Farewell to Sport
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Narrated by:
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David Stifel
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By:
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Paul Gallico
About this listen
For 14 years during the golden age of sports, Paul Gallico was one of America's ace sportswriters. He saw them all - the stars and the hams, the immortals and the phonies in boxing, wrestling, baseball, football, golf, tennis, and every other field of muscular endeavor in which men and women try to break hearts and necks for cash or glory. Then in 1937, at the height of his game (and the height of the payroll), Gallico suddenly and famously called it quits and left the New York Daily News. But before he departed the world of sports, he left his legions of fans one last hurrah: a collection of his best sports essays called, appropriately, Farewell to Sport.
Here, in 26 chapters, every major and minor sport is covered. Included are sketches of Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney, Tex Rickard, and Jack Sharkey, written in an accessible, conversational style. Often credited with creating "participatory journalism", Gallico would play golf with Bobby Jones, catch Major League pitcher Dizzy Dean's fastball, swim with Johnny Weissmuller, play tennis with Helen Wills, catch passes from quarterback Benny Friedman, and box with Jack Dempsey (he lasted one minute, 37 seconds).
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- By: Don Van Natta Jr.
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
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- Narrated by: Phil Gigante
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Performance
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Story
Surprisingly, one of sport’s most contentious, complex, and defining clashes played out not in the boxing ring or at the line of scrimmage but on the genteel green fairways of the world’s finest golf courses. Arnie and Jack. Palmer and Nicklaus. Their 50-year duel, in both the clubhouse and the boardroom, propelled each to the status of American icon and pushed modern golf to the heights and popularity it enjoys today. Yet for all the ink that has been spilled on these two essential golf figures individually, no one has ever examined their relationship in this way.
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No Match
- By Craig Black on 05-11-15
By: Ian O' Connor
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Monsters
- The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football
- By: Rich Cohen
- Narrated by: Tom Taylorson
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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For Rich Cohen and millions of other fans, the 1985 Chicago Bears were more than a football team: they were the greatest football team ever - a gang of colorful nuts, dancing and pounding their way to victory. They won a Super Bowl and saved a city. It was not just that the Monsters of the Midway won but how they did it....
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For any Bears fans
- By Frank S. Saltiel on 11-18-21
By: Rich Cohen
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The Boxing Kings
- When American Heavyweights Ruled the Ring
- By: Paul Beston
- Narrated by: Alexander Cendese
- Length: 13 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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The Boxing Kings tells the story of the heavyweight title in the days when it was a defining institution in the United States. Author Paul Beston places special emphasis on those champions who held a central place in American culture beyond just in the boxing ring, including John L. Sullivan, who made the title a commercial property; Jack Johnson, who in 1908 became the first black man to claim the title; Joe Louis, whose contributions to racial tolerance and social progress transcended even his greatness in the ring; and many more.
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An outstanding book on heavyweight champions
- By LSmith on 02-01-18
By: Paul Beston
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Ty Cobb
- A Terrible Beauty
- By: Charles Leerhsen
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 15 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Ty Cobb is baseball royalty, maybe even the greatest player who ever lived. His lifetime batting average is still the highest of all time, and when he retired in 1928, after twenty-one years with the Detroit Tigers and two with the Philadelphia Athletics, he held more than ninety records. But the numbers don't tell half of Cobb's tale. The Georgia Peach was by far the most thrilling player of the era: "Ty Cobb could cause more excitement with a base on balls than Babe Ruth could with a grand slam," one columnist wrote.
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Two Cobb Books, One Review of a Maligned Legacy
- By Jonathan Love on 05-17-16
By: Charles Leerhsen
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Unbeaten
- By: Mike Stanton
- Narrated by: Keith Szarabajka
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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From the best-selling author of The Prince of Providence comes a revelatory biography of Rocky Marciano, the greatest heavyweight champion of all time.The son of poor Italian immigrants, with short arms and stubby legs, Rocky Marciano accomplished a feat that eluded legendary heavyweight champions like Joe Louis, Jack Dempsey, Muhammad Ali, and Mike Tyson: He never lost a professional fight. His record was a perfect 49-0.
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Great book, terrible accents in the reading
- By Ishmael Angaluuk Hope on 11-02-21
By: Mike Stanton
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The Summer of Beer and Whiskey
- How Brewers, Barkeeps, Rowdies, Immigrants, and a Wild Pennant Fight Made Baseball America's Game
- By: Edward Achorn
- Narrated by: Ax Norman
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Chris Von der Ahe knew next to nothing about baseball when he risked his life’s savings to found the St. Louis Browns, the franchise that would become the St. Louis Cardinals. Yet the German-born beer garden proprietor would become one of the most important - and funniest - figures in the game’s history.
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Well written and extensive research but just not interesting
- By Samuel C on 07-30-20
By: Edward Achorn
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The Best Game Ever
- Giants vs. Colts, 1958, and the Birth of the Modern NFL
- By: Mark Bowden
- Narrated by: Phil Gigante
- Length: 6 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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On December 28, 1958, the New York Giants and Baltimore Colts met under the lights of Yankee Stadium for that season's NFL Championship game. Football was still greatly over-shadowed by the country's favored pastime - baseball - but the 1958 championship proved to be the turning point for pro football.
On the field and roaming the sidelines were 17 future Hall of Famers, including Colts stars Johnny Unitas, Raymond Berry, and Gino Marchetti, and Giants greats Frank Gifford, Sam Huff, and assistant coaches Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry.
The Best Game Ever is a brilliant portrait of how a single game changed the history of American sports.
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What about the other team?
