THE ARMCHAIR BOOK OF BASEBALL

by John-Ed. Thorn ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 25, 1985

About the time the World Series reaches a conclusion, baseball fans can look forward to a winter of content with this glorious collection of the summer game's lore. Thorn, coauthor of The Hidden Game of Baseball (1984), scores early and often. Of the more than 60 pieces he anthologizes, there are at least two classics of sports journalism--Gay Talese's report on Joe DiMaggio in retirement, ""The Silent Season of a Hero,"" and Roger Angell's glowing portrait of Smokey Joe Wood (who went 34-5 for the 1912 Bosox) at a pitching duel which Yale's Ron Darling lost in extra innings to Frank Viola, then of St. Johns, in 1981 (""The Web of the Game""). The editor's choices also include a wealth of excerpts from longer works by the likes of Jim Bouton (Ball Four), Robert Creamer (Babe), Roger Kahn (The Boys of Summer), Ring Lardner (You Know Me Al), and Douglas Wallop (The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant). In the lineup as well are luminaries better known for off-diamond accomplishments--A. Bartlett Giametti, William Least Heat Moon, Eugene McCarthy, James A. Michener, Philip Roth, William Satire, James Thurber, John Updike, George Will. For comic relief, there's the unsung contributor of the Abbott and Costello routine, ""Who's on First?,"" and a funny sketch from Don Hoak about batting against Fidel Castro in pre-revolutionary Cuba. Thorn does not slight either sportswriters or ballplayers, though. Represented are Moe Berg (a Princeton grad, linguist, and 15-year veteran of the majors whose journeyman talents inspired the epithet ""good field, no hit""); Joe Durso (an eye-witness account of Hank Aaron's 715th home run); Curt Flood (patron saint of free agency); Jim Murray (an apologia for Babe Herman); Pete Rose (who believes in ""letting the other guy lose""); Leonard Shecter (an unreconstructed fan of the start-up Mets); and Red Smith (an affectionate obituary for Howard Ehmke). Statistics buffs are well served by Thorn's offerings, e.g., a Bill James entry in which he explains his (nearly infallible) Hall of Fame prediction system, in the less-familiar-but-rewarding category are ""How Baseball Began,"" a scholarly inquiry by sociologist Harold Seymour, and a thoughtfully amusing essay on the decline of 400 batting averages from Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, which is included in his own collection The Flamingo's Smile (p. 722). The scouting report: a superstar prospect for the hot-stove league.

Pub Date: Oct. 25, 1985

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Scribners

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1985

Categories: NONFICTION