Jim Bunning (Baseball In America)
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.20 (596 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 1566396360 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 298 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-07-20 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
"A No-Hitter, But Not a Perfect Game" according to Chad Spivak. My name is Chad, and I'm a Philadelphia Phillies' fan. Yes, that's correct. I'm the one.Having followed the Phillies my entire life, I was already a fairly big Jim Bunning fan. So, I went into reading this book slightly biased. Unfortunately, the book leaves a bit to be desired as far as a biography goes. I would say it's more of a baseball memoir.There was very little about his private life, and his childhood and early life was practically skipped. However, the professional baseball chapters were. Campaign Press Release or Biography A Customer Perhaps my view can be attributed to the inherent skepticism of being a Philadelphia sports fan, but the tone of this book rings more like a political endorsement than biography. It's very thin on Bunning's early life, devotes very little space to his time with the Pirates and Dodgers, and spends an inordinate amount of time on the campaign trail. About the only time I got a sense of the real Jim Bunning was in the chapters devoted to his minor league managing career. As the Phutile Phillies were . Second half is great; first half - not so much This book starts off with several mis-steps. This is about as close as I've ever come to putting a book down with the resolve never to pick it up again. Author Frank Dolson is a former beat writer who covered the Phillies while Bunning was an active player. Dolson notes early on how much he admires Bunning. But the book gets bogged down in the first few chapters with stories that are designed to show that Bunning was a competitor, was tough and never backed down. We get it Frank, you admire Bunnin
Bunning then turned to politics; in six terms in the House, he has avidly opposed, to the dread and ire of baseball's establishment, the game's antiquated exemption from antitrust laws. Before he was Kentucky's Republican senator, Jim Bunning was a helluva hard-throwing righthander pitcher, primarily for the Tigers and the Phillies. He is a man who makes loyal friends and bitter enemies," great qualities for both pitchers and politicians. "There is no mystery to Jim Bunning," he observes, though there is plenty of complexity. He earned his rightful niche in Cooperstown by tossing no-hitters in each league (including the famed Father's Day perfecto against the Mets in 1964), striking out more than 1,000 hitters in each league, and, most significant of all, notching more than 100 victories in each league; only Cy Young had scored that trifecta before him. As conspicuous as Bunning's contributions were on the field, his real lasting legacy to the game has
He was a driving force in the early years of the Players Association, one of the men responsible for choosing Marvin Miller as head of the union. With a huge assist from his wife Mary, the mother of their nine children, he waged an unsuccessful gubernatorial race in Kentucky, then became a six-term Congressman. But Bunning did more than play baseball. Senate seat in Kentucky.. Jim Bunning began as a $150-a-month rookie in Richmond, Indiana, spent seven years in the minor leagues, and still made it to the Hall of Fame. He was the second pitcher in major league history to win 100 games in each league. Bunning also pitched a historic perfect game against the New York Mets, and performed spectacularly in a succession of All-Star Game appearances. He was the second pitcher to strike out 1000 in each league; again, only Cy Young beat him to it. The first was Cy Young. When Bunting retired at the end of the 1971 season, only one man - Walter Johnson - had more career strikeouts. He pitched a no-hitter against the Boston Red Sox in Fenway Park, even though the first-base coach was relaying his catcher's signs to the batters, and retired Ted Williams for the final out. His baseball career behind him, he began a second