Customer Reviews:
My thoughts refer to the unabridged audiobook.......2007-02-09
Regis is one of my favorite celebrities! He is a down-to-earth family man who approaches life with good humor and a likeable manner. I enjoyed accompanying him as he talked through some typical days in his very busy life. Listening to him more than a decade after he shared these reflections gave the story an outdated feel, as a lot of the pop-culture personalities he mentions have disappeared from the scene, and the old-timers he reminisced about are way before my time. As well, now that he is paired with Kelly Ripa, he seems younger, hipper and more light-hearted than he was at the time he recorded this memoir. She brings out something special in him that Kathie Lee never did.
The book is a nice representation of the entertainment business and pop-culture, made all the better when expressed by a personable and respected celebrity like Regis.
Regis 6/15/94-5/19/95 and Some of his yesterdays.......2000-12-28
Regis's book logs many of the days(incl some holidays) between 6/15/94-5/19/95 with some of the yesterdays prior to 6/14/94 .....Good intro by the Regis and Cathy Live staff at that time( Michael Gelman and Cathy Lee Gifford) Gelman still Gelman and Cathy Lee ,has moved on for even better someday.. ,plus there is much levity through out( It was given as a gift to me for Xmas 2000,I've skimmed through the entire book and got a few chuckles without even getting to much into the NY ,NY details(photos were great,& joke about Perry Como quite funny). It ends with smoothness and ease:as Regis, in his biography says to the reader" I've got to find my plane tickets,back my bags and get ready for the next show.After all,I'm only one man". 12/27/00 abj
Funny and enlightening.......2000-05-30
Reading this book is like sitting down with Regis and listening to him tell you stories. You will be able to look deeper into the man that engages in Host Chat with Kathie Lee everyday. This book is an example of how far Regis really came in life and how hard he had to work for it. This can almost be a self-help book in a way because it portrays the commitment to excellence put forth by Regis to achieve his dream....and did he ever!
A great, fun read!.......1999-10-12
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. I learned things about Regis that you won't learn by watching him on TV. I enjoyed reading about his trials and tribulations of his career, from his early days to the present. I have recommended this books to others. Whoever has my copy, please return it! This is one book you can read again.
What can I say, this IS my Dad........1998-04-18
I watched my father write this -- longhand, in a spiral notebook, no less. (Dad can barely find the "on" switch for the computer.) I learned things about my family that I never knew. Anyone familiar with him, even if only through his work on television, can absolutely tell that the words are his. Poor Bill Zehme had the unenviable task of keeping him focused. And, he did a great job! It's a good, quick read. Get it. Read it. Pass it on.
Book Description
Baseball’s Natural: The Story of Eddie Waitkus is John Theodore’s true account of the slick-fielding first baseman who played for the Cubs and Phillies in the 1940s and became an immortalized figure in baseball lore as the inspiration for Roy Hobbs in Bernard Malamud’s The Natural.
The son of Lithuanian immigrants, Edward Stephen Waitkus (1919–1972) grew up in Boston and served in the Pacific during World War II. His army service in some of the war’s bloodiest combat earned him four Bronze Stars. Following the war, Waitkus became one of the most popular players of his era. As a rookie he led the Cubs in hitting in 1946 and quickly established himself as one of the best first basemen in the National League. To the disappointment of fans, the Cubs traded Waitkus to the Phillies in December of 1948. When he returned to Chicago in a Philadelphia uniform in June of the following year, he was hitting .306 and seemed destined for the All Star team.
On the night of June 14 at the Edgewater Beach Hotel, Waitkus’s bright career took an infamously tragic turn. He received a cryptic note summoning him to meet a young fan, Ruth Steinhagen. When Waitkus entered her hotel room, she proclaimed, “I have a surprise for you,” and then she just as quickly shot him in the chest. Steinhagen, then only nineteen, was one of the many young women—called “Baseball Annies”–who were fanatic about the game and its players, though her obsession proved more dangerous than most. A criminal court indicted Steinhagen and confined her to a state mental hospital for nearly three years.
