Background
Okrent, Daniel was born on April 2, 1948 in Detroit, Michigan, United States. Son of Harry and Gizella (Adler) Okrent.
(In the 150 years since its humble birth, baseball has sho...)
In the 150 years since its humble birth, baseball has shown an infinite capacity for exhilarating triumphs, heart-breaking losses, amusing blunders, and awe-inspiring feats. Willie Mays's amazing catch of Vic Wertz's monstrous drive in the 1954 World Series, Bobby Thomson's "shot heard round the world," the "Black Sox" Scandal of 1919, DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak, even the pitiful 1962 Mets, who finished 60 games (or two full months) out of first place--these are all part of baseball lore and part of its allure. A banquet for baseball fans, Baseball Anecdotes offers a colorful and highly entertaining anecdotal history of America's National Pastime, from the founding of the first professional baseball team, Cincinnati's Red Stockings, by George Wright (the son of a famous English cricketer) and the forming of the first league (in a New York bar on St. Patrick's Day), to the miraculous comeback of the Mets in the Sixth Game of the 1986 World Series. Here you will meet the game's great innovators (from John Montgomery Ward, who invented the pitching mound--and also pitched the second perfect game in history--to Bill Veeck, who introduced the exploding scoreboard in Comiskey Park); the colorful eccentrics (such as King Kelly, who was accompanied off the field by a black monkey and a Japanese valet) and the self-effacing stars (such as Harmon Killebrew, who, when asked what his hobbies were, said, "Well, I like to wash dishes"); the penny-pinching owners (when Babe Ruth requested tickets for the Yankee's 1936 season opener at The House That Ruth Built, the team management said sure, just send in a check); and, most of all, the legendary players: Ruth, Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, Lefty Gomez, Sandy Koufax, Casey Stengel, Mickey Mantle, and countless others. Along the way, readers are treated to instant replays of some of baseball's most memorable moments, such as Roger Maris' quest for Ruth's 61-home-run record, Don Larsen's perfect World Series game, and Ted Williams' final major league at bat (he hit a home run). Okrent and Wulf, two highly regarded baseball writers, touch all the bases in this vividly written volume, capturing the whole human drama of baseball in a cascade of stories that offers a nostalgic feast (or, as Yogi Berra would put it, "Deja vu all over again") as well as a fascinating introduction to baseball lore for the newest generation of fans.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195043960/?tag=2022091-20
(A brilliant, authoritative, and fascinating history of Am...)
A brilliant, authoritative, and fascinating history of America’s most puzzling era, the years 1920 to 1933, when the US Constitution was amended to restrict one of America’s favorite pastimes: drinking alcoholic beverages. From its start, America has been awash in drink. The sailing vessel that brought John Winthrop to the shores of the New World in 1630 carried more beer than water. By the 1820s, liquor flowed so plentifully it was cheaper than tea. That Americans would ever agree to relinquish their booze was as improbable as it was astonishing. Yet we did, and Last Call is Daniel Okrent’s dazzling explanation of why we did it, what life under Prohibition was like, and how such an unprecedented degree of government interference in the private lives of Americans changed the country forever. Writing with both wit and historical acuity, Okrent reveals how Prohibition marked a confluence of diverse forces: the growing political power of the women’s suffrage movement, which allied itself with the antiliquor campaign; the fear of small-town, native-stock Protestants that they were losing control of their country to the immigrants of the large cities; the anti-German sentiment stoked by World War I; and a variety of other unlikely factors, ranging from the rise of the automobile to the advent of the income tax. Through it all, Americans kept drinking, going to remarkably creative lengths to smuggle, sell, conceal, and convivially (and sometimes fatally) imbibe their favorite intoxicants. Last Call is peopled with vivid characters of an astonishing variety: Susan B. Anthony and Billy Sunday, William Jennings Bryan and bootlegger Sam Bronfman, Pierre S. du Pont and H. L. Mencken, Meyer Lansky and the incredible—if long-forgotten—federal official Mabel Walker Willebrandt, who throughout the twenties was the most powerful woman in the country. (Perhaps most surprising of all is Okrent’s account of Joseph P. Kennedy’s legendary, and long-misunderstood, role in the liquor business.) It’s a book rich with stories from nearly all parts of the country. Okrent’s narrative runs through smoky Manhattan speakeasies, where relations between the sexes were changed forever; California vineyards busily producing “sacramental” wine; New England fishing communities that gave up fishing for the more lucrative rum-running business; and in Washington, the halls of Congress itself, where politicians who had voted for Prohibition drank openly and without apology. Last Call is capacious, meticulous, and thrillingly told. It stands as the most complete history of Prohibition ever written and confirms Daniel Okrent’s rank as a major American writer.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/074327704X/?tag=2022091-20
(From its winners to its sinners, two bestselling sportswr...)
From its winners to its sinners, two bestselling sportswriters chronicle a dizzying trip through more than a century of baseball lore and legend. Some of the stories are celebrated—from Ruth's called shot to Dimaggio's streak to Mays's catch. Some of the men are titans of the game—Mantle, Williams, Koufax. But alongside those stories passed from generation to generation, Daniel Okrent and Steve Wulf have assembled tales both hard-to-believe and a pleasure to read. From the Black Sox scandal to Bill Veeck's bizarre promotions, from its icons and iconoclasts, from the humble origins of the game to the landmark moments that made it the national pastime, Baseball Anecdotes reveals the enthralling (and often amusing) game that goes on both on the field and behind the scenes of baseball.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LZUJU3M/?tag=2022091-20
Okrent, Daniel was born on April 2, 1948 in Detroit, Michigan, United States. Son of Harry and Gizella (Adler) Okrent.
Bachelor, University Michigan, 1969. Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), Massachusetts College Liberal Arts, 1988.
Editor Alfred A. Knopf, Incorporated, New York York City, 1969—1973. Editorial director Grossman Publications, Inc., 1973—1976. Editor-in-chief Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976—1977.
President Hilltown Press, Inc., Worthington, Massachusetts, 1978—1991, Texas Monthly Press, Inc., Austin, 1978—1983. Editor New England Monthly, Northampton, Massachusetts, 1984—1989. Assistant managing editor Life magazine, New York City, 1991—1992, managing editor, 1992—1996.
Editor new media Time Inc., 1996—1999, editor-at-large, 1999—2001. Public editor New York Times, 2003—2005. Director TESSCO Technologies, Inc., since 2004.
Columnist Esquire magazine, New York City, 1985—1989. Visiting lecturer John F. Kennedy School Gov. Harvard University, 2009.
(Using as his framework the June 10, 1982, game between th...)
(A brilliant, authoritative, and fascinating history of Am...)
(In the 150 years since its humble birth, baseball has sho...)
(From its winners to its sinners, two bestselling sportswr...)
(Way We Were, The: New England Then, New England Now, by O...)
(Last Call Hardcover New)
Commissioner National Portrait Gallery, 2001—2009, chairman, 2003—2009. Trustee Cooper Union Advancement of Science and Art, since 2010. Member of Century Association.
Married Cynthia Jayne Boyer, June 23, 1969 (divorced August 1977). Married Rebecca Kathryn Lazear, August 28, 1977. Children: John Lazear, Lydia Lazear.