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HONUS WAGNER

A BIOGRAPHY

A baseball story too good to be true, written in a style that makes it seem even less probable. Born to a German immigrant family, Hans Peter Wagner was a genial, strapping lad (the nickname ``Honus,'' a corruption of Hans, was a German term of endearment for a big awkward kid) who grew even more physically prepossessing by working in the mills and mines of western Pennsylvania. Breaking in with the Louisville Colonels of the National League in the 1890s, Wagner showed great prowess with both bat and glove. He could play at any of the eight field positions, although his regular spot was at shortstop. (He is considered by many to have been the greatest shortstop ever to play the game.) At the turn of the century Wagner's team was bought by Barney Dreyfuss, a genial businessman who moved them to Pittsburgh, where Honus would spend the balance of his life and career. Dreyfuss's largesse (he regularly treated his teams to vacations whether they won the pennant or not) was a marked contrast to the penurious owners of the early 1900s. And as baseball's pinnacle attraction and the centerpiece of several championship teams, the loyal and hardworking Wagner gave Dreyfuss few chances during their long relationship to regret his generosity. After finally hanging up his spikes in 1917, Wagner—owner of several Major League records—entered a golden retirement during which he coached for the Pirates and was among the first players inducted into the Hall of Fame. This book does explode some prominent myths, most notably that Wagner forced a cigarette maker to withdraw a card bearing his likeness because of his disdain for tobacco (Wagner was, in fact, an inveterate chewer and cigar smoker who may have dismissed cigarettes as too ``lady like''). The authors (members of SABR, the Society for American Baseball Research) divulge little, however, in their hagiography about how Wagner changed the game, or vice versa.

Pub Date: May 1, 1996

ISBN: 0-8050-3750-0

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Henry Holt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1996

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DUMB LUCK AND THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS

In these insightfully droll essays, Gierach shows us how fishing offers plenty of time to think things over.

The latest collection of interrelated essays by the veteran fishing writer.

As in his previous books—from The View From Rat Lake through All Fishermen Are Liars—Gierach hones in on the ups and downs of fishing, and those looking for how-to tips will find plenty here on rods, flies, guides, streams, and pretty much everything else that informs the fishing life. It is the everything else that has earned Gierach the following of fellow writers and legions of readers who may not even fish but are drawn to his musings on community, culture, the natural world, and the seasons of life. In one representatively poetic passage, he writes, “it was a chilly fall afternoon with the leaves changing, the current whispering, and a pale moon in a daytime sky. The river seemed inscrutable, but alive with possibility.” Gierach writes about both patience and process, and he describes the long spells between catches as the fisherman’s equivalent of writer’s block. Even when catching fish is the point, it almost seems beside the point (anglers will understand that sentiment): At the end of one essay, he writes, “I was cold, bored, hungry, and fishless, but there was still nowhere else I’d have rather been—something anyone who fishes will understand.” Most readers will be profoundly moved by the meditation on mortality within the blandly titled “Up in Michigan,” a character study of a man dying of cancer. Though the author had known and been fishing with him for three decades, his reticence kept anyone from knowing him too well. Still, writes Gierach, “I came to think of [his] glancing pronouncements as Michigan haiku: brief, no more than obliquely revealing, and oddly beautiful.” Ultimately, the man was focused on settling accounts, getting in one last fishing trip, and then planning to “sit in the sun and think things over until it’s time for hospice.”

In these insightfully droll essays, Gierach shows us how fishing offers plenty of time to think things over.

Pub Date: June 2, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-5011-6858-1

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: Jan. 21, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020

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PERSIMMON WIND

A MARTIAL ARTIST'S JOURNEY IN JAPAN

A broad and deep look at Japan’s medieval referents, and a capable illustration of a martial art form steeped in rich...

A reflective and entertaining journey through Japan, as the author seeks to reconnect with his martial arts sensei.

Lowry is a student of koryu (not to be confused with kendo), a style of Japanese classical swordsmanship. Koryu is a medieval art, like Noh and the tea ceremony, a style of combat born on the battlefield–but more importantly, it’s a way to address the world (though an esoteric one: Lowry may well be the only American practicing the art in the United States). Indeed, present-day practitioners refrain from exercising its fatal possibilities. Lowry’s sensei left the U.S. to return to Japan, urging Lowry to follow. Though his life headed in a different direction, he never forgot his training–when the time was ripe, he journeyed to Japan to join his sensei. The narrative revolves around this pivotal decision, and it provides a warm center from which the author expounds on such topics as the glories of a Japanese bath; the evolution of the Samurai caste; the peculiarities of Japanese landscape architecture; the elements of proper sandal-tying; the custom of the premarital shenanigans called yobai; and the teachings of mikkyo Buddhism. He also includes the vital story of the sword–what it reveals about Japanese life and technology, social structure and aesthetic values, etiquette, apprenticeship and the process of education. Lowry’s seriousness lends an earnest cast to the proceedings, but he’s not without a sense of humor–commenting upon his accomplished slurping of noodles, a friend’s wife notes, “He really sucks!”

A broad and deep look at Japan’s medieval referents, and a capable illustration of a martial art form steeped in rich tradition.

Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2005

ISBN: 1-890536-10-5

Page Count: -

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010

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