Is This a Great Game, Or What?: From A-Rod's Heart to Zim's Head--My 25 Years in Baseball

Front Cover
Macmillan, 2007 - Biography & Autobiography - 258 pages
ESPN's Tim Kurkjian has spent over twenty-five years covering almost 3,000 Major League Baseball games and interviewing about that many players, coaches, managers and executives.
In Is This a Great Game, or What?, Kurkjian combines his years of experience, uncanny knowledge and deep love of the game, to create a book filled with some of the most fascinating insight into Major League Baseball this side of Jim Bouton's bestseller, Ball Four. Whether he's explaining what goes through a ballplayer's mind when he faces a fastball in the chapter "My Face Was Crushed by a Bowling Ball Going 90mph", detailing bizarre rituals and superstitions performed by some of baseball's greatest players, or taking us into the locker room to see what transpires in the clubhouse of a Major League team, Kurkjian's tales are at times hilarious, other times horrifying, yet always entertaining.
Kurkjian has spoken to some of the greatest ballplayers ever over the years and they have revealed details about themselves and the game they love with a candor that readers won't find anywhere else. Filled with anecdotes and fascinating insight, this is an essential book for baseball fans or anyone curious about America's pastime.
 

Contents

Introduction
1
1 My Mom Was My Catcher
5
2 Business But Its a Pleasure
21
3 Ill Beat You Playing from My Knees
39
4 Phil Niekros Teeth
59
5 Im Old Im Fat Im Bald Im Ugly I Have a Plate in My Head
77
6 My Face Was Crushed by a Bowling Ball Going 90 MPH
97
7 I Need It NowStat
119
10 There Was a Blimp in Left Field
167
11 The Sun Will Rise the Sun Will Set and Ill Have Lunch
179
12 Its Ambidextrous Not Amphibious
191
13 Angel My Man
201
14 Why Cant There Be a Lefthanded Catcher?
217
15 Just Grab That Bat as Tight as You Can Son
227
16 I Love Ketchup
239
Acknowledgments
257

8 Signs Signs Everywhere a Sign
137
9 Im Whacked
149

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About the author (2007)

TIM KURKJIAN has spent his entire professional career covering baseball. He is an analyst/reporter for "Baseball Tonight" and "SportsCenter," asenior writer at "ESPN The Magazine," columnist for ESPN.com, and a frequent guest on ESPN radio.

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