Access Top-Rated Full Audiobooks in Biography & Memoir, Sports

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/628146 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Cobb: A Biography

Author: Al Stump

Narrator: Ian Esmo

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 19 hours 39 minutes

Release date: December 15, 2011

Genres: Sports

Publisher's Summary:

As a boy in the 1890s, he went looking for thrills in a rural Georgia that still burned with the humiliation of the Civil War. As an old man in the 1960s, he dared death, picked fights, refused to take his medicine, and drove off all his friends and admirers. He went to his deathbed alone, clutching a loaded pistol and a bag containing millions of dollars' worth of cash and securities. During the years in between, he was, according to Al Stump, 'the most shrewd, inventive, lurid, detested, mysterious, and superb of all baseball players.' He was Ty Cobb. Al Stump has redefined America's perception of one of its most famous sports heroes with this gripping look at Ty Cobb, a man who walked the line between greatness and psychosis. Based on Stump's interviews with Cobb while ghostwriting the Hall of Famer's 1961 autobiography, this account of Cobb's life and times reveals both the darkness and the brilliance of the 'Georgia Peach'.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/628232 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Zim: A Baseball Life

Author: Don Zimmer

Narrator: Dennis Mckee

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 11 hours 31 minutes

Release date: February 10, 2011

Genres: Sports

Publisher's Summary:

Don Zimmer had his first taste of baseball glory in 1948 as a member of a national champion American Legion team. He was drafted by the Brooklyn Dodgers, only to have his career—and life—threatened when he was beaned in a minor league game in 1953. After a miraculous recovery, he went on to play for Brooklyn’s only world championship team in 1955, for the LA Dodgers’ first world championship team four years later, and as an original New York Met in 1962. Zim managed the San Diego Padres, Boston Red Sox, Texas Rangers, and Chicago Cubs before becoming Joe Torre’s bench coach during the Yankees’ world championship seasons of 1996, 1998, 1999, and 2000. His career has crossed paths with some of baseball’s most memorable people and events. Here is fifty years of baseball history as seen through the eyes of one of its most colorful characters.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/628193 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Still a Legend: The Story of Roger Maris

Author: Harvey Rosenfeld

Narrator: Ian Esmo

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 13 hours 36 minutes

Release date: June 22, 2010

Genres: Sports

Publisher's Summary:

This book recounts the slugger Roger Maris' life before, during, and after his headline season of 1961, when the taciturn North Dakota native topped Babe Ruth's all-time record by hitting sixty-one home runs. From his youth as a star high-school athlete and American Legion baseball player, Maris's went on to play for the Cleveland Indians, the Kansas City Athletics, the New York Yankees, and the St. Louis Cardinals. Author Rosenfeld argues that Maris's treatment by the press was both shabby and tragic, and that the famous player's Mid-western modesty, need for privacy, and straightforward nature were often wrongly interpreted as arrogance and sullenness—a factor that led many to downplay his claim on the record books. Rosenfeld makes a forceful case for awarding Maris a place in the Baseball Hall of Fame, three decades after his record-breaking 1961 season with the New York Yankees.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/628169 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Hogan

Author: Curt Sampson

Narrator: Grover Gardner

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 7 hours 5 minutes

Release date: June 22, 2010

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 1

Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 1

Genres: Sports

Publisher's Summary:

Golf hero Ben Hogan bore a mystique that still captivates golfers: a silent, almost eerie concentration that intimidated his opponents, a presence any politician or actor would envy, and an ability to hit a ball so squarely it sizzled as it left his club. Hogan won four US Opens in six years, three after a near-fatal automobile accident. His injuries limited him to six tournaments in 1953, but he won five. It was arguably the greatest year ever in the history of professional golf. But in the midst of the acclaim, myth distorted and obscured Ben Hogan. No one knew what drove him to practice until his hands bled, or what private demons built the high walls that surrounded him. Here at last is the Hogan no reader has ever encountered. Sampson draws on interviews with fellow golf legends Byron Nelson, Jack Nicklaus, and Sam Snead to present an in-depth portrait of a man with bullet-proof confidence and single-mindedness, a man who turned the negatives he encountered into a life of glory and achievement.From the poverty of his youth and the suicide of his father to the failure and conflict that stalked him into middle age, Hogan traces an unforgettable portrait of an amazing man.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/628121 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Honus Wagner

Author: Dennis Devaleria, Jeanne Burke Devaleria

Narrator: Ian Esmo

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 13 hours 59 minutes

Release date: June 22, 2010

Genres: Sports

Publisher's Summary:

Honus Wagner, whose career in baseball stretched from 1895 to 1917, was the first American sports superstar of the twentieth century. One of the first five players to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in its first year (1939), he was arguably the best shortstop in baseball history. His great career and the dawn of baseball as a popular entertainment occurred simultaneously, and he has become an icon of the early game; his 1909 baseball card, one of which sold for $451,000, is a holy grail of American memorabilia. This first major biography shows why Wagner was America’s favorite image of sport during baseball’s transition to the modern era.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/628198 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Tales from the Ballpark

