AUDIOBOOK
About
"There's a long drive.
It's gonna be.
I believe.
The Giants win the pennant.
The Giants win the pennant.
The Giants win the pennant.
The Giants win the pennant."
-Russ Hodges, October 3, 1951
On the 75th anniversary of "The Shot Heard Round the World," Don DeLillo reassembles in fiction the larger-than-life characters who on October 3, 1951, witnessed Bobby Thomson's pennant-winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning. Jackie Gleason is razzing Toots Shor in Leo Durocher's box seats; J. Edgar Hoover, basking in Sinatra's celebrity, is about to be told that the Russians have tested an atomic bomb; and Russ Hodges, raw-throated and excitable, announces the game-the Giants and the Dodgers at the Polo Grounds in New York. DeLillo's transcendent account of one of the iconic events of the twentieth century is a masterpiece of American sportswriting. Don DeLillo is the author of seventeen novels including Underworld, Zero K, Libra, and White Noise, and the story collection The Angel Esmeralda, a finalist for the Story Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. He has also written plays and essays. He has won the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the PEN/Saul Bellow Award, the Jerusalem Prize for his complete body of work, the William Dean Howells Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and, in 2025, the Academy's Gold Medal for Fiction. DeLillo has been awarded the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction and the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
Tony Shalhoub is an Emmy-, Tony-, and Golden Globe–winning actor whose career spans film, television, and theater. He is best known for his roles in Monk, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and Wings, and has appeared in dozens of acclaimed films and television projects. On Broadway, he has performed in The Band's Visit, for which he won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical, as well as Conversations with My Father, Golden Boy, and Act One. He has also received multiple Screen Actors Guild Awards, among numerous other honors recognizing his work on stage and screen. We Thought They'd Never Leave is his debut book. "One couldn't imagine three more American-sounding voices than Billy Crudup's, Zachary Levi's, and Tony Shalhoub's as they recount one of the most iconic events in American sports history-Bobby Thomson's clutch home run that won the National League pennant for the New York Giants in the bottom of the ninth on October 3, 1951. Our trio captures all the nostalgia, gentle satire, and historic reimaginings of Don DeLillo's beloved work, originally published in 1997 and recorded live at the 92nd Street Y in 2019."
It's gonna be.
I believe.
The Giants win the pennant.
The Giants win the pennant.
The Giants win the pennant.
The Giants win the pennant."
-Russ Hodges, October 3, 1951
On the 75th anniversary of "The Shot Heard Round the World," Don DeLillo reassembles in fiction the larger-than-life characters who on October 3, 1951, witnessed Bobby Thomson's pennant-winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning. Jackie Gleason is razzing Toots Shor in Leo Durocher's box seats; J. Edgar Hoover, basking in Sinatra's celebrity, is about to be told that the Russians have tested an atomic bomb; and Russ Hodges, raw-throated and excitable, announces the game-the Giants and the Dodgers at the Polo Grounds in New York. DeLillo's transcendent account of one of the iconic events of the twentieth century is a masterpiece of American sportswriting. Don DeLillo is the author of seventeen novels including Underworld, Zero K, Libra, and White Noise, and the story collection The Angel Esmeralda, a finalist for the Story Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. He has also written plays and essays. He has won the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the PEN/Saul Bellow Award, the Jerusalem Prize for his complete body of work, the William Dean Howells Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and, in 2025, the Academy's Gold Medal for Fiction. DeLillo has been awarded the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction and the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
Tony Shalhoub is an Emmy-, Tony-, and Golden Globe–winning actor whose career spans film, television, and theater. He is best known for his roles in Monk, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and Wings, and has appeared in dozens of acclaimed films and television projects. On Broadway, he has performed in The Band's Visit, for which he won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical, as well as Conversations with My Father, Golden Boy, and Act One. He has also received multiple Screen Actors Guild Awards, among numerous other honors recognizing his work on stage and screen. We Thought They'd Never Leave is his debut book. "One couldn't imagine three more American-sounding voices than Billy Crudup's, Zachary Levi's, and Tony Shalhoub's as they recount one of the most iconic events in American sports history-Bobby Thomson's clutch home run that won the National League pennant for the New York Giants in the bottom of the ninth on October 3, 1951. Our trio captures all the nostalgia, gentle satire, and historic reimaginings of Don DeLillo's beloved work, originally published in 1997 and recorded live at the 92nd Street Y in 2019."