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Gil Hodges
- The Brooklyn Bums, the Miracle Mets, and the Extraordinary Life of a Baseball Legend
- Narrated by: Kris Koscheski
- Length: 14 hrs and 13 mins
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Publisher's summary
Due to his achievements as a player and manager, as well as his sterling character, Gil Hodges deserves to be in the Hall of Fame more than any other player. A towering figure during the Golden Era of the 1950s, Hodges was the Brooklyn Dodgers’ powerful first baseman who, alongside Jackie Robinson, helped drive his team to six pennants and a thrilling World Series victory in 1955. Fans never booed the beloved home run hitter from Indiana who married a Brooklyn girl and settled in their borough, and they famously prayed for him when he slumped.
Dutifully following the Dodgers to Los Angeles in 1958, Hodges longed to return to New York City. He joined the original Mets team in 1962, and he finished his playing career with them. In 1968, he took over the manager’s spot on their bench. Under his steady hand, the Mets went from a joke to World Champions in 1969 - the Miracle Mets.
Yet behind his stoic demeanor lay a man prone to anxiety and worry. Hodges was scarred by combat on Tinian and Okinawa during World War II, and his inner turmoil was exacerbated by tight pennant races and excruciating defeats. His sudden death in 1972 shocked his friends and family, and left a void in the hearts of baseball fans everywhere.
Acclaimed authors Tom Clavin and Danny Peary delve into one of baseball’s most overlooked stars, shedding light on a fascinating life and career that even his most ardent fans never knew. An exciting biography that paints a portrait of an amazing era of baseball as much as it does an admirable player, Gil Hodges is sure to please fans of America’s pastime.
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Bums
- An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers
- By: Peter Golenbock
- Narrated by: Raymond Todd
- Length: 19 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Before the team headed to Los Angeles in 1957, the Brooklyn Dodgers were one of the most colorful and beloved teams in baseball. In Bums, best-selling author Peter Golenbock has compiled a fascinating oral history of the Ebbets Field heroes with recollections from former players, writers, front-office executives, and faithful fans.
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A MUST for the true Dodgers or Giants fan!!
- By Karen on 02-25-07
By: Peter Golenbock
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The Last Innocents
- The Collision of the Turbulent Sixties and the Los Angeles Dodgers
- By: Michael Leahy
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 15 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Legendary Dodgers Maury Wills, Sandy Koufax, Wes Parker, Jeff Torborg, Dick Tracewski, and Tommy Davis encapsulated 1960s America: white and black, Jewish and Christian, wealthy and working class, pro-Vietnam and anti-war, golden boy and seasoned veteran. The Last Innocents is a thoughtful, technicolor portrait of these seven players - friends, mentors, confidants, rivals, and allies - and their storied team that offers an intriguing look at a sport and a nation in transition.
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Reliving my youth
- By PJ on 05-24-17
By: Michael Leahy
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Game Six
- Cincinnati, Boston, and the 1975 World Series: The Triumph of America's Pastime
- By: Mark Frost
- Narrated by: Andrew Garman
- Length: 13 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Best-selling author Mark Frost takes listeners back to the 1975 World Series in this thrilling account of the greatest baseball game ever played. The Reds and Red Sox endured three soggy days of inactivity to reach game six. But all that downtime could not prepare them for what happened when the skies finally cleared.
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For the love of Baseball
- By Al on 03-23-10
By: Mark Frost
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The Best Team Money Can Buy
- The Los Angeles Dodgers’ Wild Struggle to Build a Baseball Powerhouse
- By: Molly Knight
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2012 the Los Angeles Dodgers were bought out of bankruptcy in the most expensive sale in sports history. Los Angeles icon Magic Johnson and his partners hoped to put together a team worthy of Hollywood. By most accounts they have succeeded, if not always in the way they might have imagined.
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BOTH BOOK AND TEAM NEED TO BE BETTER
- By Ray on 09-06-15
By: Molly Knight
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The Grandest Stage
- A History of the World Series
- By: Tyler Kepner
- Narrated by: Tyler Kepner
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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The World Series is the most enduring showcase in American team sports. It’s the place where legends are made, where celebration and devastation can hinge on a fly ball off a foul pole or a grounder beneath a first baseman’s glove. And there’s no one better to bring this rich history to life than New York Times national baseball columnist Tyler Kepner, whose bestselling book about pitching, K, was lauded as “Michelangelo explaining the brush strokes on the Sistine Chapel” by Newsday.
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Excellent!
- By DavidF on 09-09-24
By: Tyler Kepner
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Babe
- The Legend Comes to Life
- By: Robert W. Creamer
- Narrated by: Tom Parker
- Length: 13 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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He was the biggest man baseball has ever produced. Babe Ruth transcended the sport that brought him fame, money, and adulation, moving beyond the limits of baselines and outfield fences into the mainstream of American life. In this extraordinary biography, Creamer uncovers the complex and captivating man behind the legend.
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The definitive biography of Babe Ruth
- By DKT on 05-30-16
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The Year of the Pitcher
- Bob Gibson, Denny McLain, and the End of Baseball’s Golden Age
- By: Sridhar Pappu
- Narrated by: Leon Nixon
- Length: 12 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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The Year of the Pitcher is the story of the remarkable 1968 baseball season, which culminated in one of the greatest World Series contests ever, with the Detroit Tigers coming back from a 3-1 deficit to beat the Cardinals in Game Seven of the World Series. In 1968, two remarkable pitchers would dominate the game as well as the broadsheets. One was black, the other white. Bob Gibson, together with the St. Louis Cardinals, embodied an entire generation's hope for integration at a heated moment in American history. Denny McLain, his adversary, was a crass self-promoter.
