The Big Chair
The Smooth Hops and Bad Bounces from the Inside World of the Acclaimed Los Angeles Dodgers General Manager
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Narrated by:
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Ned Colletti
About this listen
An unprecedented, behind-the-scenes look at the career of famed former Los Angeles Dodgers general manager (a position also known as "The Big Chair"), whose tenure spanned nine of the most exciting and turbulent years in the franchise's history.
During his tenure with the Dodgers, Colletti had the highest winning percentage of any general manager in the National League. In The Big Chair (coauthored by Joseph A. Reaves), he lets listeners in on the real GM experience - something no one in the position has ever done before - sharing the inner workings of three of the top franchises in the sport, revealing the out-of-the-headlines machinations behind the trades, the hires and the deals; how the money really works; how the decision making really works; how much power the players really have and why - the real brass tacks of some of the most pivotal decisions made in baseball history that led to great success along with heartbreak and failure on the field. Baseball fans will come for the grit and insight, stay for the heart, and pass it on for the wisdom.
Ned Colletti began his MLB career with his beloved hometown team, the Chicago Cubs, more than 35 years ago. He worked in Chicago for a dozen years and was in the front office when the Cubs won the National League East in 1984 and 1989, after which he moved on as director of baseball operations for the SF Giants. By 1996 he became the assistant GM for the Giants before being hired as the GM in Los Angeles in 2006. There he oversaw the Dodgers through the highly publicized and acrimonious divorce battle between Frank and Jamie McCourt that culminated in the equally highly publicized sale of the team. He was present at the press conference where Don Mattingly, having just watched his team eliminated from the playoffs, used the postseason conference to vehemently discuss his lack of a contract extension. He brought marquee names like Greg Maddux and Clayton Kershaw to LA as well as marquee drama with the likes of Manny Ramirez and Yasiel Puig; hired future Hall of Famer Joe Torre as manager; and oversaw 14 Dodgers playoff wins. And these are just a few of the highlights.
Colletti serves up a huge dish of firsthand experiences with some of the biggest names in baseball history (Barry Bonds, Greg Maddux, Don Mattingly, Don Zimmer, Tommy Lasorda, Scott Boras, Vin Scully, and more). From his humble early years living in a Chicago garage to his path to one of the most prestigious positions in professional sports, his very public and illustrious career has left a permanent handprint in the history of America's sport - and now he's ready to share the insight only those who have sat in The Big Chair have ever seen.
©2017 Ned Colletti (P)2017 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Ned Colletti is the best kind of baseball lifer. With a storyteller’s eye, he expertly pulls back the curtain on the games, the people, the days that made his journey unforgettable. The Big Chair is the worthy product of that life. Ultimately, it is a reminder that baseball - and the people in it - is not all about the numbers.” (Tim Brown, Yahoo! Sports writer and New York Times best-selling co-author of Imperfect and The Phenomenon)
“Former Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti saw the team through a sale, 14 playoff wins, and the acquisitions of Clayton Kershaw and Yasiel Puig. The Big Chair offers inside-baseball insight thanks to his decades-long career in the major leagues.” (Los Angeles Magazine)
“Alternating among declarations of his unabashed love for baseball, neutral reportage, and score-settling (usually with a smile and a subsequent peace offering), Colletti provides a variety of insights [and] offers unforgettable, candid profiles of hundreds of players...A treasure trove of characterizations and insights bound to entertain any MLB fan.” (Kirkus Reviews)
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- A Small-Town Coach Who Shaped Big League Dreams
- By: Michael Tackett
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Clarinda, Iowa, population 5,000, sits two hours from anything. There, between the cornfields and hog yards, is a ball field with a bronze bust of a man named Merl Eberly, a baseball whisperer who specialized in second chances and lost causes. The statue was a gift from one of Merl's original long-shot projects, a skinny kid from the ghetto in Los Angeles who would one day become a beloved Hall of Fame shortstop: Ozzie Smith.
