Big Klu - by William A Cook (Paperback)

About the Book

During the mid-1950s, an unlikely star stood alongside baseball standouts Mickey Mantle, Henry Aaron and Willie Mays--a slugger with a funny name and muscles so bulging that he had to cut the sleeves off his uniform to swing freely. Ted Kluszewski played little baseball in his youth, making a name for himself instead as a hard-hitting football player at Indiana University before showing potential on the diamond and being signed by the Cincinnati Reds. Between 1953 and 1956, no other player in major league baseball hit more home runs than Kluszewski. If not for a back injury, he may have gone down in major league history as one its greatest players. With detailed statistics from both his football and baseball careers, this biography chronicles the unusual odyssey that took Kluszewski to the big leagues and ultimately made him an icon during the 1950s.

Book Synopsis

During the mid-1950s, an unlikely star stood alongside baseball standouts Mickey Mantle, Henry Aaron and Willie Mays--a slugger with a funny name and muscles so bulging that he had to cut the sleeves off his uniform to swing freely. Ted Kluszewski played little baseball in his youth, making a name for himself instead as a hard-hitting football player at Indiana University before showing potential on the diamond and being signed by the Cincinnati Reds. Between 1953 and 1956, no other player in major league baseball hit more home runs than Kluszewski. If not for a back injury, he might have gone down in major league history as one its greatest players. With detailed statistics from both his football and baseball careers, this biography chronicles the unusual odyssey that took Kluszewski to the big leagues and ultimately made him a ballgame icon in the 1950s.

Review Quotes

"William a Cook's excellent biography of this gentle giant sheds light on Kluszewski's life as a standout football player at Indiana University in the mid 1940s and his slow rise to, and precipitous fall from, stardom and notoriety in baseball. Thoroughly researched and extremely well written, Big Klu: The Baseball Life of Ted Kluszewski presents the slugger as a reluctant star whose sheer size was often the source of unreasonable expectations. Cook begins the narrative with an insightful chapter about Kluszewski's unexpected career as a professional athlete. A thoroughly enjoyable read...full-length biography"-Journal of Sport History.

About the Author

William A. Cook is the author of numerous books, including 11 on baseball history, and has appeared in productions on ESPN2 and the MLB Network. A former health care administrator and township councilman in North Brunswick, New Jersey, he resides in Manalapan, New Jersey.