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Misleading Title
- By Paul on 01-25-19
By: Sridhar Pappu
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The Chicago Cubs
- Story of a Curse
- By: Rich Cohen
- Narrated by: Adam Grupper
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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For Rich Cohen and millions of other fans, the Chicago Cubs have always been more than a team: they've been the protagonists of a King Arthur epic, in search of the Holy Grail that is winning the World Series. A chronicle of the last few miraculous seasons as experienced through the prism of Cubs history, The Chicago Cubs tracks the famous curse, which was placed on the team in 1945 by the infamous owner of the Billy Goat Tavern, who was ejected from Wrigley Field when he tried to bring his goat into the grandstand for the fifth game of the World Series.
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just listen and it all happens again
- By Z. Kuhn on 10-28-17
By: Rich Cohen
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Long Shot
- By: Mike Piazza, Lonnie Wheeler
- Narrated by: Holter Graham, Mike Piazza
- Length: 15 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Mike Piazza was selected by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 62nd round of the 1988 baseball draft as a "courtesy pick". The Dodgers never expected him to play for them - or anyone else. Mike had other ideas. Overcoming his detractors, he became the National League Rookie of the Year in 1993, broke the record for season batting average by a catcher, holds the record for career home runs at his position, and was selected as an All Star 12 times. Mike was groomed for baseball success by his ambitious, self-made father in Pennsylvania, a classic father-son American-dream story.
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I only thought i knew the Mike Piazza story
- By James on 03-24-13
By: Mike Piazza, and others
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Opening Day
- The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season
- By: Jonathan Eig
- Narrated by: Richard Allen
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Drawing on interviews with surviving players, sportswriters, and eyewitnesses, as well as newly discovered material from archives around the country, Jonathan Eig presents a fresh portrait of a ferocious competitor who embodied integration's promise and helped launch the modern civil-rights era. Full of new details and thrilling action, Opening Day brings to life baseball's ultimate story.
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Great book, not so great reading
- By Joe Baseball on 08-30-07
By: Jonathan Eig
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Where Nobody Knows Your Name
- Life In the Minor Leagues of Baseball
- By: John Feinstein
- Narrated by: John Feinstein
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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John Feinstein is one of the most influential sportswriters of the last three decades. In his masterful new audiobook, Where Nobody Knows Your Name, Feinstein delivers a fascinating account of the mysterious proving ground of America’s national pastime, pulling back the veil on the minor leagues of baseball.
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Living on the Cusp of a Dream
- By W Perry Hall on 04-09-14
By: John Feinstein
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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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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
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The Last Folk Hero
- The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson
- By: Jeff Pearlman
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 22 hrs
- Unabridged
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From the mid-1980s into the early 1990s, the greatest athlete of all time streaked across American sports and popular culture. Stadiums struggled to contain him. Clocks failed to capture his speed. His strength was legendary. His power unmatched. Video game makers turned him into an invincible character—and they were dead-on. He climbed (and walked across) walls, splintered baseball bats over his knee, turned oncoming tacklers into ground meat.
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If you are a sports fan and over 35 years old, you have to listen/read this. Awesome!
- By betty sammons on 06-29-23
By: Jeff Pearlman
What listeners say about Gil Hodges
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- L. Worley
- 04-02-16
Amazing
Entertaining, informative and deeply moving. This book does a fantastic job of showing the man behind the famously stoic expression. A must for fans of the golden era, the Brooklyn Dodgers, Miracle Mets or baseball in general.
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- Karen
- 01-03-13
Remember the "Boys of Summer
Although never a big Dodgers fan I have always appreciated the history of the team, it's players, managers and fans. Gil Hodges was the soul of the team during his time there and this biography captures the flavor of the times along with the story of Gil's life. Anyone with any interest in the history of the game and its meaning to American culture will find this book entertaining and informative. It is jammed with hitherto unknown nuggets of information about Mr. Hodges, his teammates and baseball in general. The narrator mispronounces a lot of words (my pet peeve - how hard is it to look up a word in the dictionary?) and does a horrible job imitating accents, but the story and pace are excellent. A FOUR BAGGER for baseball afficionados!
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- R. R. Costas Jr.
- 10-29-18
Good Ballplayer, Good Man, Good Book
I knew a little of Gil Hodges from reading other baseball history books. I really enjoyed reading more about him. This book is very well-researched with excellent sourcing. In today's world of sports, we need more athletes like Gil Hodges, who went about their business professionally, without antics and also led exemplary private and civic lives. The authors try almost a little too hard to convince us that Hodges belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame. It's a strong case when viewed against the statistics and all-time rankings of the players of his time; no way would he get in by today's stats. No matter where we move the line, a player like Hodges will always be right below it. But I would be glad to see him get in.
Of course, we devoted fans of the sport, the stories about the Brooklyn Dodgers, NY Giants and Yankees are always nostalgic and fascinating. But equally interesting were the stories about the Dodgers' move to L.A. (Hodges came with them) and those early years playing at the odd L.A. Coliseum. Beyond that, it was just as interesting to read about Hodges' manager jobs for the hapless Washington Senators and then the Mets, including the 1969 world champion Miracle Mets. His early death---attributed as a heart attack---was just a sad event. I wish he had lived much longer than 48 years.
The reader does a pretty good job except when he tries accents, especially whatever accent he was trying to conjure when he interpreted quotes by Hodges' wife. I think it was supposed to be some kind of New York or Brooklyn accent, but it sounded more southern than East Coast. Atrocious. He should just have read all the parts straight. Outside of that, he did pretty well.
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- Dr. Mike McCann
- 07-07-21
Good story Uneven Writing
There is a lot to learn from and about Gil Hodges. Unfortunately this book in parts reads like a HS book report and a B at that. The authors get lost in the weeds especially with quotes and sources and lose focus of the story. In the end it is bearable.
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