Kiner's Korner

Tells the behind-the-scenes story of the wild twenty-five year odyssey of the New York Mets, including their 1986 championship season, and offers an account of the broadcaster's own baseball career

When the New York Mets began as a team in 1962, their chief broadcaster was Kiner, formerly the Pittsburgh Pirates' greatest home run hitter. He is still in the broadcast booth, however, this "autobiography" is more about the history of the Met franchise than about the man himself. But that is to the good, because he has enjoyed a special vantage from which to watch the hapless lads of the mid-'60s turn into the champions of 1969, slide downhill again and return to the top in 1986. Kiner's recollections of Casey Stengel and Marv Throneberry, Yogi Berra and Gil Hodges, Tom Seaver and Keith Hernandez are a joy to read and there are entertaining anecdotes about Elizabeth Taylor, whom Kiner dates, and Jamie Lee Curtis, whose mother he once dated. Also, we're given portraits of a skinflint Branch Rickey and an inept Donald Grant. Coauthor Gergen is a sports columnist at Long Island's Newsday. Photos not seen by PW. Author tour.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Despite the title only half of the book is the expected reminiscences and anecdotes collected over the past 25 years by the man who has been the broadcaster for the New York Mets since their inception. Alternating with those chapters are ones which retell the history of the Mets themselves. The story has been told before, and in more detail. Only Kiner could have related his unique experiences in the broadcast booth calling the games as well as hosting the post-game show. He whets our appetites with vignettes about Yogi Berra and Casey Stengel, but the reader is never given any indication of his personal interactions with the managers, coaches, and players he must have known so well. Nevertheless, Kiner's popularity and the Mets 1986 victory should be enough to draw a sizeable audience for this in many libraries, especially in New York. Jo DeLapo, Queens Lib., New York
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.