Hardball

'In many ways a remarkable book...What Mr. Kuhn is most blessed with as a memoirist is precisely what made his life so hard as a commissioner - a cast of characters Dickens would have envied' - Daniel Okrent, New York Times Book Review . 'Kuhn is a person of decided opinions, and he expresses them here with a candor that baseball fans will find quite winning' - Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World . 'Intimate insights into the wheeling and dealing that takes place behind the scenes in big-league baseball. Kuhn tells all, and the title of his book means what it says... Hardball is a revelation - and an education' - Robert W. Creamer, Sports Illustrated .When Bowie Kuhn became baseball commissioner in 1969, attendance at games was declining, labor disputes were flaring, and many teams were suffering from poor management and marketing. Fifteen years later, when Kuhn retired, the sport was flourishing. Kuhn had overseen tumultuous changes issuing from a challenge to the reserve clause, the 1981 strike, escalated salaries, free agency, and his controversial rulings on matters ranging from gambling to broadcasting. In Hardball , Kuhn reveals how the decisions were made and forthrightly challenges his detractors. The commissioner offers many colorful anecdotes and strong opinions about baseball's greatest legends from Jackie Robinson to Howard Cosell. In a new afterword to this Bison Books edition, Bowie Kuhn, who now resides in both Jacksonville, Florida, and on Long Island, gives his take on the state of baseball since his retirement as commissioner in 1984.