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Great book!
- By zane Butler on 08-13-21
By: Michael Tackett
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War Room
- The Legacy of Bill Belichick and the Art of Building the Perfect Team
- By: Michael Holley
- Narrated by: Mirron Willis
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Bill Belichick is one of the titans of today's game of football. Now, sports commentator and best-selling author Michael Holley follows three NFL teams - the New England Patriots, Kansas City Chiefs, and Atlanta Falcons - from training camp 2010 through the Super Bowl and into the April draft, opening a new window into Belichick's influence on the game. This one-of-a-kind exploration takes football fans behind the scenes of the most popular sport in America, with unprecedented insider access to the head coaches, scouts, trainers, and players.
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Narrator choice - HUH?
- By Ryan Mullaney on 03-25-18
By: Michael Holley
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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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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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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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Summer of '68
- The Season That Changed Baseball - and America - Forever
- By: Tim Wendel
- Narrated by: Mark Ashby
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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From the beginning, ’68 was a season rocked by national tragedy and sweeping change. Opening Day was postponed and later played in the shadow of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s funeral. That summer, as the pennant races were heating up, the assassination of Robert Kennedy was later followed by rioting at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. But even as tensions boiled over and violence spilled into the streets, something remarkable was happening in major league ballparks across the country. Pitchers were dominating like never before, and with records falling and shut-outs mounting, many began hailing ’68 as “The Year of the Pitcher".
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Detroit Upsets St. Louis in 1968 World Series.
- By Matthew Tsien on 05-01-18
By: Tim Wendel
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The Only Rule Is It Has to Work
- Our Wild Experiment Building a New Kind of Baseball Team
- By: Ben Lindbergh, Sam Miller
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne, John Pruden
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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It's the ultimate in fantasy baseball: You get to pick the roster, set the lineup, and decide on strategies - with real players, in a real ballpark, in a real playoff race. That's what baseball analysts Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller got to do when an independent minor-league team in California, the Sonoma Stompers, offered them the chance to run its baseball operations according to the most advanced statistics.
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Narrarators have never watched baseball. Ever!
- By Anon on 06-02-16
By: Ben Lindbergh, and others
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Scribe
- My Life in Sports
- By: Bob Ryan
- Narrated by: Bob Ryan
- Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Ever since he joined the sports department of the Boston Globe in 1968, sports enthusiasts have been blessed with the writing and reporting of Bob Ryan. Tony Kornheiser calls him the "quintessential American sportswriter". For the past 25 years, he has also been a regular on various ESPN shows, especially The Sports Reporters, spreading his knowledge and enthusiasm for sports of all kinds.
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No my idea of a memoir
- By Michael Friedman on 12-19-14
By: Bob Ryan
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1954: The Year Willie Mays and the First Generation of Black Superstars Changed Major League Baseball Forever
- By: Bill Madden
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Jackie Robinson heroically broke the color barrier in 1947. But how—and, in practice, when—did the integration of the sport actually occur? Bill Madden shows that baseball’s famous black experiment” did not truly succeed until the coming of age of Willie Mays and the emergence of some star players—Larry Doby, Hank Aaron, and Ernie Banks—in 1954. And as a relevant backdrop off the field, it was in May of that year that the US Supreme Court unanimously ruled, in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, that segregation be outlawed in America’s public schools.
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Acumen bugaboo
- By steve finkelstein on 04-25-21
By: Bill Madden
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One on One
- Behind the Scenes with the Greats in the Game
- By: John Feinstein
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 16 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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After numerous beloved and best-selling sports books, John Feinstein returns to the subjects of his first 10 books, crafting a narrative of the most revealing encounters he's had. These are the coaches and athletes who know their games the best, and the legends and legendary moments that gave inherent shape to our favorite pastimes.