Waitkus survived the shooting, made an inspirational return to baseball in 1950, and led the Phillies to the World Series. While Waitkus triumphed over his assault, he could not conquer his private demons. Depression stemming from the attack led to a severe problem with alcohol, a failed marriage, and a nervous breakdown. Waitkus found some happiness in his final summers working with youngsters at the Ted Williams baseball camp. Cancer claimed him in 1972, just days after his fifty-third birthday.
Through interviews with Waitkus’s family, fellow servicemen, former ballplayers, and childhood friends, and aided by fifteen photographs, Theodore chronicles Waitkus’s remarkable comeback as well as the difficult years following his eleven-year major league career.
Customer Reviews:
Waitkus as legend.......2007-03-30
Wow, a can't-stop-reading book for baseball fans who don't care about stats but love the legends.
Waitkus encountered one of the worst stalkers in sports history and when the lable of stalker wasn't even there. Creepy and sad, this book is ironic, bitter and forces us to watch te decline of a player who shoulda, coulda, woulda been better if not for holes in the legal system that allowed a psycho to succeed in destroying a baseball star. Read it for the full, fleshed-out tale: you'll be creeped out more you thought possible.
Mark Braun, Executive Director
Old Timers' Baseball Association of Chicago
Bounding balls and femme fatales.......2004-05-11
In order to fully understand the events described in this book, one needs to place oneself in the time frame in which they arose.
1949 was a backward period in American history, in which a woman could shoot a man that she did not even know and not even be universally lionized as an empowerment-achieving heroine. It was actually a time in which she could expect to receive a measure of legal and moral reprobation for her actions. Indeed, it was a time when men weren't even universally regarded as worthless, simply for having been born male, and some regarded their lives as having purpose and value. It was a time when millions of people across the country actually found themselves praying for the speedy recovery of the male victim and even lionizing HIM as the hero.
This was the historical setting in which deranged Baseball Annie, Ruth Steinhagen, shot Philadelphia Phillie first baseman Eddie Waitkus. John Theodore's book largely describes what happened to both the assailant and her victim after the shooting, though, of course, he also includes a pre-shooting biography of both of them.
As a misogynist and a baseball fan, I would find it easy to simply regard this book as being the story of woman who committed the unpardonable crime of not only shooting a man - but a male baseball player yet.
Yet - and this is to Theodore's credit - he brings home the realities of Steinhagen's obsession with Eddie Waitkus forcefully enough that even this reader could empathize with it, and I did find myself taking as much interest in Steinhagen's story as I did in Waitkus's.
This reader himself has undergone two or three experiences in which he found himself strongly obsessed to the point of distraction with an unattainable member of the opposite sex - none of which, I hasten to add, ever had the potential of becoming harmful. But by giving his readers a glimpse into the stark and chilling world of a mind trapped in such a grip, Theodore provided this reader with a glimpse into a mind that once resembled his own - differing (however greatly) only in the strength and emphasis of the grip that seized it.
The experience gave me a there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I sensation and strengthened my resolve never again to walk that path. I actually would have liked to read more about Steinhagen - her mental health was restored and she is alive today - than Theodore actually provided, and I imagine that Theodore would have liked to have written more about her. But the book is largely about Waitkus, presumably because there is more information about him in the public record and because people close to him (this is obviously not a surprise) were more willing to talk than were people close to Steinhagen (attempts to contact Steinhagen herself were rebuffed).
I was going to give this book 4 stars on the basis of the author's workmanlike acquisition and delineation of the facts but the Waitkus story, as Theodore weaved it, "grew" on me the more that I read into it.
