Fridays with Red: A Radio Friendship

The author pays tribute to veteran sportscaster Red Barber in a collection of radio dialogues that spans decades

Red Barber, who made his reputation as a baseball broadcaster in Cincinnati, Brooklyn and the Bronx, spent the years from 1980 until his death in 1992 at age 84 doing five-minute spots on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" with Edwards. This affecting reminiscence is a chronicle of those years, with excerpts from tapes of the show about sports, flowers, cats (Barber was an unregenerate ailurophile) and religion (he was a lay reader in the Episcopal Church, authorized to preach sermons). It is also the account of the friendship that developed between the two men and of a mentor who taught his protege by example. The author includes tales of Barber's glory days and his association with figures from Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese to Ethel Merman and Ethel Barrymore, and goes on to his battles against deafness, blindness and the progression of his beloved wife's Alzheimer's disease. The book should have a wide appeal. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A broadcaster's captivating but unsentimental memoir of the relationship he enjoyed for more than 12 years with the late Walter Lanier (``Red'') Barber. Edwards had hosted NPR's Morning Edition since its late 1979 inception when the nonpareil sportscaster was persuaded to make a weekly appearance on the program. Almost every Friday from 1981 until Barber's death last October at age 84, the author (at the mike in a Washington, D.C., studio) and ``the ole redhead'' (speaking via satellite from his retirement home in Tallahassee) chatted at 7:35 a.m. EST. The four-minute spots soon became one of the NPR network's most popular features, thanks mainly to the discursive charm of the sometime voice of the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Yankees. Barber offered knowledgeable commentary on a wealth of subjects, including camellias, cats, the English language (which he employed with elegant precision), literature, race relations, religion, and, of course, the wide world of sport. Owing to hard labor as a play-by-play announcer for high-school basketball tournaments in his salad days, however, the Mississippi native didn't have much use for the court game. Nor was Barber an unfailingly lovable fellow: He could turn flinty and sternly demanding when an associate didn't meet his high standards of accuracy or integrity. As Edwards nonetheless makes clear through generous samples of their unscripted dialogues, short takes on Barber's career, anecdotal material gleaned from colleagues, and Red's influence on the author's own life, the stylish southerner was a genuinely good man off the air as well as on. An affectionate and affecting tribute to a friend who seldom was at a loss for words. (Photographs--not seen) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

The year is 1950, and Red Barber, the popular voice of Brooklyn, is describing Ebbets Field, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers: "For those of you who haven't seen Ebbets Field, it's a double-decked stadium and the double-decking begins at right field's corner... and there is no stand in back of right field. That's the famous fence or wall, the right field wall." Anyone who heard Barber's voice on National Public Radio's Morning Edition with host Bob Edwards will take pleasure in this book. A baseball announcer for 33 years, Barber popularized the phrase "to be in the catbird seat" (i.e., to be sitting pretty) when he was the play-by-play announcer for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Born in 1908, Red Barber was 84 when he died in October 1992. This informative and balanced biography of a man full of wisdom and pathos is recommended for sports collections. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/93.
- Jim Paxman, Tennessee State Univ., Nashville
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.