- By Smalls on 11-29-08
By: Mark Bowden
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The Masters
- Golf, Money, and Power in Augusta, Georgia
- By: Curt Sampson
- Narrated by: Barrett Whitener
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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The Masters golf tournament weaves a hypnotic spell. It is the toughest ticket in sports, with black-market tickets selling for $10,000 and more. Success at Augusta National breeds legends, while failure can overshadow even the most brilliant of careers. But as Curt Sampson reveals in The Masters, a cold heart beats behind the warm antebellum facade of this famous Augusta course.
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Okay Listen, but
- By Scott D. Loeffler on 05-02-08
By: Curt Sampson
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Rome 1960
- The Olympics that Changed the World
- By: David Maraniss
- Narrated by: David Maraniss
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Abridged
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The athletes competing in the 1960 Rome Olympics included some of the most honored in Olympic history: decathlete Rafer Johnson, sprinter Wilma Rudolph, Ethiopian marathoner Abebe Bikila, and Louisville boxer Cassius Clay, who at 18 seized the world stage for the first time, four years before he became Muhammad Ali.
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Very Good Book
- By Jay on 07-30-08
By: David Maraniss
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Major Taylor
- The Inspiring Story of a Black Cyclist and the Men Who Helped Him Achieve Worldwide Fame
- By: Conrad Kerber, Terry Kerber
- Narrated by: Barrie Buckner
- Length: 15 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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In the wake of the Tour de France’s fallen heroes, the story of one of history’s most legendary cyclists provides a much-needed antidote. In 1907 the world’s most popular athlete was not Cy Young or Ty Cobb. Rather, he was a black bicycle racer named "Major” Taylor. In his day, Taylor became a spiritual and athletic idol. He was the fastest man in America and a champion who prevailed over unspeakable cruelty. The men who aided him were among the most colorful to emerge from the era.
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Great book terrible narrator
- By B. P. H. on 10-31-18
By: Conrad Kerber, and others
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Undefeated
- Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team
- By: Steve Sheinkin
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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When superstar athlete Jim Thorpe and football legend Pop Warner met in 1904 at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, they forged one of the winningest teams in American football history. Called "the team that invented football", they took on the best opponents of their day, defeating much more privileged schools such as Harvard and Army in a series of breathtakingly close calls, genius plays, and bone-crushing hard work.
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I don't even like sports.
- By Melmonie on 03-12-18
By: Steve Sheinkin
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Pete Rose
- An American Dilemma
- By: Kostya Kennedy
- Narrated by: Ben Bartolone
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Pete Rose played baseball with a singular and headfirst abandon that endeared him to fans and peers, even as it riled others--a figure at once magnetic, beloved and polarizing. Rose has more base hits than anyone in history, yet he is not in the Hall of Fame. Twenty-five years ago he was banished from baseball for gambling, then ruled ineligible for Cooperstown; today, the question "Does Pete Rose belong in the Hall of Fame?" has evolved into perhaps the most provocative in sports, a layered, slippery and ever-relevant moral conundrum.
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Good book, not so good production.
- By david d. on 05-01-14
By: Kostya Kennedy
What listeners say about Farewell to Sport
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Nance C
- 10-01-16
Top Sports Reporter of the Golden Age Said It All
What did you like best about this story?
Before writing forty-one books, including “The Snow Goose,” “Mrs. ‘Arris goes to Paris,” “The Posidon Adventure,” plus numerous short stories and movies, Paul Gallico was the pre-eminent sports writer of the 1920s and ‘30s; these are the stories that prove it. He was a man of his time, recording his time, and he did not pull his punches. There are no proper, “politically correct” references here. He calls ‘em like he sees ‘em, with the slam-bang nouns and adjectives available to the reporter of the era. Here is history, in your face, with no excuses, and no matter one’s ethnicity. When he describes the experience of the ethnic athlete in the time of Jim Crow and Adolph Hitler, he is so vivid that this listener had to stop listening for a bit, in order to recover emotional equilibrium. I can feel tears glimmering on the edge even now, as I write this.
What about David Stifel’s performance did you like?
David Stifel is evocative and edgy, smooth and sly, very much a vivid interpreter of the author’s voice without being intrusive. A masterful reading of timeless observations in the pivotal decade in the life of a very American author who should be revered for not only his insight into the foibles of man, but his use and reverence of his language.
Any additional comments?
This is the perfect gift for the sports lover of any age.
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- cayugalad
- 05-24-15
Like having the author regale you in person
What did you love best about Farewell to Sport?
Paul Gallico's writing and David Stifel's narration
What did you like best about this story?
Paul Gallico's personality.
Any additional comments?
Paul Gallico was an example of good ol' two-fisted sportswriting. He pulled no punches when expressing any of his opinions and convictions, but in the midst of his muscular writing dwelt the mind of a poet, and when he wanted to he could wax rhapsodic with the best of them. David Stifel's narration jibes perfectly with Gallico's mode of expression, and does expert service to his varied moods and viewpoints. Clear and well paced, one begins by wanting to hear what Gallico had to say, and ends with wanting to hear more of how David Stifel says it. Great listen all around
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1 person found this helpful
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- Racheal
- 11-17-22
required reading
the narrators voice fits the tone of the book. the content isn't very appealing to me but it wasn't bad as far as books about stuff i dont care about go.
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Overall
- Al
- 04-08-15
1937 Sports Different But The Same
Paul Gallico is a decent writer, problem is he writes with the attitudes of the 1930's. If you can get past the bigotry and chauvinism and if you really like boxing, then this book is for you. The couple of really good portions of the book are that he makes a point about professionalism seeping into college sports, which proves how long this has been a problem. He also tells a nice Babe Ruth story. Otherwise, it was not for me
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