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The Bona Fide Legend of Cool Papa Bell
- Speed, Grace, and the Negro Leagues
- Narrated by: David Sadzin
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
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Publisher's summary
The first full biography of the star Negro Leaguer and Hall of Famer
James “Cool Papa” Bell (1903-1991) was a legend in Black baseball, a lightning-fast switch hitter elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974. Bell’s speed was extraordinary; as Satchel Paige famously quipped, he was so fast he could flip a light switch and be in bed before the room got dark.
In The Bona Fide Legend of Cool Papa Bell, experienced baseball writer and historian Lonnie Wheeler recounts the life of this extraordinary player, a key member of some of the greatest Negro League teams in history.
Born to sharecroppers in Mississippi, Bell was part of the Great Migration, the movement of African Americans from the southern states to the northern states from 1910 through 1930. In St. Louis, baseball saved Bell from a life working in slaughterhouses. Wheeler charts Bell’s ups and downs in life and in baseball, in the United States, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico, where he went to escape American racism and major league baseball’s color line.
Rich in context and suffused in myth, this is a treat for fans of baseball history.
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 47
It was a Thursday at Chicago's Wrigley Field, mostly sunny with the wind blowing out. Nobody expected an afternoon game between the Philadelphia Phillies and Chicago Cubs on May 17, 1979, to be much more than a lazy early-season contest matching two teams heading in opposite directions - the first-place Phillies and the Cubs, those lovable losers - until they combined for 13 runs in the first inning. Ten Innings at Wrigley is Kevin Cook's vivid account of a game that could only have happened at this ballpark, in this era, with this colorful cast of heroes and heels.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Baseball stars of my youth
- By Hebern on 05-26-20
By: Kevin Cook
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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
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 35
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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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2 out of 5 stars
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Acumen bugaboo
- By steve finkelstein on 04-25-21
By: Bill Madden
-
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
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 113
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 101
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 100
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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5 out of 5 stars
-
If you followed MLB in the 70's or 80's !!!!
- By Eric on 03-09-16
By: Mike Shropshire
-
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
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 96
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 74
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 75
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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5 out of 5 stars
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For the love of Baseball
- By Al on 03-23-10
By: Mark Frost
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Ty Cobb
- A Terrible Beauty
- By: Charles Leerhsen
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 15 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 815
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 742
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 740
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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5 out of 5 stars
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Two Cobb Books, One Review of a Maligned Legacy
- By Jonathan Love on 05-17-16
By: Charles Leerhsen
-
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
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 46
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 41
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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5 out of 5 stars
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Reliving my youth
- By PJ on 05-24-17
By: Michael Leahy
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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
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 51
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 44
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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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5 out of 5 stars
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Detroit Upsets St. Louis in 1968 World Series.
- By Matthew Tsien on 05-01-18
By: Tim Wendel
-
Opening Day
- The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season
- By: Jonathan Eig
- Narrated by: Richard Allen
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 59
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 33
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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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3 out of 5 stars
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Great book, not so great reading
- By Joe Baseball on 08-30-07
By: Jonathan Eig
-
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
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 73
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 66
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 66
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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5 out of 5 stars
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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
-
A Nice Little Place on the North Side
- Wrigley Field at One Hundred
- By: George Will
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 5 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 95
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 81
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 81
In A Nice Little Place on the North Side, leading columnist George Will returns to baseball with a deeply personal look at his hapless Chicago Cubs and their often beatified home, Wrigley Field, as it enters its second century. Baseball, Will argues, is full of metaphors for life, religion, and happiness, and Wrigley is considered one of its sacred spaces. But what is its true, hyperbole-free history?
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3 out of 5 stars
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It's EEE-lia, not Ah-LEE-ah
- By Shawcago on 04-25-16
By: George Will
-
Babe
- The Legend Comes to Life
- By: Robert W. Creamer
- Narrated by: Tom Parker
- Length: 13 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 323
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 264
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 265
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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5 out of 5 stars
-
The definitive biography of Babe Ruth
- By DKT on 05-30-16
-
The Grandest Stage
- A History of the World Series
- By: Tyler Kepner
- Narrated by: Tyler Kepner
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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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5 out of 5 stars
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A wonderful book, filled with tidbits of great information. Essential reading for any fan of baseball history!
