CHANGING PITCHES

by Steve Kluger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 1984

Sportswriter Kluger's first-novel resurrects the old Washington Senators baseball team, putting them back in the American League as though they'd never left and were still as awful as ever. Pitching for them now is Scotty McKay, once a Cy Young Award winner but here, at 36, working on a curve he prays will spearhead a comeback. A vegetarian, living with Joanie, an actress in mindless TV commercials, Scotty is pushing hard to hold back age. Disaster seems inevitable, though, when his favorite catcher and best friend Buddy Budlong breaks his arm; called in as a replacement through a trade is Jason Cornell--a shiny, effortless star of a player whom Scotty immediately loathes. Yet loathing for Jason turns to love--real love, a crush: ""I like the way he thinks, I like the way he acts, I like the way he talks, I like the way he dresses; I like the way he moves, I like the way he catches, and I like the way he looks at me after I've just struck out a side. . . I'd like to be as much a part of him as one human being can be of another, and have him as much a part of me as I am of him."" Scotty flees to psychoanalysis, scandalizing himself with what seems to be a homosexual yearning. But he eventually learns that this is all a case of misplaced desire: what he really wants to do. . . is marry Joanie. True, this featherweight emotional dither is unimpressive. Still, Kluger really does know his way around a locker room--with amusing transcriptions of notes the players leave one another on the bulletin board and lots of authentic padding (too many verbatim box-scores and sports-page articles). So, though this is very slender stuff for a novel, baseball fans will find minor entertainment here and there--without the brilliance of David Carkeet's Greatest Slump of All Time (1983, p. 1261), but also without the belabored jokiness of Donald Hays' The Dixie Association (p. 313).

Pub Date: June 1, 1984

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1984

Categories: FICTION