david pietrusza. my question is, what are the obstacles to unifying the major leagues by resolving the designated hitter rule? >> guest: to unify the major leagues? i think not. i would not put past but sealy. but sealy really has -- he had no respect for the traditions of the game. what separates the game. the whole interleague play thing. he gave police their character. which enabled a baseball fan to know who is in the team. now you have to study so many teams that it is almost like a full-time occupation. but whether it will happen again, if the lord of baseball decides it is profitable for them to do that, they will do whatever is necessary. because it is a very much corporate profit and loss. always has been. people talk about the game, some golden era when people don't care about the letter -- letter suite, utopia, neverland, etc. >> host: you on booktv on c-span 2. >> caller: i just want to say to the author, i really appreciate you this morning because everything you said about sports in char

david pietrusza.mr. david pietrusza began writing about baseball. in fact from his first book was minor merkle's come a legend and lou are of minor league baseball. that came out in 1995. lights on, the wild century long saga of baseball in 1997. his third book was judge and jury, the life and times of judge kennesaw and the life, times and murder of the criminal genius who fixed the 1919 world series. that came out in 2003. the history of america's inception in baseball, and presidential history from there, "1920: the year of the six presidents", that came out in 2007. "1960: lbj vs. jfk vs. nixon: the epic campaign that forged three presidencies", and that came out in 2008. finally, his most recent book, "1948: harry truman's improbable victory and the year that transformed america." he is our guest for the next 2.5 hours and we are going to put the phone lines on the screen. if you'd like to dial in and talk some presidential or baseball history with david pietrusza. you can also send an e-mail to

. >> watch booktv's entire three-hour interview with estoria david pietrusza tonight at eight eastern c-spa c-span2. >> what i'm going to do tonight is little talked about how pass losing presidential campaigns have shaped the 2012 election. maybe do a little speculation on the 2012 election might in the future. and i'm going to begin, talk about 20 minutes and open it up to questions. i'm going to begin what i think is a pretty bold addiction which is on november 6, 2012, absolutely and definitely be a winner and a loser. but the bold prediction is this, the things we meant no for several decades who won because sometimes it's not clear. winning, sometimes the winner has almost no impact on american history. becomes -- sometimes the losing candidate has a tremendous impact and change the political dynamic a whole bunch of different ways. before go into that how that works, let me tell you why i wrote the book. i was an unsuccessful political candidate myself. i ran for congress in 1998. i lost. you sit there and you say wow, that was tough. my family and my friends and complete stran

convention, he says, well, you tell those people that any link who sits behind his >> historian david pietrusza tonight at 8 p.m. eastern here on c-span2. >> and now kitty ferguson talks about physicist stephen hawking's life and work. the process of writing his biography, from princeton university in new jersey, it's about an hour. >> well, it's a pleasure and privilege to have been invited to talk to you about stephen hawking, and about my experiences writing a book about him. "stephen hawking," or as it's called, stephen hawking, his life and work. some of you may already know hawking's science will. and nearly everybody has something about him as a person. is this ability -- his disability, his legendary courage, his unlikely celebrity, and then a few ugly rumors about him as well. but he's more than a legend. he actually is a real person. and it's been my luck to get to know him just a little bit. i wouldn't claim to be aggregates and i'm a. i think you might be inaccurate to say that more than two or three people no stephen hawking well. even they have their doubts. the way he communicate

david pietrusza, thank you for being on booktv. thank you for joining us.that will wrap up our program. book tv >> harvard professor, randall kennedy nerd is selling book company and/or time of the strange career of a troublesome word. you write about violence by speech. what do you mean? >> guest: that book is about the word nigger and is a word that is triggered lots of violence and to some it is the final word in another cells. what i wanted to do in that book was to give a history of this word that has been covered with blood literally and sometimes figuratively and wanted to show the way in which this word has wrought havoc in american culture. of course that is not all it does. one of the reasons why it was both worthy is because of the complicated word. it has a terrible history, a history of insult, history of terrorism, a history of intimidation, but of course it has been put to other uses, too. it's been made in an ironic and a term of endearment so the word nigger as a complicated word and has biomass space, but other aspects as well. .. i knew h