“A very successful businessman, Bob Rich is also an avid sportsman. The Right Angle: Tales from a Sporting Life is a vivid narrative about this good man’s life and interests.”
—PRESIDENT GEORGE H. W. BUSH
“Bob Rich offers a book that is equal parts big-fish tale, family memoir, and inside skinny from a front row seat to history. Of fish and family he writes in genial conversational style. And of the intrigue behind some of the key moments in Buffalo’s sporting past he writes with secret piercing acidity. The Right Angle has the right stuff.”
—ERIK BRADY
National sportswriter and former Courier-Express columnist
“In this beguiling collection of stories about fishing, baseball, hockey, swimming, and dogs, Bob Rich proves that life is indeed a game, sometimes serious and sometimes not. You’ll win some and you’ll lose some. The Right Angle is a wise and often humorous look at what it means to live a fully engaged life. This is a dynamite book.”
—MONTE BURKE
Staff writer, Forbes Magazine
“Bob Rich shares his most sacred secrets for success in sports, in business, and in life. The Right Angle is a must read for anyone who needs to be reminded that life can be both fun and successful.”
—GARY W. HALL, MD
Three-time Olympic swimmer
“Bob Rich has penned a remarkable series of tales from his varied and accomplished life and career. The common thread to the stories is the warmth, humor, authenticity, and wisdom that run through these personal experiences. This highly entertaining and genuine book contains something of value for every reader, regardless of their perspective or life path.”
—MARK SHAPIRO
President of the Cleveland Indians
“Bob Rich’s stories are not only entertaining but also a reflection of his love for the community through sport. Sports are significant to western New York and The Right Angle captures the Rich involvement in virtually every major initiative.”
—DENNIS GORSKI
Former Erie County Executive
Bob Rich has always been a gamer. From his first hockey games as a kid on the ice rinks of western New York, through his triumphs in the risky business of professional sports and his scintillating adventures on the high seas in pursuit of record sport fish, games have defined him in business, sports, and life. In this collection of colorful short vignettes, Bob brings wit, wisdom, and an irrepressible sense of humor to the telling of his life’s greatest adventures. By turns solemn and thoughtful or laugh-out-loud funny—but always entertaining—these stories are bound together by Bob’s philosophy that life is itself a game and that success depends on finding the right angle.
This philosophy has made him an institution in his hometown of Buffalo, New York, where he has taken center stage in buying and selling a National Hockey League franchise (the Buffalo Sabres)—twice; pioneering the art of purchasing the naming rights for sports stadiums (the former Rich Stadium, home of the great Buffalo Bills teams of the 1990s); and a heroic but ill-fated quest to bring Major League Baseball to his hometown. Along the way, he collected countless tales of the behind-the-scenes maneuvering of some of the iconic figures in professional sports, many of which are shared here for the first time. Readers will also learn the inside story of how Robert Redford’s classic baseball movie The Natural came to be filmed in Buffalo.
Bob is himself a superior athlete who has excelled in a wide variety of sports. His breathless, play-by-play prose will make you feel like a teammate sharing his competitive experiences in college ice hockey, polo, team handball, and as a teammate of Olympic swimmer Gary Hall Sr. in an open-water endurance swim around Key West. He also invites you to join him on fishing expeditions around the world in pursuit of trout with the president of the United States and in search of a thousand-pound blue marlin, known as a grander.
The combination of vivid characters, intriguing storylines, dozens of personal photographs, and Bob’s easy, flowing conversational style makes The Right Angle an appealing and enjoyable read.
Binding: Hardcover
Pages: 341 (color photos)
ISBN: 978-1-61614-427-2
Shipping Weight: 2lbs
Author Bio:
Bob Rich is the chairman of Rich Products Corporation, one of the premier family-owned businesses in the world. Headquartered in Buffalo, New York, the company does business in over one hundred countries. He is also the author of three other books — Fish Fights: A Hall of Fame Quest; The Fishing Club: Brothers and Sisters of the Angle; and (with Scott Friedman) Secrets from the Delphi Café: Unlocking the Code of Happiness.