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Big Time Sports Stories and Bigger Egos
- By fred on 03-12-12
By: John Feinstein
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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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108 Stitches
- Loose Threads, Ripping Yarns, and the Darndest Characters from My Time in the Game
- By: Ron Darling, Daniel Paisner - contributor
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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This is New York Times bestselling author and Emmy-nominated broadcaster Ron Darling's 108 baseball anecdotes that connect America’s game to the men who played it. Darling has played with or reported on just about everybody who has put on a uniform since 1983, and they in turn have played with or reported on just about everybody who put on a uniform in a previous generation. Like the 108 stitches on a baseball, Darling's experiences are interwoven with every athlete who has ever played, every coach or manager, and every fan.
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Meh
- By Amazon Customer on 04-13-19
By: Ron Darling, and others
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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
What listeners say about The Big Chair
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Donald
- 06-15-18
Great Story about a Great Man
I decided to listen to Ned Colletti’s Book “The Big Chair” and I’m glad I did.
It gives a good description of his Blue Collar parents and Ned’s Blue Collar start where he basically worked 2 jobs to make ends meet, he seemed to feel it was worth it to be in an industry he was interested in (Chicago Hockey and Cubs Baseball). The book then goes into his days with The Chicago Cubs (the team he rooted for as a young boy), then to The San Fransisco Giants and finally to The Los Angeles Dodgers. Throughout the book Ned is very appreciative of the people that helped him during his career. There are probably only about 3 or 4 people in the entire book that Ned has negative words for. All in all, it’s a great book that gives good backstage access and insight to the decision making process of a major market GM.
I’ve always liked Ned and this book made me appreciate him even more. There are some parts of the book that even got me a little misty eyed, mostly stuff about Ned’s Father and other Family members.
I will say that if you’re looking for a book that is going to be negative and stir up controversy about other people you might want to look elsewhere, he has positive words for the SF Giants, Brian Sabian (who I personally don’t like because he’s the GM of the SF Giants and helped them win 3 World Series in a 5 year run), Barry Bonds and Frank McCourt.
I would recommend this book to any long time Dodger fans or any baseball fan for that matter.
Go Blue.
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- Jonathan Leir
- 11-27-17
Insight into the Big chair.
Really enjoyable story telling on all aspects of baseball. Enjoy hearing it straight from Ned himself. Great great listen.
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- Lester
- 01-18-19
Amazing Insight
Fantastic information on the day to day life of an MLB front office executive. Great resource.
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- David
- 08-31-20
My era dodgers
Loved hearing the backstories to the headlines that were making the news in years past. An inside perspective, plus its Ned reading it!
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- Amy M Atkinson
- 10-22-18
If you love baseball & the Dodgers, listen!
Ned Colletti is a wonderful communicator and loves the game. This was a great book. I love that he is the narrator. I loved the stories. I loved the inside information. It was fantastic.
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- Joel Torres
- 01-03-18
good listen!
good book, Chronicles the life of ned in the begining then his career as he gets to the big chair. covers the Frank McCourt ownership and some key players moves/ acquisitions from behind the scenes! for any dodgers fan
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-29-18
A must listen!!!
This book is amazing!! Ned reading the book makes you feel like you are sitting next to him talking baseball. The stories and behind the scenes situations, we all desire to know, makes this book a must have!! Simply great!!
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- Anonymous User
- 08-03-21
Great story about a better man
This is a great read/listen for any dodger fan or baseball fan who wants a glimpse into the life of a baseball executive.
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- Lou Valdez
- 10-17-22
Great book
Really enjoy this book a must read for any baseball enthusiast for those of you who enjoy hearing back stories her famous players trades and what it really is like to be a general manager it’s a must read I become a super big fan of Ned Colletti
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- TCfla
- 12-19-17
Great baseball story
This is both a great baseball story and a great memoir. There are few parts hard to get through (although if you aren't a Giants, Cubs, or Dodgers fan there might be). Colletti has interesting anecdotes that will pique the interest of baseball lovers and entertain the casual fan. He name drops constantly and has the life experience to fathom both young and old baseball enthusiasts.
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