- By Shawn Kaufman on 01-23-24
By: Tyler Kepner
-
Baseball
- A History of America's Game
- By: Benjamin G. Rader
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 45
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 41
A succinct history of baseball, newly revised and updated. In this third edition of his lively history of America's game, widely recognized as the best of its kind, Benjamin G. Rader expands his scope, covering record crowds and record income, construction of new ballparks, a change in the strike zone, a surge in recruiting Japanese players, and an emerging cadre of explosive long-ball hitters. The book is published by The University of Illinois Press.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Good book!
- By Judy Ellis on 04-15-18
-
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
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 63
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 55
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 55
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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5 out of 5 stars
-
The first All Black and Brown Baseball Line-up.
- By Matthew Tsien on 05-22-16
By: Bruce Markusen
-
Pete Rose
- An American Dilemma
- By: Kostya Kennedy
- Narrated by: Ben Bartolone
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 134
-
Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 120
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 122
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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4 out of 5 stars
-
Good book, not so good production.
- By david d. on 05-01-14
By: Kostya Kennedy
-
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
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 215
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 190
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 190
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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4 out of 5 stars
-
BOTH BOOK AND TEAM NEED TO BE BETTER
- By Ray on 09-06-15
By: Molly Knight
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Game Winning, Grand Slam!!!
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Doc, Donnie, the Kid, and Billy Brawl
- How the 1985 Mets and Yankees Fought for New York’s Baseball Soul
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Never before had both the Yankees and the Mets been in contention for the playoffs so late in the same season. For months New York fans dreamed of the first Subway Series in nearly 30 years, and the Mets and the Yankees vied for their hearts. While the drama inside the Mets' clubhouse only made the team more endearing to fans, the drama inside the Yankees' clubhouse had the opposite effect. The result was the most attention-grabbing and exciting season New York would see in generations.
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True
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For players, fans, managers, and executives, Jackie Robinson remains baseball’s singular figure, the person who most profoundly extended, and continues to extend, the reach of the game. Beyond Ruth. Beyond Clemente. Beyond Aaron. Beyond the heroes of today. Now, a half-century since Robinson’s death, letters come to his widow, Rachel, by the score. But Robinson’s impact extended far beyond baseball: he opened the door for Black Americans to participate in other sports, and was a national figure who spoke and wrote eloquently about inequality.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great book, well read
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They Bled Blue
- Fernandomania, Strike-Season Mayhem, and the Weirdest Championship Baseball Had Ever Seen: The 1981 Los Angeles Dodgers
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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.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Dodgers history smeared by a Giants fan...
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Oscar Charleston
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Buck O'Neil once described him as "Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, and Tris Speaker rolled into one". Among experts, he is regarded as the best player in Negro Leagues history. During his prime, he became a legend in Cuba and one of Black America's most popular figures. Yet even among serious sports fans, Oscar Charleston is virtually unknown today.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Babe
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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
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The Book of Joe
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 75
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 66
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 66
No one sees baseball like Joe Maddon. He sees it through his trademark glasses and irrepressible wit. Raised in the “shot and beer” town of Hazleton, PA, and forged by 15 years in the minors, Maddon over 19 seasons in Tampa Bay, Chicago, and Anaheim has become one of the most successful, most colorful, and most quoted managers in Major League Baseball. He is a workplace culture expert, having engineered two of the most stunning turnarounds in the past quarter century.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Enjoyable listen of a baseball life lifer
- By PB on 04-05-24
By: Joe Maddon, and others
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The Shift
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 50
With its three-hour-long contests, 162-game seasons, and countless measurable variables, baseball is a sport which lends itself to self-reflection and obsessive analysis. It's a thinking game. It's also a shifting game. Nowhere is this more evident than in the statistical revolution which has swept through the pastime in recent years, bringing metrics like WAR, OPS, and BABIP into front offices and living rooms alike.
