Joe: Rounding Third & Heading for Home

by Greg Hoard

He has been cursed since age 15, carrying always the appositive affixed eternally to his name--the youngest pitcher in major league baseball. And yet the Joe Nuxhall story neither begins nor ends with the appositive. Baseball, in fact, may not even have been his best sport. He was a high school fullback, big and fast and good enough to be All-State, and he was unquestionably the best schoolboy basketball center in Ohio. He had pitched ten no-hitters before he was 15, however, and when he pitched for the Cincinnati Reds that historic time, he first had to get permission from his 9th grade principal, and ferried himself to Crosley Field and back, alone, on the bus. It was not, as history tells us, an auspicious occasion (an ERA of 67.50), but it launched the remarkable career of perhaps the best-loved and most enduring sports figure Cincinnati has ever seen. Noted sportscaster Greg Hoard's new biography, Joe, dramatically paints the Depression era background of "Hamilton Joe," closing industrial league games for his athletic father when the boy was barely a teenager, facing feared veteran slugger Stan Musial his first time up, and on to Birmingham, where he watched, astounded, while a lanky Negro pitcher named Satchel Paige warmed up by throwing strikes across a piece of chewing gum tinfoil. "The Old Left-Hander" pitched twenty-two seasons of professional baseball, including an All-Star year in 1955 when he led the league in shut-outs, and even when he retired to the broadcasting booth, he was still pitching batting practice. Greg Hoard's tale of baseball's last great innocent is the story of a charmed life, in which a blue-collar kid from a gritty industrial town, by great athleticism and a disarming guilelessness, found himself an enduring legend.

Genres: Sports

287 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2004

About the author

Greg Hoard was a former newspaper journalist and television sports broadcaster and the author of the Joe Nuxhall biography, JOE: Rounding Third And Heading For Home.
He joined the sports department at The Cincinnati Post in 1979 as a feature reporter and columnist, and The Cincinnati Enquirer in 1984 as the Reds beat writer. Hoard moved into television and worked for WLWT-TV in Cincinnati, Ohio, from 1990 to 1993, before joining WXIX-TV as sports director until 2005. He ultimately quit television work, saying he never felt comfortable in the medium.

Reviews

[Larry Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been a Reds fan since I was 5 back in '75 and can remember listening to games on the radio and sometimes even when the game was on TV. This book is for any of those Reds fans or those who remember their parents or grandparents listening to the Reds games on the radio. The stories are great, funny, and some I remember hearing on those radio broadcasts. What's even better is the understanding of just what type of person Joe Nuxhall was on the field, in the booth, and outside the game. My only regret in reading it is how I now long for the days of Marty & Joe on the radio again.

[D.J. Renner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great source of information about baseball history. Joe Nuxhall's story is incredibly unique and interesting. Some of the roads he walked and people he met add to the experience. A must for fans of baseball history.

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book. It was interesting reading about the Old Lefthander's playing days which were a little before my time. I thought the final few chapters were priceless. The stories told by Marty and Joe were awesome! When I was finished the book, I was hoping there were a few more chapters on their tenure in the radio booth by the river.