A string of pearly anecdotes that reverberate far beyond the diamond.
Affectionate, informed, and smooth-as-cream portrait of four Boston Red Sox greats and their abiding friendship over many years.
Even back then, it was “something unusual for baseball: four men who played for one team, who became good friends, and remained friends for the rest of their lives.” Now, writes Halberstam (Firehouse, 2002, etc.), with free agency creating volatility in the rosters and salaries serving to lessen the connection between teammates, this story of Ted Williams, Dom DiMaggio, Bobby Doerr, and Johnny Pesky is especially poignant. All four were Bosox stars in the 1940s and Halberstam re-creates many of the great moments of that decade, though perhaps even more enjoyable here are the sweet nuggets and inside observations of the men—of Pesky taking the fall for a bad play by Leon Culberson that lost the 1946 World Series because of the code mandating one player never point a finger at another, and reminiscing of Yankee pitcher Spud Chandler, “God, he was mean. He'd hit you in the ass, just for the sheer pleasure of it,” and tuning in to excerpts from the Ted Williams Lecture Series. As ever, Halberstam, always a welcome sportswriter, finely delineates the personalities: Doerr's preternatural emotional equilibrium, the guileless Pesky, Williams’s contentiousness, animal energy, and generosity. He also provides enough family history to give a sense of how extraordinary it was these four men came to be such great players, and how each in turn readily acknowledged their great good fortune at having been able to be part of the game at all. And the story lightly revolves around a car trip by Pesky, DiMaggio, and humorist Dick Flavin for a last visit with the rapidly dwindling Williams, highlighting the fact that all of the men may soon be gone and with them a classy style of play no longer in evidence.
A string of pearly anecdotes that reverberate far beyond the diamond.Pub Date: May 14, 2003
ISBN: 1-4013-0057-X
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2003
An uneven and frequently arcane account of last year's dramatic Ryder Cup golf tournament. The Ryder Cup—a biannual tournament pitting an American team against an elite European squad—has in recent years grown from a virtual afterthought to one of the game's premier events. Last September, at the Oak Hill course in Rochester, N.Y., the American team nursed a sizable lead going into the final day of play, only to see it slip away to a European squad that mounted one of the game's truly great comebacks. Unlike most golf tournaments, which appeal mainly to players and fans, this Ryder Cup had something for everyone: high-pressure play and high stakes; flag-waving patriotism and international intrigue; and ample human drama, including the gut-wrenching story of Curtis Strange, a usually steady golfer experiencing hard times. His three consecutive bad holes on the last afternoon of play allowed the European side to surge ahead. Unfortunately, author Rosaforte (a senior writer for Sports Illustrated) makes poor use of this material, most notably by offering sloppy analogies to explain the obvious, such as why a tie (a result that favors the defending champion) is ``like kissing your sister'' when ``your sister is Cindy Crawford,'' while allowing less obvious golf phenomena to go unexplained, such as why a shot ``189 yards from the front of the green, uphill, into a left-to-right quartering breeze'' would call for a 3-iron. And the text is littered with ham-fisted phrases such as ``neither man dared to blink, the Spanish bullfighter or the bull from Minnesota'' (describing Sunday's match between Seve Ballesteros and Tom Lehman). A dramatic contest that should have been of interest to nongolfers is put out of reach of all but the most devoted hackers. (8 pages photos, not seen) (Author tour)
Pub Date: June 14, 1996
ISBN: 0-312-14351-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1996
A fresh perspective on the season when premier players such as Joe DiMaggio, Stan Musial, and Bob Feller returned from WW II. Against the backdrop of the Nuremberg trials and a nation awash in the uncertainties of a postwar economy, spring training was a welcome diversion. In all, 500 major leaguers had served in the armed forces; Turner (The Culture of Hope, 1995, etc.) focuses on players from the pennant-winning Red Sox and Cardinals but also examines the return of DiMaggio, who'd been gone since 1942, and Feller, who had missed almost four full seasons. Some players, such as Musial, had it relatively easy during the war. Teammate Harry Walker, on the other hand, contracted spinal meningitis while at Ft. Riley, saw intense combat in Germany, and was a much-decorated veteran. As Turner follows the pennant races, he takes a look at the blossoming of rookies such as the Pirates' Ralph Kiner and the sad case of the Senators' Cecil Travis, a shortstop who had batted .359 in 1941 but who was unable to overcome frostbitten feet and four years of military life. In recounting the final days of the pennant races and the World Series, the author pays particular attention to the contributions made by the returning veterans and the impact they made on their teams' fortunes. Feller, whose Indians were out of it, finished with an astonishing 348 strikeouts in 371 innings, 10 shutouts, and a no-hitter. DiMaggio, injured early on, had, for him, a so-so season. The Cardinals, stacked with returning stars, defeated the Red Sox in the World Series on Enos Slaughter's famed ``Mad Dash'' from first base on a single off the bat of Harry Walker. Turner's writing could be livelier, but baseball fans will enjoy this account of a unique season. (45 b&w photos and drawings, not seen)
Pub Date: June 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-8050-2645-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1996
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