Comments on: Ron LeFlore

By: PBu

PBu — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 00:09:51 +0000

16. "Happy Al" was a guest on last Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher, sans beer mug.

By: Peanut

Peanut — Tue, 01 May 2007 23:03:54 +0000

15. Ron LeFlore hit a home run in the first game I ever attended.

That’s all I have to say.

By: Jacob L

Jacob L — Tue, 01 May 2007 18:56:41 +0000

14. Kareem's "Giant Steps" was another jock book with some rather adult content. I remember it caused quite a stir at the time, mostly because he talked about dropping acid. Naturally, I read it, but found the political/religious material a lot more than the sex and drugs. I was probably about 11.

By: Josh Wilker

Josh Wilker — Tue, 01 May 2007 17:44:19 +0000

13. 8: Yeah I remember there being an airplane sex scene in the book version of North Dallas Forty that wasn't in the movie. 9: I thought it was Tom Berenger, not Richard Gere, who went nutso in Looking for Mr. Goodbar. 12: I think Billy Martin heard about LeFlore from a bartender (naturally).

By: Catfish326

Catfish326 — Tue, 01 May 2007 16:37:22 +0000

12. I always wondered, what the hell was Billy Martin doing, when he discovered LeFlore? Was he locked up himself at that time? Was he visiting friends? No one else but Billy would discover someone at such a place. I love it.

Best book I recall reading as a kid was Joe Pepitone’s book “Joe, You Coulda Made Us Proud.” Damn that was good. Stories of him shagging like 5 women a night, into the wee small hours of the morning. One story had him and Mantle tag-teaming a chick, and then the two players broke into hysterical laughter when the woman took out her false teeth to give them blow jobs. They crippled in laughter. That one stays with you for a lifetime…..

By: Scott Long

Scott Long — Tue, 01 May 2007 06:46:48 +0000

11. Busted. I will admit I floated out the Reading Rainbow point to antagonize Trekkies out of their lair.

Didn’t know about Burton’s mad skillz on TV quiz shows.

By: Ken Arneson

Ken Arneson — Tue, 01 May 2007 06:08:59 +0000

10. 9 Reading Rainbow? You obviously didn't see LeVar Burton on Celebrity Jeopardy! He totally kicked butt. I think he also set some sort of all-time record on the Weakest Link. That dude is wicked smart. (And I bet you thought I was gonna say Star Trek, didn't you?)

By: Scott Long

Scott Long — Tue, 01 May 2007 05:11:29 +0000

9. As a Tiger fan as a child, LeFlore was one of my favs. I don’t remember much about the movie, except that even at 12 years-old, I knew that Burton would never be as good as he was as Kunte Kinte.

Looking at his IMDB, I noticed that he was also in the previously mentioned “Looking for Mr. Goodbar”, which I don’t remember him in. Actually, the only thing I can remember from the movie was that Richard Gere went psycho and bit off Diane Keaton’s nipple. (or maybe my childhood trauma has left me thinking this had happened.)

Anyway, I’ve often wondered why more players don’t come from prison yards, instead of former players winding up in prison yards?

Burton’s best performance since Roots? I would say his seminal work on Reading Rainbow.

Looking further into Burton’s career, he has also appeared in sports biopics on Grambling’s first white football player (starring the immortal thespian, Bruce Jenner), Jesse Owens, and Ali.

By: nick

nick — Tue, 01 May 2007 03:38:01 +0000

8. my childhood was warped, or improved, by unfettered access to the parental library: Ball Four, Basketball Diaries, also North Dallas Forty…..oh, & a nod of respect to ftt: perhaps my single fave Neil Young track, and wonderfully apropos for the Toaster: “in the stands, the home crowd scatters….”

By: For The Turnstiles

For The Turnstiles — Tue, 01 May 2007 02:19:51 +0000

7. I remember reading some pretty racy stuff in baseball books at a young age as well. The three that come to mind are “Ball Four,” “A False Spring” and the fictional “Long Gone.” I think I read all three of these around the same time (probably early teens) and they’ve kind of blended together in my mind, but I’m pretty sure at least two of the three have descriptions of young ballplayers visiting whorehouses. My parents would have been horrified.

And then there was Mark Fidrych’s autobiography of sorts which was in Q&A form and (at least as I remember it) spent an much time talking about drinking beer with his buddies as it did on baseball.