This short blog post has been sitting in limbo for a while
now, but it’s time for it to see the light of day.
I’m very fortunate in that every now and then I’ll get a chance to meet someone I admire and appreciate in the worlds of music, books, sports and so on. Several weeks ago I had an opportunity to do that once again.
I’m very fortunate in that every now and then I’ll get a chance to meet someone I admire and appreciate in the worlds of music, books, sports and so on. Several weeks ago I had an opportunity to do that once again.
One of the links I have on this blog leads to another blog
(and a darned good one) written by a guy named Ken Levine. He’s actually had a few full-time careers
over the years that include Emmy winning television writer (M*A*S*H, Cheers, and Frasier are among the many shows that he’s worked on). He’s also
written a few books, two of which I own and have read. Oh, and in his spare time he’s a major league
baseball broadcaster, currently with the Seattle Mariners.
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| BowlingJoe and Ken Levine |
I first heard Levine on the radio back in the 1980s, the
FIRST time he was with the Mariners.
Those were some god-awful Mariner teams that used to inhabit The Kingdome in those days (my old college buddies and I used to enjoy sitting in the left field cheap seats giving washed up Mariner left fielder Gorman Thomas "the business") . But Ken Levine
was a breath of fresh air. When the
first batter up in a given inning got to first on a base on balls, he’d quote
what he called Levine’s Law, which
states: “When you walk the leadoff batter, he comes
around to score 100% of the time. Unless
he doesn’t.” How can you argue with
that?
And then there were the traffic reports he’d give in the 9th
inning of another Mariner blowout loss waiting to become official. He’d tell the listening audience to avoid the
Highway 520 bridge due to an accident.
Of course that was fake. Levine
used the bridge to get home and wanted a clear path to get there after the
game.
When I had the chance to meet him at the Mariner’s team
store in Seattle and get a couple of books signed, I jumped on board. During our short chat he was very friendly
and gracious. I think I tried to make a
joke. Something about how I enjoy
reading his book during sittings in the smallest room of our house. Which brings me to something I’ll call BowlingJoe’s Law: “Never
try and be funny around someone who writes comedy for a living.” After all, you wouldn’t demonstrate your
lightning fast left jab for Mike Tyson, right?
I should really thank Ken for not ejecting me from his book signing for
that lapse in judgment.
Finally, I know he’d appreciate me hawking his latest book
on this blog, even though I only get about 200 site visits a month, half from
people who are somehow related to me (which isn’t bad but I’ll bet he gets 20,000). So here you go, Ken, this one’s on me. You can order Ken Levine’s hilarious new
book, The Me Generation…By Me (Growing Up
in the 60s), right here. Available
in Kindle or paperback.
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