Of the World War II generation, Waitkus himself was a corking good ballplayer - though not a Hall of Famer. But he was the best defensive first baseman of his era, one who sprayed the ball around for singles and doubles - more J.T. Snow than Lou Gehrig. There was nothing remarkable about his personality - which appears to have been of a blunt, yet affable character, which philosophically took life, including the tragedies that he suffered, as it was dealt to him. Kilroy in a major-league uniform - he would not be greatly remembered today as anything but one of many names from baseball's past, were it not for the shooting.
Yet there was really something almost Shakespearean about the story of his life. His recovery from the shooting and his efforts to restore his baseball career match nicely with the rise to glory of the fabled upstart "Whiz Kids" that were the pennant-winning Philadelphia Phillies of 1950.
But while his physical recovery appears to have been complete and while there is no indication that Waitkus allowed himself to dwell on the past, Theodore tells a story of a man already suffering from the hidden trauma caused by several harrowing war experiences having his trauma heightened by the only experience (occurring, ironically in civilian life) where he was the victim of gunfire.
After arriving at the summit of fame that was his leading role on the "Whiz Kids", Waitkus, turning too often to drink for solace, suffers slow declines in his baseball career, his marriage, and in his life after baseball that culminated in his untimely death from cancer in 1972 at the age of 53. It makes one wonder if Steinhagen's bullet didn't somehow find its target after all.
Yet, in his final years, he finds redemption in his continuing relationship with the children that were the product of his marriage and in being an instructor in Ted Williams's baseball camp. Theodore actually misses the opportunity to embellish upon the irony inherent in the fact that Ted Williams had to deal with his own personal demons while he lived, but it was the book's bittersweet ending that moves it into an elite classification in my judgment.
One minor baseball point that Theodore missed was another brush that Waitkus had with baseball history at the end of the 1951 season, featuring a historic Giants-Dodgers pennant race. Had Jackie Robinson not made a remarkable catch of Waitkus's low line drive in the final game between the Dodgers and the Phillies, the hit would have won the game for the Phillies and knocked the Dodgers out of the pennant race. The Giants would have won the pennant in the regulation season, and Bobby Thomson's miracle homer in the third game of the post-season never would have happened. Waitkus would have achieved the "spoiler's" fame later found by Joe Morgan and Gene Oliver.
Sign Him Up!!.......2004-01-24
Here is a first rate baseball story, albeit with a limited audience. "Baseball's Natural" is the story of Eddie Waitkus, who played first base for the Cubs, Phillies and Orioles from 1941 and 1946-1955. That 3 year WW2 break is significant. Many believe that the period after the War to 1960 was a golden age for Major League Baseball. Those were the years of the (pre-expansion) original 16 teams. The NFL was just coming out of the shadows. The NBA and NHL were minor sports by comparison. To appreciate BN, it helps to remember that period, even if one is not familiar with Waitkus. Eddie was a slick fielder and above average hitter with a bright future. He was intelligent, popular off the field, well-spoken and an inquisitive, well-dressed young man. Then, one night in June of '48, he visited a woman in a Chicago hotel room and was shot! He recovered from the physical wounds but not from the mental ones. Somehow the dual demons of the shooting and his WW2 experiences drove him slowly to drink. He was a quiet drunk, not a rowdy one. He hung out in nice bars. His downward slide was slow, almost imperceptible, but just as real. Waitkus was out of baseball by 1955. He never found a second career and was dead by the age of 53. Why is "Baseball's Natural" worthwhile? Because it is a sensitive tale that grabs the reader's interest and holds it. It is a quick reading story. It is also quite well researched, with a wide range of supporting interviews and photographs. Many baseball books deal with the established stars; it's nice to read one that features an average guy. And because we sense that many players must have their own private demons that are invisible to the even the most devoted fan. At the time of this review, Baseball is officially in "hot stove" season, a perfect time to give "Baseball's Natural" a tryout.
