HOT CORNER

A consumer’s guide to the best and worst of sports media and merchandise. Ground rules: If it can be read, heard, observed, viewed, dialed or downloaded, it’s in play here. One exception: No products will be endorsed.

What: “Jack Arute’s Tales from the Indy 500.”

Author: Jack Arute, with Jenna Fryer.

Publisher: Sports Publishing LLC.

Price: $19.95.

Jack Arute first attended the Indianapolis 500 as an 18-year-old just out of high school in 1969. His father took him as a graduation present.

Arute was hired as a pit reporter by ABC in 1984, and has been going to the race since. He marked his 20th anniversary with ABC on Sunday by working in the broadcast booth for the first time.

Arute has many stories about his experiences at Indy, and this 172-page book is the result. As one might expect, there are plenty of stories about A.J. Foyt, who wrote the preface.

“Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t have much love for the news media,” Foyt starts out, adding that a few reporters are “fair, honest and know what they are talking about.” He cites Arute as one.

Foyt played a role in Arute’s being hired by ABC. When Arute was interviewed as a possible replacement for Chris Economaki, he was asked what he would do if he were told he had to interview Foyt, who had terrified more than a few interviewers.

“I’d go interview him,” Arute said. And that’s what he had to do at his first Indy 500 for ABC. It wasn’t easy. Foyt decided to play a trick on the rookie reporter and hid in a bathroom until right before he was to go on the air. Arute had to go in and get him.

“And that’s how my Indy 500 career basically started -- in the men’s room with A.J. Foyt,” Arute writes.

-- Larry Stewart