Baseball at the center of personal narratives in two new memoirs

NPR's Book of the Day

NPR

Arts, Books

4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 29 July 2022

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This episode features baseball diaries with Scott Simon. First up, CC Sabathia details his personal struggles with alcoholism and fame in his memoir Til The End. And then, a conversation with Ron Shelton about the story and legacy of the classic film Bull Durham in his new memoir, The Church of Baseball.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. I don't care much about baseball.
0:07.6	I grew up in a Mets household, and I guess living in Baltimore now, I should have strong opinions about the Orioles, but I don't really.
0:15.7	But I do love stories about baseball. I'm talking everything from Angels in the Outfield to that book,
0:21.7	The Art of Fielding, to that one Ernest Hemingway short story where the two dudes talk about
0:26.2	baseball so they don't have to talk about feeling sad. In a bit, we'll hear from Ron Shelton,
0:31.0	the writer and director of one of the all-time baseball movies, Bull Durham. But first,
0:36.2	the reality of being a baseball star is that everyone
0:39.4	is looking at you. I imagine, especially if you were a pitcher like C.C. Sabathia was. Which can be nice,
0:46.0	sure, but those eyes made it hard for Sabathia to ask for help to deal with his drinking. He wrote
0:52.5	about his alcoholism in a memoir published last year
0:55.0	titled Till the End. And he talked to NPR Scott Simon about what it took for him to finally get
1:00.7	sober. In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life. Distant wars, murky
1:07.4	conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, Sources and Methods.
1:12.6	NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people,
1:16.3	helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.
1:20.2	Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:26.6	C.C. Sabathia had a renowned baseball career, six-time All-Star, who won titles and championships
1:32.5	with the New York Yankees, Cleveland, and the Milwaukee Brewers, and the all-time left-handed
1:38.3	American league leader in strikeouts. But even during some of his best days, C.C. Zabathia also used to sometimes drink himself into a stupor and pass out, drunk and naked.
1:53.0	He tells the story of some of his best and lowest moments in the new book, till the end. His co-author is Chris Smith.
2:00.7	C.C. Sabathia joins us now. Thank you so much for being
2:03.4	with us, sir. No problem. First sentence of your book, you call yourself a weird alcoholic. How so, sir?
	...

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