A Must Book For True Baseball History Fans.......2003-12-08
This book really tells the true story of Eddie Waitkus. If you are a true baseball history fan this book is a must for your collection. At waitkus.org you will find more information about Eddie Waitkus. Read the book, visit the website and you will get to know the man as well as the baseball player.
A Good Man Who Had A Hard Life.......2003-09-08
Author John Theodore has provided the reader with the most detailed account of the 1949 shooting of former Philadelphia Phillies' baseball star Eddie Waitkus by an obsessed 19 year-old female fan in a Chicago hotel. At the time of the shooting Waitkus was the leading vote getter among first basemen for the upcoming All-Star game to be played in Brooklyn, New York. Waitkus managed to overcome the attempt on his life and became an integral member of the 1950 Philadelphia Phillies Whiz Kids team that went on to win the National League pennant only to lose the World Series to the New York Yankees in four straight, but hard fought, close games. Waitkus's career began to wind down a couple of years later as he was waived out of the National League, and became a member of the 1954 Baltimore Orioles who were playing their first year in Crabtown after moving from St. Louis. His playing time was very limited and in 1955 the Orioles cut him loose, and he once again returned for a brief period of time with the Phillies. The post baseball years were not kind to Waitkus who, like so many other players during this time, had no training beyond baseball. He tried a job in sales, but hated it. He fought the demons of alcohol, and the memories he had of World War II when he fought in the Pacific in addition to the memory of the evening in 1949 when he nearly lost his life in the Chicago hotel room. He did find happiness as a batting instructor in a Ted Williams baseball camp for young boys. Here he was doing something he loved among kids who shared his devotion to the game. Eddie Waitkus died in 1973 at the age of 53 from esophageal and lung cancer which was most likely brought on by his many years of heavy smoking. I did find a few spelling errors in the book along with the fact that the song Take Me Out to the Ball Game was written in 1908, not 1909, as the book mentions. If you associate the name of Eddie Waitkus only with the unfortunate shooting incident, this book will provide you with additional information about the man's career in addition to details regarding that unfortunate evening in 1949.
Average customer rating:
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Couple's Guide To The Best Of Erotic Video
Steve Brent , and
Elizabeth Brent
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Griffin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General
| Movies
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
Guides & Reviews
| Movies
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
Genre Films
| Movies
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Foreign Languages
| Reference
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Performing Arts
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0312150814 |
Customer Reviews:
Shallow.......2001-08-30
This book is pretty much a waste of time. Thin content/no photos. Reads like it was written over a weekend. The tone is far too amiable for the subject matter. The authors could be reviewing Disney films. Reviews of performers, directors and films don't go into any depth and there is little new information. Alot of the detail about the industry can be found in better books, like The Wise Woman's Guide to Erotic Videos. Reviews are not good and not in any kind of context. The book reads like the best movies the authors found at their local video store.
Average customer rating:
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3000 mal Musik: Stars u. Premieren in Stuttgart u. anderswo
Kurt Honolka
Manufacturer: Theiss
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
General
| Music
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
German
| Foreign Language Nonfiction
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Entertainment
| German
| Foreign Language Books
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Nonfiction
| German
| Foreign Language Books
| Specialty Stores
| Books
All German Books
| German
| Foreign Language Books
| Specialty Stores
| Books
ASIN: 3806201803 |
Book Description
CAMELOT: A ROLE PLAYING SIMULATION introduces you to the interactions of contending and contentious groups and individuals whose values and goals range from radical to reactionary. It addresses such issues as equal opportunity, right to life, freedom of expression, affirmative action, property rights, gay rights, and more. You will quickly learn that competing interests and viewpoints - with their varying degrees of organization and cohesiveness - make political decision-making complex, time consuming, exciting, and often difficult to predict.
Book Description
A detailed look inside the minds and methods of 55 legendary business leaders
Behind every tale of breakthrough success is the visionary man or woman who made it happen. Profiles in Business Success examines the lives of 55 giants of the business world and reveals how they overcame obstacles, forged their own management philosophies, and drove their companies to the top.
