CENTERSTAGE

An impressive range of sports and entertainment stars sit down for friendly chats.

When you’ve spent the better part of 20 years interviewing stars—from the worlds of sports, music, TV, comedy, and beyond—it makes sense to assemble the highlights between two covers. Kay, longtime Yankees broadcaster and host of the YES Network’s CenterStage show, delivers a sort of greatest-hits collection, some of it revealing, some less so, all of it impressive in its breadth and wattage. The smartest thing about the show, and the book, is the recognition of the wide overlap between consumers of sports and entertainment. Here you’ll find sit-downs with Quentin Tarantino and Jay-Z, Joe Montana and Alex Rodriguez (before his use of performance-enhancing drugs tarnished his name). There’s a cognitive dissonance to the A-Rod interview, which happens to be the first in the book and comes under the heading “They Did it Their Way.” Obviously, the author couldn’t know what was to come, but the obsequiousness of this interview travels to other parts of the book. Kay is cut from a different cloth than, say, Jim Gray, who has a little bit of bulldog reporter in him—and whose own book of interviews, Talking to GOATs, was published in November. Kay is more of a features writer, but he always comes prepared, whether he’s asking Larry David about his very short stint writing for Saturday Night Live or having Chris Evert parse the details of her rivalry with Martina Navratilova. He makes his subjects feel comfortable, which in turn makes them friendly and accessible. These kinds of interviews might work better in front of a camera, where the smiles and laughter come through. Still, it’s entertaining to spend time with so many stars, even if they’re not breaking much new ground. Bob Costas provides the introduction, and other interviewees include Charles Barkley, Mike Tyson, Serena Williams, Yogi Berra, and Lindsey Vonn.

These interviews can be fawning, but they're usually fun.