This Weekend

Bob Edwards Weekend

July 11-12, 2009

HOUR ONE

Dodgers’ owner Walter O’Malley was hated in his native New York, loved in Los Angeles and became the most notorious baseball owner in sports history for moving the beloved Brooklyn Dodgers across the country in the late 1958. Michael D’Antonio’s new biography is called Forever Blue: The True Story of Walter O’Malley, Baseball’s Most Controversial Owner, and the Dodgers of Brooklyn and Los Angeles.

In this week’s installment of our ongoing series This I Believe, Bob talks with executive director Dan Gediman about the essay from Jackie Robinson. In 1947, Robinson pioneered the integration of American professional athletics by becoming the first black player in Major League Baseball. During his 10 seasons with the Brooklyn Dodgers, he played on six World Series teams and was voted the National League’s Most Valuable Player in 1949.

HOUR TWO

Rock journalist and memoirist Jancee Dunn explores the dichotomy of being a grown, successful professional, who, when she visits her parents, immediately reverts back to her teenaged self. Why Is My Mother Getting A Tattoo And Other Questions I Wish I Never Had To Ask asks if we ever really grow up, and chronicles Dunn’s attempt to come to grips with getting older.

After Melody Gardot was seriously injured in a bike accident at age nineteen, she took up music therapy as a way to rebuild her cognitive skills. Though permanently disabled, her therapy resulted in critical acclaim as a jazz and blues artist. Now on her fourth album, My One and Only Thrill, Gardot describes how she writes and performs despite the physical pain she endures daily.