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"Left on Base in the Bush Leagues: Legends, Near Greats, and Unknowns in the Minors" (Encore)

Aired on Wednesday, July 15th.

The pandemic-shortened Major League Baseball season will begin next week, on the 23rd -- and, looking on the bright side, **some** baseball this summer will be much better, of course, than **no** baseball this summer. In that spirit, we listen back to a fine StudioTulsa discussion from August of last year, when our guest was Gaylon White, a former sportswriter for the Denver Post, the Arizona Republic, and the Oklahoma Journal. White tells us about his then-new book, "Left on Base in the Bush Leagues: Legends, Near Greats, and Unknowns in the Minors." As was noted of this work by a reviewer for Baseball Almanac: "Immerse yourself in the magic of being a bush league fan.... [Stories] range from Joe Bauman breaking the all-time single season professional home-run record by hitting 72 home-runs in 1954 [to] Ron Necciai, [who] struck out 27 batters in a nine-inning game."

Rich Fisher is celebrating his 40th year of service to Public Radio Tulsa. Since 2000, he has been the general manager of Public Radio Tulsa, and previously served as the host of the public affairs program, StudioTulsa, which ran from 1992-2021. Prior to that, he served as music director, a program host and operations director for the station.
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