This inspirational book helps business professionals understand and implement proven methods for innovation, growth, and achievement. Readers of every age and interest will learn:
- How Gap CEO Mickey Drexler built a $9 billion-a-year retail business by listening to 12-year-olds
- How Charles Walgreen Sr. turned a corner drugstore into one of the first multibillion-dollar chains
- How eBay founder Pierre Omidyar changed shopping forever--to help his wife find Pez dispensers
Customer Reviews:
A little bit more than who's who, but definitely not how they achieved greatness.......2005-11-07
Simple arithmetic and you know it's stupid to expect much from a 227 content book that attempts to tell the success stories and forumlas of 55 business leaders. Definitely everyone of them deserves its own biography instead of an average 4.13 pages. So I had lowered my standard before I read it. Still I had been quite disappointed. All passages were columns published previously on IBD written by different reporters that not only the writing style but the focus on individual leaders fluctuated much between hard data/history and success formula, primarly on the former. I am sorry that I could gain little knowledge/insight (that I really wanted to learn "how" they succeeded) during the reading. I felt even worse after reading from the previous reviewer that the content had been available on the net. In short, please give this book a pass!
Good stories but you can get the information for free........2004-03-07
I love the Leaders & Success page in Investor's Business Daily however I feel that creating a book with just leaders & success articles from past issues (all of these I am sure you can find via investors.com's archive search, which is free) is a terrible way to go about it. I bought this book when it first came out under the impression that it was never before seen Leaders and Success type articles.... I was wrong, and very disappointed.
The one thing that I like about this book is they have their best leaders & success articles compiled in a book format for easy pleasure reading, and at $8.78 at it is a time saving bargain.
Reed Floren
Book Description
Sports Leaders & Success chronicles how 55 celebrated athletes and coaches rose to the top of their games, uncovering methods that can be adapted to any competitive environment and translated into success. Building on the popular and respected Investor's Business Daily "Leaders & Succes" section, this inspirational, results-focused book examines:
- How basketball legend John Wooden won an unsurpassed 10 of 12 NCAA Championship titles
- How Mia Hamm's committment made her the all-time leading scorer in women's soccer
- How Michael Jordan's dedication won him the NBA scoring title a record 10 times
Customer Reviews:
Only for the ultimate sports fans/lovers.......2005-11-11
If I counted it right, this book had covered great sportsmen/women/coaches from baseball, basketball, tennis, football, track, skating, golf, cycling, wrestling, boxing, racing, gymnastics, hockey....For a true sports enthusiast, it's interesting to know who's who through individual 3 to 4 pages of introduction to sports heros. However, being somebody who loves only tennis, basketball and soccer, I can hardly enjoy the whole book at all when most of the passages are stories of sports I am ignorant of. On the other hand, the success formulas of them are quite similar, as summarized in the first page as IBD's 10 secrets to success, including
1. how you think is everything. Always be positive. Beware of a negative environment
2. decide upon your true dreams and goals
3. take action
4. never stop learning
5. be persistent and work hard
6. learn to analyse details
7. focus your time and money
8. dont be afraid to innovate, be different
9. deal and communicate with people effectively
10. be honest and dependable, take responsibility
In short, if you are an "ultimate" sports fan/lover, you might like and enjoy this book. If you are not, please give it a pass.
