ML.B. Opening Day, baseball history, two great authors and two great books to celebrate America’s National Pastime come together on TALKish, The Halli Casser-Jayne Show when joining Halli, at bat first, Kevin Cook to talk about his book ELECTRIC OCTOBER, SEVEN WORLD SERIES GAMES, SIX LIVES, FIVE MINUTES OF FAME THAT LASTED FOREVER and up second New York Yankee’s historian and former publicity director Marty Appel, author of the great biography CASEY STENGEL, BASEBALL’S GREATEST CHARACTER. Let’s play ball.

Kevin Cook’s book ELECTRIC OCTOBER, SEVEN WORLD SERIES GAMES, SIX LIVES, FIVE MINUTES OF FAME THAT LASTED FOREVER takes us out to the ballgame. The year: 1947. The World Series "the most exciting ever" in the words of Joe DiMaggio, with a decade's worth of drama packed into seven games between the mighty New York Yankees and underdog Brooklyn Dodgers. The players: Six men who found themselves plucked from obscurity to shine on the sport’s greatest stage. For some of these men, the ’47 Series was a memory to hold on to. For others, it would haunt them to the end of their days. And for us, Kevin Cook offers insights—at once heartbreaking and uplifting—into what fame and heroism truly mean. Small-town boys, most of them, each one a hometown hero, they spent a week in the national spotlight and then faded away, forgotten. Yet Cook’s deep reporting and lively narrative goes beyond baseball history to explore how an encounter with greatness can change a man’s life forever. These six lives combine to tell a great American story of fame, friendship, teamwork, memory, and life’s biggest challenge: how we deal with the cards that fate deals us. Kevin Cook is the author of the award-winning TOMMY’S HONOR (now a feature film). He is a former senior editor at Sports Illustrated who has written for The New York Times, Men’s Journal, GQ, Playboy, Smithsonian, and Details.

Casey Stengel once said that “There comes a time in every man's life, and I've had plenty of them,” and indeed he did. There was nobody like Casey before him, and certainly there has been no one like him since, and no one defined baseball more than he did. For more than fifty years, Casey Stengel lived baseball. First as the only person in history to play for or manage all the New York teams, including the Dodgers, Giants, Yankees, and Mets, and then as a manager, where he made his biggest mark on the game revolutionizing the role in New York and beyond, all while winning an astounding ten pennants and seven World Series Championships – including five consecutive titles with the Yankees. But who was Charles ‘Casey’ Stengel? As the historian of the NY Yankees, no one is more qualified than Marty Appel to write, CASEY STENGEL: BASEBALL’S GREATEST CHARACTER the definitive biography. Marty Appel takes us back to the old ballgamel.

M.L.B. Opening Day, baseball history, baseball books, baseball reference, Marty Appel, Electric October by Kevin Cook on TALKish, The Halli Casser-Jayne Show the podcast posted at Halli Casser-Jayne dot com.