Ron Rapoport
Ron Rapoport is the author of Let's Play Two: The Legend of Mr. Cub, the Life of Ernie Banks. From the transcript of his interview with NPR's Scott Simon:
SIMON: You tried to do a book with Ernie Banks, didn't you?--Marshal Zeringue
RAPOPORT: I did. We had long conversations about all kinds of things - growing up in segregated Dallas, missing school for a whole year to pick cotton with his dad, playing with Buck O'Neil in the Negro Leagues, coming to those awful Cub teams, fighting with Leo Durocher, his problems with his family and getting adjusted to life after baseball.
I was really excited about it, and then he pulled the plug. Scott, I could've strangled him. He decided he didn't want to do it. So I decided that we would turn it into a biography. And I talked to more than a hundred people.
SIMON: You pointed out and may have discovered the reasons why he didn't talk about himself a lot, which we should explain is exactly what those of us who are fans usually want someone like Ernie Banks to do.
RAPOPORT: Well, people would talk to Ernie. And they'd say, my golly, I had a chance to talk to my childhood hero. What a thrill. And then they'd pause a minute and say...[read on]
