Make Me Commissioner

I Know What's Wrong with Baseball and How to Fix It

De: Jane Leavy

Narrado por: Jane Leavy

A New York Times bestselling biographer and lifelong baseball devotee takes listeners on an epic journey through the game that baseball has become—a heartfelt manifesto that's perfect for lovers of the sport.

Jane Leavy has always loved baseball. Her grandmother lived one long, loud foul ball away from Yankee Stadium—the same grandmother who took young Jane to Saks Fifth Avenue and bought her her first baseball glove. It's no coincidence that Leavy was covering the game she loved for the Washington Post by the late 1970s. As a pioneering female sportswriter, she eventually turned her talent to books, penning three of the all-time best baseball biographies about three of the all-time best players: Sandy Koufax, Mickey Mantle, and Babe Ruth. But when she went searching for a fourth biographical subject, she realized that baseball had faltered. The Moneyball era of the last two decades obsessed over data and slowed the game down to a crawl, often at the expense of thrills, skills, and surprise. Major League Baseball has begun to address issues too long ignored, yet the questions linger: how much have these efforts helped to improve the game and reassert its place in American culture?

Leavy takes a whirlwind tour of the country seeking answers to these questions, talking with luminaries like Joe Torre, Dave Roberts, Jim Palmer, Dusty Baker, and more. What Leavy uncovers is not only what’s wrong with baseball—and how to fix it—but also what’s right with baseball, and how it illuminates characters, tells stories, and fires up the imagination of those who love it and everyone who could discover it anew.

©2025 Jane Leavy (P)2025 Grand Central Publishing

Reseñas de la Crítica

“No one makes me laugh and think and nod my head yes more than Jane Leavy when she is writing about baseball, the sport we both love. Fat chance they'll ever let her become commissioner, but her combination of joy, humor, intelligence, deep historical knowledge, and common sense about how to save the game is precisely what it needs.”—David Maraniss, author of Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero

“Jane Leavy loves baseball. I love Leavy writing about baseball. On the heels of her definitive bios of all-time greats—Koufax, Mantle, and Ruth—Leavy is back to remind us why baseball is the best game and lovingly sculpts solutions to fix the national pastime. Make Me Commissioner completes Leavy's Rushmore Four on the top shelf of my baseball book collection.”—Dan Shaughnessy, author of The Curse of the Bambino and Francona

“Baseball’s broken, but don’t worry—Jane Leavy’s got the duct tape, WD-40, and a few wild ideas to fix it. A hysterical—yet practical!—take on saving America’s pastime before it turns into America’s nap time. Make her commissioner!”—Gish Jen, author of The Resisters and Bad Bad Girl

“As a big-league storyteller, Jane Leavy has all the tools: wise-ass sense of humor, eye for detail, knack for dialogue, a major address book of large personalities—and she knows what she’s talking about. The story she makes so lively, about what has gone wrong with what used to be our national pastime, just may be a story about our nation, too.”—Robert Pinsky, three-time United States Poet Laureate

Make Her Commissioner!

Written only like Jane Leavy could. The book is perfect and demonstrates years of great research. I would have loved to accompany her as it sounded like heaven for a baseball fan. She truly identifies what is wrong with baseball and has viable ideas on how to improve it. She even reads her own book to perfection. The only problem with the end of a Jane Leavy book is that you want another one as soon as it’s done. Great book!

About baseball and so much more!

Jane Leavey has lived a life as a baseball fan, writer, and a true lover of the game. She weaves stories of some of the most interesting people in the game with a keen insight into the game that will help even a passing fan understand the past, present and the possible. She uses the colorful and opinionated language of a clubhouse, but that does not diminish the validity of the points made. She has a love and passion for the game that is on clear display. She offers solutions and shows up with the receipts! Hey MLB owners, sign her up!

So Disappointing!

I have enjoyed Jane Leavy’s books in the past but this is the equivalent of listening to a highly verbose mind numbing term paper. She tries far too hard to be funny and more and more I’m convinced authors should not narrate their own books. I got through three chapters and had to stop.