They Bled Blue
Fernandomania, Strike-Season Mayhem, and the Weirdest Championship Baseball Had Ever Seen: The 1981 Los Angeles Dodgers
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Narrated by:
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Jason Turbow
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By:
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Jason Turbow
About this listen
They Bled Blue is the rollicking yarn of the Los Angeles Dodgers' crazy 1981 season, a watershed campaign that cemented the team's place and reputation as fitting thoroughly within the surrounding LA culture. That it culminated in an unlikely World Series win - during a split season demarcated by a strike, no less - is not even the most interesting thing about this team.
The Dodgers were led by the garrulous Tommy Lasorda, whose office hosted a regular stream of Hollywood royalty. They had Steve Garvey, the first baseman with the movie-star good looks. Garvey was teamed with Ron Cey, Davey Lopes, and Bill Russell in the most durable infield in major league history, with 1981 presenting their final chance to win a championship as a unit. The difference maker was an entirely unexpected 20-year-old nearly straight out of Mexico, with a wild delivery and a screwball as his flippin' out pitch. Fernando Valenzuela didn't speak much English, but his baseball ability broke down cultural barriers and helped fill Dodger Stadium to the brim with a Southern California Latino population that had been thirsting for just such a success story.
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Story
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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Homegrown
- How the Red Sox Built a Champion from the Ground Up
- By: Alex Speier
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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The 2018 season was a coronation for the Boston Red Sox. The best team in Major League Baseball - indeed, one of the best teams ever - the Sox won 108 regular season games and then romped through the postseason, going 11-3 against the three next-strongest teams baseball had to offer. As Alex Speier reveals, the Sox’ success wasn’t a fluke - nor was it guaranteed. It was the result of careful, patient planning and shrewd decision-making that allowed Boston to develop a golden generation of prospects - and then build upon that talented core to assemble a juggernaut.
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Great read if you like the Red Sox or baseball ops
- By Amazon Customer on 01-11-20
By: Alex Speier
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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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The Team That Changed Baseball
- Roberto Clemente and the 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates
- By: Bruce Markusen
- Narrated by: Kevin Free
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Team That Changed Baseball: Roberto Clemente and the 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates, veteran baseball writer Bruce Markusen tells the story of one of the most likable and significant teams in the history of professional sports. In addition to the fact that they fielded the first all-minority lineup in major league history, the 1971 Pirates are noteworthy for the team's inspiring individual performances.
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The first All Black and Brown Baseball Line-up.
- By Matthew Tsien on 05-22-16
By: Bruce Markusen
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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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A Band of Misfits
- Tales of the 2010 San Francisco Giants
- By: Andrew Baggarly
- Narrated by: Brian Troxell
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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For 53 years, San Francisco waited. Waited for a team like the 2010 Giants to come along. Waited for a team that could end a title drought that started in New York and carried on for more than five decades after a move to the West Coast. Waited for that one magical postseason run that could unleash more than a half-century of pent-up frustration. At long last, the 2010 Giants hopped on that magic carpet and made it happen. San Jose Mercury News beat reporter Andrew Baggarly captured the 2010 Giants' incredible run through the regular season, playoffs and World Series in his new book.
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Relived that season!
- By jeff olson on 12-20-18
By: Andrew Baggarly
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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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Power Ball
- Anatomy of a Modern Baseball Game
- By: Rob Neyer
- Narrated by: Rob Neyer
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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The former ESPN columnist and analytics pioneer dramatically recreates an action-packed 2017 game between the Oakland A’s and eventual World Series champion Houston Astros to reveal the myriad ways in which Major League Baseball has changed over the last few decades.
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Solid overview of Baseball in 2018
- By Tyler Burch on 11-21-18
By: Rob Neyer
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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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The Captain
- The Journey of Derek Jeter
- By: Ian O'Connor
- Narrated by: Nick Pollifrone
- Length: 14 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Every spring, Little Leaguers across the country mimic his stance and squabble over the right to wear his number, 2, the next number to be retired by the world’s most famous ball team. Derek Jeter is their hero. He walks in the footsteps of Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, and Mantle, and someday his shadow will loom just as large. Yet he has never been the best player in baseball. In fact, he hasn’t always been the best player on his team. But his intangible grace and Jordanesque ability to play big in the biggest of postseason moments make him the face of the modern Yankee dynasty, and of America’s game.
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Great book, terrible narrator.
- By Butter on 05-09-14
By: Ian O'Connor
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Three Nights in August
- Strategy, Heartbreak, and Joy Inside the Mind of a Manager
- By: Buzz Bissinger
- Narrated by: Jeffrey Nordling
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Given unprecedented access to La Russa and his team, best-selling journalist Bissinger captures baseball's strategic and emotional essence. We watch from the dugout as La Russa's Cardinals take on their archrivals, the Chicago Cubs, in a thrilling three-game series.
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Book with good premise follows through
- By Peter on 11-18-05
By: Buzz Bissinger
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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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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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Seasons in Hell
- With Billy Martin, Whitey Herzog and "The Worst Baseball Team in History"-The 1973-1975 Texas Rangers
- By: Mike Shropshire
- Narrated by: Peter Powlus
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Offering wonderful perspectives on dozens of unique (and likely never-to-be-seen-again) baseball personalities, Seasons in Hell recounts some of the most extreme characters ever to play the game and brings to life the no-holds-barred culture of major league baseball in the mid-'70s.
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If you followed MLB in the 70's or 80's !!!!
- By Eric on 03-09-16
By: Mike Shropshire
What listeners say about They Bled Blue
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Donna B.
- 06-08-20
Great Book for Dodger Fans
I purchased this book for a road trip with my husband - a true Dodger fan. i really enjoyed it.
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- Andrew Marsh
- 06-17-20
Very enjoyable
Really captured the time period and learn a lot thing about that team and era. Very enjoyable
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- larry
- 08-06-24
Piece of Dodgers History
Great book on the Dodgers and the infield very detailed list of fun interviews.Go Dodgers!
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- JIM HOWELL
- 04-06-23
Well-researched recollection
Great job by the author to take me back to my high school days when one of my best friends to this day and I first found our mutual love of the Dodgers, and it all came together in 1981. Great job by the author for profiling, separating fact from fiction and lore from reality, and giving a well -detailed account. I would probably subscribe to the view of other reviewers that the author probably should not have been the narrator, because there were plenty of times that he sounded like he was reading his own prose, but that is the difference between a narrator & a reader. With that, said, though, I can certainly understand why the author would want to deliver his own words in his own voice.
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- Bim Henderson
- 07-28-19
Dodgers history smeared by a Giants fan...
The author narrates the story and does really well, but he seems more interested in all the negatives surrounding the 1981 season and our heroes than placing them among the greats of World Series lore. Full of back-handed compliments, tales of prostitutes, cocaine use and other such darkness, you'd think that the author meant this book as a psuedo-persecution instead of a championship story. When he admits to growing up a San Francisco Giants fan, you begin to realize his motivation for trying to smear the Boys in Blue. Totally unimpressed and a little angry as well.
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5 people found this helpful