Jim Leeke's Big Loosh

Ron Luciano was not the kind of umpire who disappeared into the background.

At 6-foot-4 and often weighing around 300 pounds, Luciano was impossible to miss. He had a flair for the dramatic, a sense of humor that followed him onto the baseball field, and a personality that made him one of the most recognizable umpires of his time.

And he had a story that was more complicated than the character he created.

Jim Leeke joins us to discuss his biography, Big Loosh: The Unruly Life of Umpire Ron Luciano.
Yeah, it’s a baseball book about an umpire, but it’s also a biography about celebrity, performance, storytelling and the difference between the person the public sees and the person who exists when the cameras are gone.

Jim Leeke’s Big Loosh looks beyond the character to find the complicated man underneath—and in doing so, gives us a very different way to remember one of baseball’s most unforgettable umpires.