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Baseball Players are Human? Who knew?
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Cobb
- By: Al Stump
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 181
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 105
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 107
As a boy in the 1890s he went looking for thrills in a rural Georgia that still burned with humiliation from the Civil War. As an old man in the 1960s he dared death, picked fights, refused to take his medicine, and drove off all his friends and admirers. He went to his deathbed alone, clutching a loaded pistol and a bag containing millions of dollars worth of cash and securities. During the years in between, he became, according to Al Stump, "the most shrewd, inventive, lurid, detested, mysterious, and superb of all baseball players." He was Ty Cobb. In Cobb, Stump tells how he was given a fascinating window into the Georgia Peach's life and times when the dying Cobb hired him in 1960 to ghostwrite his autobiography.
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5 out of 5 stars
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What a man -- what a book!
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Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic
- Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley's Swingin' A's
- By: Jason Turbow
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 92
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Story5 out of 5 stars 91
The Oakland A's of the early 1970s were the most transformative team in baseball history. Never before had an entire organization so collectively traumatized baseball's establishment with its outlandish behavior and business decisions - or with its indisputable winning record: five straight division titles and three straight championships. The high drama that played out on the field was exceeded only by the drama in the clubhouse and front office.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great insight, funny story on the A's!
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By: Jason Turbow
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The Wax Pack
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 175
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 156
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 156
Is there life after baseball? Starting from this simple question, The Wax Pack ends up with something much bigger and unexpected - a meditation on the loss of innocence and the gift of impermanence, for both Brad Balukjian and the former ballplayers he tracked down. To get a truly random sample of players, Balukjian followed this wildly absurd but fun-as-hell premise: he took a single pack of baseball cards from 1986 (the first year he collected cards), opened it, chewed the nearly 30-year-old gum inside, gagged, and then embarked on a quest to find all the players in the pack.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Clever idea, lackluster results
- By Keith on 06-19-20
By: Brad Balukjian
What listeners say about The Bona Fide Legend of Cool Papa Bell
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- JGel7
- 06-08-21
Great book on the negro leagues
This book is not just about cool papa, although he is the central character in the book. If you are looking for an engaging and thorough read on the Negro leagues, this book is for you.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Randall Risner
- 07-21-22
Excellent
Excellent history of a fascinating athlete. Good history of the Negro Leagues and the shame of Jim Crow baseball as well.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- patrick
- 08-24-21
Overall great book
A well assembled book putting together lots of source information to paint a portrait of a champion of baseball. Great insight into baseball in an era of exclusion. It will make you want to read more about the times, the players and the milestone events and situations mentioned.
Fans of baseball and sport overall will enjoy this story.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- S. O.
- 03-27-21
Incredible!
This book is absolutely an incredible bio of one of the greatest ball players to ever live. The narrator did a magnificent job. The story truly came to life. Books like this will be the historic the Negro Leagues alive.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- vic damone
- 02-28-24
Pittsburgh Proud
What a compelling story about a true legend who gave so much to the baseball world.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Andrew Neveils
- 11-16-21
Worth Remembering
James “Cool Papa” Bell’s story is amazing. I wish I could’ve watched him play, to watch him race around the bases. There are so few with the speed and intuition to run the bases like Cool Papa. I was especially moved by his humility and willingness to pass on the baton so that future players might receive the chance he never got, but so rightfully deserved.
My only issues with the book were David Sadzin’s reading (mostly fine, though the directing/editing might’ve made his pacing off a bit at times), and it felt like there was more to be told about Cool Papa. I’m sure it’s mostly due to a lack of available information, but it felt like we just plumbed the surface a bit a times.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- PATRICIA ROSS
- 04-07-22
Cool Papa Bell
Listening to this book was like listening to a baseball game on the radio. I could picture in my mind what’s going on and visualize the activity.
David Sadzin did a wonderful job of reading this awesome book
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