by David Krell | Mar 15, 2017 | David Krell
When Ronald Reagan pursued the presidency, Jack Warner, his former boss, said, “No, Jimmy Stewart for President. Ronald Reagan for best friend.” This story may be apocryphal a combination of political and Hollywood lore. Reagan, the nation’s 40th...
by David Krell | Mar 10, 2017 | David Krell
One was pugnacious. The other, almost regal. When John Joseph McGraw took the field, he embraced baseball games as bouts, thus earning his nicknames Mugsy and Little Napoleon. When Cornelius McGillicuddy managed the Philadelphia Athletics, he wore a suit rather than...
by David Krell | Mar 7, 2017 | David Krell
When Jim Bouton’s book Ball Four hit bookshelves in 1970, it exploded myths, revealed secrets, and offered tales of baseball, theretofore kept protected from the public. If reporters knew about Mickey Mantle’s alcohol problem, for example, they...
by David Krell | Mar 6, 2017 | David Krell
When the New York Mets took the field for the first time, America was awash in a tidal wave of promise. The year was 1962—John Glenn had become the first American to orbit the Earth, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy had taken viewers on an unprecedented televised tour...
by David Krell | Mar 3, 2017 | David Krell
During the summer that William Holden escaped Stalag 17, Audrey Hepburn gallivanted around Rome, and Burt Lancaster kissed Deborah Kerr on a Hawaiian beach, two sluggers edged toward a batting championship decided by one thousandth of a point—Al Rosen and Mickey...