{"id":1028,"date":"2018-12-31T15:18:58","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T15:18:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=1028"},"modified":"2018-12-31T15:18:58","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T15:18:58","slug":"texas-reads-archiveglenn-dromgoole-63","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=1028","title":{"rendered":"Texas Reads>> archiveGlenn Dromgoole"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/span><\/span>Texas Reads<\/span>>> archive<\/span><\/a><\/span>Glenn Dromgoole<\/span><\/h1>\n<\/div>\n

8.13.2017\u00a0\u00a0 Hall of Fame catcher tells his remarkable story<\/h1>\n

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<\/a><\/span><\/span>Longtime Texas Rangers catcher Ivan \u201cPudge\u201d Rodriguez<\/span> tells the story of his Hall of Fame baseball career in They Call Me Pudge: My Life Playing the Game I Love<\/span><\/a><\/span> (with Jeff Sullivan,<\/span> Triumph Books, $25.95 hardcover).<\/p>\n

Rodriguez grew up in a small town in Puerto Rico with one brother in a close-knit family where \u201ceverything in our house revolved around baseball.\u201d He dedicated the book to his parents, Joe and Eva, \u201cfor all their love, inspiration, and sacrifice.\u201d He was signed by the Texas Rangers at age sixteen and started playing in the majors at nineteen. In twenty-one seasons, thirteen of them with Texas, he caught more games than any catcher in Major League history, won thirteen Gold Gloves as the best defensive catcher, was the American League Most Valuable Player in 1999, and had more than 2,800 hits. He led the Florida (now Miami) Marlins to a World Series title in 2003.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame the first year he was eligible, only the second catcher so honored (the other was his childhood idol, Johnny Bench), and was inducted last month. Throughout the book, Rodriguez speaks with confidence about his baseball skills, but not in a bragging sort of way. He was just that good. His numbers and his leadership spoke for themselves.<\/p>\n

So did his ever-present smile. \u201cI wasn\u2019t conscious of my smiling,\u201d he writes. \u201cI guess I was just happy. I was in my happy place, playing this game I so respected and adored.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/span><\/span>Songs about Abilene:<\/span> In his revised, expanded edition of Abilene in Song: The Women There Don\u2019t Treat You Mean<\/span><\/a><\/span> author Joe W. Specht<\/span> tells about more than a hundred songs in which Abilene, Texas, either plays a role or is mentioned in passing.<\/p>\n

The book (TexasStarTrading.com, $20 paperback) includes a CD of five of those songs, sung by Abilene musician Greg Young, ranging from the 1963 number one hit \u201cAbilene\u201d to \u201cThe Abilene Waltz,\u201d recorded in 2016.<\/p>\n

New novel:<\/span> Laredo author Edward Swift<\/span> gets right to the point in his new novel, Walking on Glory<\/span> (CreateSpace, $9 paperback), killing off the main character in the first sentence.<\/p>\n

Glory St. Michael is based on a Dallas millionaire who died penniless in 1991. Walking on Glory<\/span> is Swift\u2019s ninth book and eighth novel.<\/p>\n

Glenn Dromgoole\u2019s<\/span> latest book is West Texas Stories<\/span><\/a><\/span>Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.<\/p>\n

>> Read his past Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Literary Life here.<\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Texas Reads>> archiveGlenn Dromgoole 8.13.2017\u00a0\u00a0 Hall of Fame catcher tells his remarkable story Longtime Texas Rangers catcher Ivan \u201cPudge\u201d Rodriguez tells the story of his Hall of Fame baseball career in They Call Me Pudge: My Life Playing the Game I Love (with Jeff Sullivan, Triumph Books, $25.95 hardcover). Rodriguez grew up in a small […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1028\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}