an upbeat, I-was-there account of the home run that Ted Williams belted out of Fenway Park during his final time at bat in the major leagues, in 1960. Manna for older fans who may have forgotten how sweet it was, and a fine reminder for younger generations that artificial turf, integrated squads, TV coverage, drug-testing, seven-figure contracts, platooning, and seemingly endless playoffs weren't always in the game. (Illustrations—not seen)

Pub Date: June 16, 1993

ISBN: 0-06-018228-8

Page Count: 220

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1993

Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION

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Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...

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THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE

50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

by William Strunk & E.B. White ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 15, 1972

Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.

Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").

Pub Date: May 15, 1972

ISBN: 0205632645

Page Count: 105

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972

Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION

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IN MY PLACE

by Charlayne Hunter-Gault ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1992

From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)