Quibbles about which 55 but none about their worthiness.......2004-09-01
Only a brave soul presumes to offer a list of the "greatest," whatever the category. What we have here is a collection of material from Investor's Business Daily's "Leaders & Success" section which focuses on 55 "top sports leaders & how they achieved greatness." Being somewhat of a listmaniac myself, I am always curious to see who makes a given list and who doesn't. Here's the problem which I as well as all other list compilers really cannot solve: Whom to replace? In this volume, Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson are mentioned only briefly. Should one or both replace Nancy Lopez, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, or Babe Didrikson Zaharias? What about Sam Snead who isn't even mentioned, nor are several great athletes in other sports such as Wilt Chamberlain, Jack Dempsey, Lou Gehrig, and Pete Sampras? Re the list of 55, should Chamberlain replace Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (yes), Dempsey replace Jersey Joe Walcott (yes), Gehrig replace Jim Thorpe (at least in the baseball section, yes), and Sampras replace Ivan Lendl (yes)? Oh well. All 55 are worthy. Perhaps the most important differentiator is leadership. Even then, I have some disagreements. To repeat, oh well. This is the IBD's list, not mine.
All that said, I enjoyed reading this book. It is filled with relevant information and makes a strong case for certain qualities of character which usually enable those who possess them to succeed, whatever the field of competition may be. For example, "they work hard, they're driven to achieve, they're fiercely determined [Dempsey once said that champions get up when they can't] and they also have a singular approach that sets them apart from the competition." String together a series of adjectives associated with the 55 and you also have a respectable list of what success in other areas requires: studious, focused, stubborn, resourceful, tenacious, passionate for competition, self-assured, mentally as well as physically fit, obsessed with winning (or not losing), fearless, and proud.
The material is organized within six Parts:
Insisting on the Best (e.g. Mays, Hamm, McEnroe, Ted Williams)
Clearing the Toughest Hurdles (e.g. Heiden, Thorpe, Ronaldo, Owens)
Putting the "Work" in "Work Ethic" (e.g. Lewis, West, Erving, Armstrong)
Learning How to Be the Greatest (e.g. Navratilova, Shoemaker, Louis, Spitz)
Without Risk, There Is No Success (e.g. Jackie Robinson, Phil Jackson, Muhammad Ali, Rickey)
Fine-Tuning Focus Yields Excellence (e.g. Auerbach, Jordan, Paige, and Gretzky)
The profiles which I enjoyed most were of those about whom I knew little (if anything) previously. For example, George Haines, Erik Weihenmayer, Jackie Stiles, Peggy Fleming, Paula Newby-Fraser, and Nadia Comaneci. Those who share my high regard for this book should check out Michael Mandelbaum's The Meaning of Sports: Why Americans Watch Baseball, Football, and Basketball and What They See When They Do as well as Rosabeth Moss Kanter's Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End.
Book Description
The success stories of military and political leaders are an endless source of inspiration and ideas. Taken from Investor's Business Daily's popular "Leaders & Success" section, Military & Political Leaders & Success gives you the inside track on the leadership styles, strategies, and techniques of 55 greats in the history of war and politics. You will learn how:
- Winston Churchill's courage and take-action leadership stemmed the Nazi tide in World War II
- Patton's strategic discipline dealt the fatal blow to Hitler's Germany
- Norman Schwartzkopf motivated troops in one of the most successful ground assaults in U.S History
Customer Reviews:
Inspirational!.......2005-08-10
This book is highly inspirational!
Most of these successful leaders had their share of challenges, weaknesses, and failures.
Despite all the odds, they had achieved an astonishing success. This fact support the contention that setbacks are the harbinger of success.
When you add persistence, integrity, vision, discipline, and innovation to the mix, significant accomplishment is almost certain.
Books:
- I'm Wild Again: Snippets from My Life and a Few Brazen Thoughts
- I Married Adventure: The Lives and Adventures of Martin and Osa Johnson
- Icons of the 20th Century: 200 Men and Women Who Have Made a Difference
- In Her Sister's Shadow: An Intimate Biography of Lee Radziwill
- In My Own Voice: Memoirs
- J. P. Morgan: Banker to a Growing Nation (American Business Tycoons)
- Jackie After Jack: Portrait of the Lady
- JFK: Reckless Youth
- John Jacob Astor: America's First Multimillionaire
- Joseph Great Lives Series: Volume 3
Books Index
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