PALM DESERT, Calif., Feb. 01, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Back Story Publishing today released baseball great Ron Fairly’s first-person memoir Fairly at Bat: My 50 years in baseball, from the batter's box to the broadcast booth written with former Los Angeles Times sports reporter and author Steve Springer. Fairly at Bat is a series of stories told in Fairly’s voice that cover his 50-year career as a player and broadcaster, including as a member of three World Series champion Dodgers teams in the 1950s and ‘60s. The book includes a foreword by Hall of Fame manager Tommy Lasorda, a timeline of Fairly's career from youth baseball in Long Beach, Calif., to the broadcast booth, until his retirement in 2012, and a statistical summary of his 20 years as a major leaguer. The book is available on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and through iTunes.
Fairly talks about the great stars who were his teammates and friends. The old guard from Brooklyn and the new stars in Los Angeles: Gil Hodges, Duke Snider, Carl Furillo, Frank Howard, Don Drysdale, Sandy Koufax, Maury Wills and many more. He takes you into the lives of the players of the 1960s and ‘70s, not only between the basepaths, but before and after the games. His memoir includes not only the Dodgers, but players he faced such as Cardinals Hall of Famer Bob Gibson, or just met along the way, like Red Sox star Ted Williams.
Samples of the stories told include:
- the 1963 World Series sweep of the New York Yankees;
- how a bad scouting report almost cost the Dodgers the 1965 World Series;
- the way baseball was in a rougher time, with brushback pitches and even the infamous Marichal-Roseboro brawl in 1965;
- why Fairly chose USC for college over UCLA, even though he was offered a basketball scholarship by Bruins coach John Wooden;
- what Vero Beach was like in the heyday of Dodgertown;
- his post-Dodgers odyssey, with All-Star selections in Montreal and Toronto and stints in Oakland, St. Louis and a lucky final stop in Anaheim; and
- how he learned a new trade behind the microphone with new challenges, much different than those of a player.
Fairly at Bat is a memoir that originally started as a personal journal, now transformed into 212 pages of fun that's easy to enjoy. It's illustrated with Fairly's personal photographs, including those from his youth, and many locker room prank shots that showed teammates and friends having a good time as well as playing a game they loved.
A PDF or hardcopy of “Fairly at Bat is available to media wishing to read and review the book. Email jfambro@backstorypublishing.com to request a copy.
Contact: Jan Fambro
jfambro@backstorypublishing.com
512.943.4028
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/c4541227-2b67-416d-b605-38d031756514