Episode 34 -- Dale Tafoya

Author's week begins with Dale Tafoya, a lifelong Oakland Athletics fan who just released his second book on his hometown team, "Billy Ball: Billy Martin and the Resurrection of the Oakland A's."

In the early 1980s, the Oakland A’s went from on their way to Denver, to remaining in Oakland and becoming the toast of baseball, and then crashing back down to mediocrity. In the middle of it all was flamboyant manager Billy Martin, who brought, as the commercials famously told us, "a different brand of baseball."

Tafoya's detailed research reveals how close the A's came to leaving for Denver, why they stayed in Oakland, how many times Martin was almost the A's manager before starting in 1980, and how Billy Ball put the A's on the covers of the biggest magazines.