As a scout for the Baltimore Orioles (originally the St. Louis Browns) from 1952-87, Russo participated in one of baseball's most prestigious and successful franchises. Here, in a loosely structured series of anecdotes, he offers an enjoyable look at those years. Hired in 1952 as a ``commission scout'' for the floundering Browns (paid $100 for each step a player made up the baseball ladder, a scout earned $1,000 if his discovery made the major leagues), Russo had the task of signing quality players for little or no bonus money and not much more than promises. By 1958, he was in charge of 26 states and 14 scouts. The club was in Baltimore by then, and their perennial goal was to knock off the hated New York Yankees. The Orioles finally did that in 1966 and, as Russo proudly points out, with the exceptions of Frank Robinson and Luis Aparicio, they beat the Yanks with home-grown talent. Over the next 20 years, there would be more division and league championships and a few World Series rings. Russo recounts that period with fond, sharp remembrance, profiling the players, managers, and owners he worked with: Earl Weaver, the Robinsons Frank and Brooks, Bill Veeck, Boog Powell, Jim Palmer, and numerous others. Of particular interest are his behind-the-scenes accounts of the scouting and signing of players like Palmer, Dave McNally, Wally Bunker, Davey Johnson, and others. As a judge of talent, a front office confidant, and a pioneer in scouting the other league prior to a World Series, Russo ``saw them all'' and does not hesitate to offer his frank evaluations. Despite a lack of personal data and a confusing chronological sequence: a dandy, feisty take on the grand old game.
Pub Date: April 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-929387-69-4
Page Count: 230
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1992
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
