Dan Lovallo

Donie Bush Can you imagine, if they had sports talk radio in 1927? Owen "Donie" Bush was the manager of the 1927 National League pennant winning Pittsburgh Pirates. The former big league shortstop was in his first year as manager of the Bucs and he guided them to the NL crown, but they lost in four games to arguably the greatest club in baseball history, the '27 Yankees. These were the New York Yankees of Ruth and Gehrig.  In the fourth game of the series, trailing 3-0 in the seventh inning, the Pirates put runners and first and second with nobody out.  Up stepped one of the game's great hitters, Lloyd Waner.  Bush had this future Hall of Famer bunt instead of swinging away.  The strategy was heavily criticized by one of the game's greatest managers. In my latest edition of The Baseball Beat, we learn the manager who let Bush have it and speculate on what would have happened, if we had sports talk radio in 1927.

As we enter the climax of the election season, I have to look back at that famous philosopher: Yogi Berra.  How often, especially down the homestretch of a campaign, did a politician quote Yogi?  "It's never over, until it's over!"  "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." Between the World Series - Berra owns numerous World Series records that last to this day - and the campaign season, including those never-ending political ads - I got to thinking about Yogi the other day and the two times I interviewed him. In my latest podcast, I share those interviews. As for those endless and imbecilic political ads?  Yogi might say, "It's never over, even when it's over."

In 1983, while broadcasting baseball games for the Kinston Blue Jays of the Carolina League, I had the chance to interview Buck Leonard, one of the greatest baseball players. Leonard was a Negro League star on the Homestead Grays from 1934 to 1950. He was also a teammate of the great Josh Gibson. Both he and Gibson would be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972. In 1999, The Sporting News ranked him number 47 among the 100 greatest players to play baseball. Leonard was 75, when I interviewed him. We talked about his career, Jackie Robinson and so much more. Leonard died at the age of 90 on Nov. 27, 1997.

Who would have thought, when I was growing up in the 60's, that I would someday have the chance to interview Mickey Mantle.  But there I was, in 1980, doing just that, interviewing the great New York Yankee. Mantle comes to Winsted Back in the day baseball players or retired baseball players would augment their income by making the rounds, speaking at banquets.  Mantle was no exception.  And so it was, 12 years after announcing his retirement, Mantle paid a visit to Winsted, CT, where he was the guest speaker at a banquet to raise funds for youth baseball leagues. Mantle did not disappoint that night, proving to be an entertaining speaker, regaling his audience with one funny story after another.  The Mick had the reputation of being moody, but on this night he was in a great mood, from the moment I interviewed him before the banquet, until after the event. It's fair to say that Mantle's visit to northwest Connecticut some 38 years ago, was a grand slam.  

In the early 1990's, I had the chance to interview Gowdy, who had just published a book about the golden era of sports.  Gowdy covered a lot of territory in our conversation, as he discussed his book, centering on what he believed was a golden era in sports.  And who could disagree with that, as he made one interesting point after another. Here is that interview.  I hope you enjoy it.

Welcome to the debut of my new podcast: The Baseball Beat.  In this episode, I explain what the podcast is all about.