A01=Jim Leeke
American League
Author_Jim Leeke
baseball
baseball book
baseball color analyst
baseball history
baseball studies
baseball writing
biography of a professional umpire
book about a professional umpire
broadcast history
Category=DNBS
Category=SCX
Category=SFC
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_sports-fitness
majore league baseball
mental health in sports
MLB
MLB umpires
sports history
sportscaster biography
umpire biography
umpire history
Product details
- ISBN 9781496237668
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 01 Jul 2025
- Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Ron Luciano was a college football star, baseball umpire, TV broadcaster, and best-selling author. He barged through the world with an outsized personality, entertaining many, offending a few, and hiding behind a cheerful and outrageous persona until life somehow proved unbearable. Everyone knew him, but nobody really did.
Once an All-American tackle at Syracuse University, Luciano turned to umpiring after an injury derailed his professional football career, and he quickly moved up the Minor League ladder to reach the Majors in 1969. As a big, likable loser-Oliver Hardy in blue-he became a fan favorite in the American League, “shooting” runners with his forefinger, conducting a legendary feud with Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver, and entertaining writers with outlandish baseball stories-some of which were even true. Even as he added years to his umpiring career and was considered among the game’s best, some players and managers thought his showmanship detracted from his abilities. He later became a baseball color analyst on national TV before coauthoring a series of rollicking best-selling sports books. Away from the game, he loved Shakespeare and birdwatching. But his upbeat public face was at odds with his private struggle with depression. His suicide at age fifty-seven shocked and puzzled friends, fans, and readers alike.
In Big Loosh Jim Leeke recounts Luciano’s unlikely career, detailing his life as athlete, arbiter, sportscaster, writer, and mythmaker while separating fact from fiction amid the fanciful stories he loved to spin. As a friend said of Luciano, “If you didn’t like this man, you didn’t like people.”
Once an All-American tackle at Syracuse University, Luciano turned to umpiring after an injury derailed his professional football career, and he quickly moved up the Minor League ladder to reach the Majors in 1969. As a big, likable loser-Oliver Hardy in blue-he became a fan favorite in the American League, “shooting” runners with his forefinger, conducting a legendary feud with Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver, and entertaining writers with outlandish baseball stories-some of which were even true. Even as he added years to his umpiring career and was considered among the game’s best, some players and managers thought his showmanship detracted from his abilities. He later became a baseball color analyst on national TV before coauthoring a series of rollicking best-selling sports books. Away from the game, he loved Shakespeare and birdwatching. But his upbeat public face was at odds with his private struggle with depression. His suicide at age fifty-seven shocked and puzzled friends, fans, and readers alike.
In Big Loosh Jim Leeke recounts Luciano’s unlikely career, detailing his life as athlete, arbiter, sportscaster, writer, and mythmaker while separating fact from fiction amid the fanciful stories he loved to spin. As a friend said of Luciano, “If you didn’t like this man, you didn’t like people.”
Jim Leeke is a former journalist, copywriter, and retired creative director. He interviewed Ron Luciano during Luciano’s first book tour in 1982. Leeke is the author of several books, including The Gas and Flame Men: Baseball and the Chemical Warfare Service during World War I (Potomac, 2024) and From the Dugouts to the Trenches: Baseball during the Great War (Nebraska, 2017), winner of the SABR Larry Ritter Award. He lives in Columbus, Ohio.
