Kiner's Korner: At Bat and on the Air-- My 40 Years in Baseball

When the New York Mets began as a team in 1962, their chief broadcaster was Kiner, formerly the Pittsburgh Pirates' greatest home run hitter. He is still in the broadcast booth, however, this ""autobiography'' is more about the history of the Met franchise than about the man himself. But that is to the good, because he has enjoyed a special vantage from which to watch the hapless lads of the mid-'60s turn into the champions of 1969, slide downhill again and return to the top in 1986. Kiner's recollections of Casey Stengel and Marv Throneberry, Yogi Berra and Gil Hodges, Tom Seaver and Keith Hernandez are a joy to read and there are entertaining anecdotes about Elizabeth Taylor, whom Kiner dates, and Jamie Lee Curtis, whose mother he once dated. Also, we're given portraits of a skinflint Branch Rickey and an inept Donald Grant. Coauthor Gergen is a sports columnist at Long Island's Newsday. Photos not seen by PW. Author tour. (April 27)