Showing results by narrator "Ron Barr" in All Categories

Michael Lewis talks about his books Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game and Coach: Lessons on the Game of Life. Moneyball looks at A's General Manager Billy Beane and the strategies he uses to compete in MLB as a small market team GM. Coach is a book talking about Lewis' high school baseball coach and the lessons that he learned from him.

Renowned athlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee talks about her journey from the poverty of East St. Louis to international fame and accomplishment. Her book, A Kind of Grace: The Autobiography of the World's Greatest Female Athlete, is a marvelous tale of courage and conviction, which she movingly relates with passion, humor, honesty, and, of course, grace.

Don Katz discusses the history and marketing strategies of Nike as detailed in his book Just Do It: The Nike Spirit in the Corporate World.

John Feinstein on his first attempt at writing a fiction novel. In the interview the plot of the book, Last Shot: A Final Four Mystery, is discussed as well as college athletics in general.

Eric Lindros played 13 seasons in the NHL, where he was a Hart Memorial Trophy winner and a seven-time all-star. Lindros is a member of the 2016 Hockey Hall of Fame class, and his #88 jersey is retired by the Philadelphia Flyers. Lindros discusses his NHL career and how the game style is different today. 

WNBA Center Brittney Griner has had an impressive career, including being only the second NCAA basketball player to score 2,000 points and block 500 shots. She played on the USA Women's Olympic Team and the McDonald's All-American Team. She discusses growing up in Houston, being bullied in her younger years, and how basketball helped her to move past it. 

Yogi Berra comments on his book, When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Just Take It!, a collection of his famous witticisms. The baseball legend also talks about growing up in St. Louis and his baseball career.

Feinstein chronicles the years spent renovating "chewed-up" Bethpage (N.Y.) Black for the first-ever U.S. Open held on a municipal course, and the biggest ever net profit, at $13 million. He also talks about writing sports books in general and golf.

Three-time NL manager of the year Dusty Baker played 19 years in the major leagues and most recently managed the Washington Nationals to an NL East Championship. In this interview, Baker talks about managing in the majors and his book, Kiss the Sky: My Weekend in Monterey for the Greatest Rock Concert Ever.

Leigh Montville discusses writing his book, Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero, his meetings with Williams, and Williams' career.

Jerome Williams, former NBA forward who played for Detroit, Toronto, Chicago, and the New York Knicks talks about the importance of academics for kids in sports, and the weight that was placed on basketball as a kid growing up in the Washington D.C. area. Williams talks about starting his college basketball career at Georgetown, what it was like to play at Madison Square Garden, and touches on the Chicago Bulls vs. Detroit Pistons rivalry.

Andrea Kramer talks about her HBO’s Real Sports piece on the state of legalization of sports gambling. Legal sports betting is an estimated $5 billion industry, while illegal sports betting in the rest of the country has an estimated $150 billion value. Kramer talks about the fight to legalize sports betting in the state of New Jersey, which would change the climate for sports culture in the rest of the country. Kramer also analyzed the pushback from sports leagues against the legalization of sports betting. 

David West, a power forward who played 15 years in the NBA with the Warriors, Spurs, Pacers and the Hornets/Pelicans, and won an NBA Championship with the Golden State Warriors, talks about his influential coach, playing college ball for Xavier, and the two instrumental coaches he’s played for in the NBA, Gregg Popovich of the Spurs and Steve Kerr of the Warriors. West touches on how he uses basketball as a medium to reach and influence young people. 

Jon Kingdon started as an intern for controversial Raiders coach and owner Al Davis, and eventually became one of Davis’s confidants. Kingdon recalls memories from working closely with Davis including his run-ins with various players, his stretching of the rules, and more from the book he co-wrote, Al Davis: Behind the Raiders Shield: Untold Stories from Longtime Davis Confidants. 

Charley Rosen talks about his book, The Chosen Game: A Jewish Basketball History, in which he discusses the impact the Jewish community had in the early days of basketball starting in Lower East Side Jewish immigrant neighborhoods of New York City. Rosen talks about the style of gameplay that developed there from the necessity of playing in the streets, and some of the most influential Jewish figures in basketball history.

In this interview, Ron Barr talks to Pierre Turgeon, 19 season NHL center and the 34th player in NHL history to score 500 goals. Turgeon reminisces about growing up seven hours north of Montreal, learning English, and Canada’s 1987 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships bench-clearing brawl with the Soviet Union. 

Dave Kaval, president of the Oakland A’s and founder of the independent Golden Baseball League, talks about his mission to get a new stadium built in Oakland, as well as how he took inspiration from Steve Jobs to start the Golden Baseball League. Kaval gives insight on the Cleveland sports fan mentality, growing up in Cleveland and going to Municipal Stadium, and the intimacy of being a Cleveland sports fan in the 80s. 

One of the last living Negro American League players, Gilbert Black of the Indianapolis Clowns talks about growing up in NYC and sneaking into the Polo Grounds to watch baseball games as a child. Black recalls the segregation and discrimination he and other black baseball players faced in the major leagues, including being made to sleep outside on a porch at training camp with the Atlanta Braves.

Paul Beston, author of The Boxing Kings: When American Heavyweights Ruled the Ring talks about his book and the history of America’s fascination with heavyweight champs. His book focuses on the history of boxing in America through the careers of John L. Sullivan, Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey, Joe Lewis, Rocky Marciano, Mohamad Ali, and Mike Tyson: iconic figures that had the ability to appeal to people beyond the ring.

Sam Smith, author of the New York Times best seller The Jordan Rules talks about his book, Hard Labor: The Battle That Birthed the Billion-Dollar NBA, which details exactly how and why the NBA, and NBA players, make so much money. Smith explains the significance of the historic Oscar Robertson v. National Basketball Association lawsuit that allowed players free agency for the first time.