The Bookshelf Conversations #192: Harvey Araton

As I say in the video, this is the second time I’ve chatted with Harvey Araton about Driving Mr. Yogi: Yogi Berra, Ron Guidry, and Baseball’s Greatest Gift. (The website is out of date but you’ll get a lot of info about him and his work nonetheless.) The previous Conversation was more than a decade ago, when the book first came out. It was included in my “roundup” review of baseball titles in 2012 on Bookreporter.com. That was in the “infancy” of my podcasts and the technology wasn’t really that good, as you can judge for yourselves here. Very primitive.

I have always been in awe of people who work for The New York Times, such as Tyler Kepner, George Vecsey, Richard Sandomir, Claire Smith, Ira Berkow, and Richard Goldstein, among others who have been kind enough to share their thoughts in these Conversations. I would think that’s a journalist’s dream job although I know in realty it’s just as fraught with problems as any other position. Unfortunately, Araton left the paper a few years back when they severely cut back on staff. He still writes the occasional piece, such as this obituary for photographer George Kalinsky.

The nice thing about books, for me at least, is that they’re timeless. So I had no problem in going back to Driving Mr. Yogi and discussing the challenges of writing about such a legendary figure. It’s even more meaningful since Berra has passed away and kind of reminded me of David Halberstam’s book, The Teammates. Here’s my review of that one on Bookreporter.