Season of '42

Joe D, Teddy Ballgame, and Baseball's Fight to Survive a Turbulent First Year of War

De: Jack Cavanaugh

Narrado por: Robert C. Brewster

Before hundreds of major leaguers went off to war, they enjoyed one final season in the sun.

Big league baseball would seem to have been a hard sell in 1942. World War II was not going well for the United States in the Pacific and not much better in Europe. Moreover, the country was in drastically short supply of ships, planes, submarines, torpedoes, and other war materials, and Uncle Sam needed men, millions of them, including those from 21 through 35 years of age who had been ordered to register for the draft, the age range of most big league baseball players.

But after a “green light” from President Roosevelt, major league baseball played on in 1942 as it would throughout the war. It turned out to be an extraordinary season, too, spiced by a brash, young, and swift St. Louis Cardinal team that stunned the baseball world by winning the World Series. The 1942 season would be overshadowed by war, though, with many people wondering whether it was really all right for 400 seemingly healthy and athletic men to play a child’s game and earn far more money than the thousands of young Americans whose lives were at risk as they fought the Germans and Japanese abroad.

In Season of ’42, veteran sportswriter Jack Cavanaugh takes a look at this historic baseball season, how it was shaped and affected by the war and what, ultimately, it meant to America.

©2012 Jack Cavanaugh (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Great story, narration is like fingernails on a chalkboard!

The narrator sounds like he is reading a news bulletin from the 1940’s. He reads like someone in your face who is trying to make a point and I start leaning back to preserve my personal space. He mispronounces several words, not just named, and over has a very grating performance. I am an hour into this and not sure how much further I can make it. This needs to be heard to be believed.

Narrator is not for me

I couldn’t continue listening, the narrator sounded like he was a headline announcer on every sentence. Not really sure if it was a good story or not.

Narration mediocre.

Ok history. Narration so-so. Several mispronunciations. Narrator's voice hard to listen to at times. It seemed there were at least two narrators and they finished each others thoughts or sentences (even though there is only one credited). Annoying but not as much as mispronunciations of words like "contribute", "Spahn" and "Enos".

Awful narrator strikes again

As Mr. Good from North Carolina points out, the narrator speaks as if each sentence is a headline. It kind of masks his numerous mispronunciations.
How much does a narrator get paid per book? Hopefully not a lot because there seems to be more awful narrators than competent narrators. If I were the author, I would get the audio version re-recorded. This is just pure crap.

Horrible!

Horrible. Was this a vanity thing? Do not tell me the crank box that read this thing is s professional.

WWII overshadows 1942 baseball season

I tried to understand how author was using WWII as a backdrop to the 1942 season, but he went way to far. I had to stop midway through when a chapter was devoted to U boat commanders' treatment of survivors of sunken freighters. Many pronouncement errors and the general sleepy performance did not help. Not sure how many times stories like Stan Musial's meteoric rise to the majors was repeated. Slipping into the futures of players probably should have been in the last chapter. I was so disappointed that the backdrop became the focus of a baseball story.

Ok Story/Beyond Awful Narration

In over 200 Audible books, this is by far the worst narrator. Period. He consistently sounds like he is yelling (just listen to the intro, I wish I had), his annunciation is brutal and he consistently mispronounces words. I keep asking myself: How does the publisher not know this? The editing is bad. Several times the same phrases were repeated. Also, you could always tell when the narrator did a reread because his voice would go much softer and then a sentence or two later, back to the yelling. If you made it this far and are still thinking of listening to this book, the content is more towards WW II then Baseball. I’d say 65/35 in material. Still, the content wasn’t bad. Maybe read this book instead of listening to it??