Perfection's Arbiter Audiobook By Richard Paolinelli cover art

Perfection's Arbiter

The Story Of Babe Pinelli

 Virtual Voice Sample

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Perfection's Arbiter

By: Richard Paolinelli
Narrated by: Virtual Voice
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This title uses virtual voice narration

Virtual voice is computer-generated narration for audiobooks.

About this listen

 On October 8, 1956, New York Yankees pitcher Don Larsen threw the only perfect game in World Series history against the Brooklyn Dodgers. But the story you have never heard, a story that, had it not happened the way it did, might have changed the very history of baseball is the story of the man in the mask and blue umpire suit standing behind the plate and Yankees catcher Yogi Berra. That man was Ralph "Babe" Pinelli. Had it been any other umpire that day other than Pinelli, Larsen's perfect game might never have happened, if not for how Pinelli grew up in early 20th Century San Francisco, how he overcame losing his father in the 1906 Quake, how he overcame his hot temper to become a major league baseball player and umpire. Perfection's Arbiter looks at the amazing life and career of Ralph "Babe" Pinelli, the man fate chose to be exactly where he needed to be on one of the game's greatest days. Baseball & Softball Sports Game
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The story of Babe Pinelli is done very well, well researched, passionate, and interesting. The author does a good job showing how well respected Babe was in the baseball community, tying his life to his behind-the-plate performance in Don Larsen's 1956 World Series perfect game. The pacing is good. I did enjoy it as another good umpire book is on the market and makes the case that more umpires should be in the Hall of Fame.

What was weird was the AI narrator. The tenor was pleasing but there were too many times that a stray misspeak of a colloquialism of baseball is butchered and takes you out of the moment. Things like, "He hit point three zero zero," "the team had a season record of sixty-five to one hundred two," and "the u-2 umpire." Then there were random "one" all over the place. I think the AI saw the close quote symbol as a one and pronounced it every time. At first I thought it may have been a reference number but every time it was "one." Then there are the flashback sections at the beginning of each chapter that are extremely choppy. I'm guessing it is because it is either italicized or there are spaces between lines to make it take up more of the page.

Three of the final chapters are personal and team stats that make no sense being narrated, and are done so awkwardly. The stat chapters would do better as an attached PDF.

I appreciate listening to the story and hearing of a great subject, but the virtual narrator needs a lot of work.

$500 dollar story with a $0.10 narrator

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