Author: Mike Shannon

Narrator: Raymond Todd

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 5 hours 20 minutes

Release date: January 1, 2007

Genres: Sports

Publisher's Summary:

Mike Shannon takes you behind the scenes into the ballpark, the clubhouse, and the minor leagues in this memorable collection of anecdotes about America's pastime. Tales from the Ballpark contains more than 125 priceless stories from some of baseball's greatest players and storytellers, including legendary Hall of Famers Ralph Kiner and Bob Gibson and modern-day stars Mo Vaughn and David Wells. Learn about Roberto Clemente's chiropractic skills, a now-famous nun in Cleveland who bakes thousands of cookies for the Indians every year, the dangers of pitching batting practice to Gaylord Perry, and Billy Martin's tacit protest against the American League's subjective rating system for umpires. This entertaining and personal collection will delight fans for many years to come.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/628152 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Walter Johnson: Baseball’s Big Train

Author: Henry W. Thomas

Narrator: Ian Esmo

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 17 hours 10 minutes

Release date: January 1, 2007

Genres: Sports

Publisher's Summary:

To many, Walter Johnson is the greatest pitcher of all time. He was a star second to none throughout the golden age of sports, which spanned the era of such greats as Cy Young, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Lou Gehrig, and Al Simmons. But it wasn't Walter Johnson's blazing fastball alone that placed him on a pedestal. It was Johnson, above all others, who came to personify 'gentlemanly conduct in the heat of battle,' as Shirley Povich put it. One of a small number of stars tempering the game's roughneck reputation in the early years of the century, he was still around to help shepherd it through its darkest hour of the Black Sox scandal. His presence as a role model in the big leagues consoled parents all over the country. Throughout a career as dazzling as any in sports history, Johnson remained unspoiled. This is the grand story of one of the good guys.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/628117 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Babe: The Legend Comes to Life

Author: Robert W. Creamer

Narrator: Grover Gardner

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 13 hours 15 minutes

Release date: January 1, 2007

Genres: Sports

Publisher's Summary:

He was the biggest man baseball has ever produced. Babe Ruth transcended the sport that brought him fame, money, and adulation, moving beyond the limits of baselines and outfield fences into the mainstream of American life. In this extraordinary biography, Robert W. Creamer uncovers the complex and captivating man behind the legend. He presents the truth behind famous Ruth stories such as the 'called shot' homers and the home run for a dying child, analyzes the astounding statistics with detailed information on specific games, and describes Ruth's varied and often volatile relations with those around him, from fellow players to fans, friends, and reporters. From Babe Ruth's early days in a Baltimore orphanage, to the glory days with the Yankees, to his final years, Creamer has drawn an indelible portrait of a true sports hero.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/624071 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Pitching in a Pinch: Baseball from the Inside

Author: Christy Mathewson

Narrator: Adams Morgan

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 5 hours 44 minutes

Release date: January 1, 2007

Genres: Sports

Publisher's Summary:

Christy 'Matty' Mathewson was one of the most dominant pitchers ever to play baseball. Posthumously inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame as one of the 'Five Immortals,' he was an unstoppable force on the mound, winning at least twenty-two games for twelve straight seasons and pitching three complete-game shutouts in the 1905 World Series. Pitching in a Pinch, originally published in 1912, is an insider's account of the world of baseball, blending anecdote, biography, instruction, and social history. Always sensitive to psychology as well as technique, Mathewson describes the game as it was played in the first decade of the twentieth century: the 'dangerous batters'; the 'peculiarities' of big-league pitchers; the 'good and bad' of coaching, umpiring, sign-stealing, base-running, and spring training; and the importance of superstition to athletes. Baseball fans will enjoy first-hand accounts of Mathewson's famous contemporaries, including players Honus Wagner and Rube Marquand, managers like John McGraw and Connie Mack, and many others, and will learn how much—and just how little—has really changed in one hundred years.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/628409 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Full Throttle: The Life and Fast Times of NASCAR Legend Curtis Turner

Author: Robert Edelstein

Narrator: Rex Linn

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 11 hours 52 minutes

Release date: January 1, 2006

Genres: Sports

Publisher's Summary:

Motor racing and mayhem, the non-stop pursuit of outrageous dreams, high-speed thrills and a really good time: these are the raw materials of Full Throttle. Curtis Turner was the most dynamic stock-car racer of all time; he wrote the book on living fast and dying young. The first NASCAR celebrity, his life embodied all that made NASCAR a hit spectator sport: the adrenaline rush of the races, the potential for danger at every turn, and the charismatic, outrageous personality of a winner. He created drama at the racetrack and in his personal life, living the American Dream several times over before he died a violent and mysterious death at the young age of 46. Edelstein's gripping biography thrillingly recreates the life of this American legend, from his days as a teenage moonshine runner in Virginia, through millions earned (and quickly spent) in fearless financial deals, to his incredible comeback after four years of being banned from the NASCAR circuit. Curtis Turner's life embodied everything that makes NASCAR the biggest spectator sport in American history. In gripping prose, and with full access to the files of Turner's widow, Edelstein thrillingly recreates the life of this American legend.