Shows great love for the underdog, but doesn’t make a great case for the game’s larger importance.
Baseball writer Reisler (Black Writers/Black Baseball, 2007, etc.) analyzes one of the greatest upsets in World Series history.
The 1960 World Series was not expected to be much of a contest. The Yankees had won six championships in the 1950s and boasted one of the most impressive lineups in baseball, including Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle. Pittsburgh, while fielding greats Roberto Clemente and Bill Mazeroski, did not approach that star power. After six games, the Yankees had outscored the Pirates 46-16. Relying on timely hits and exemplary defense to make up for their lack of home-run power, the Pirates managed to extend the series to a seventh and deciding game, which they won. But the Yankees came back to nail the Series in 1961 and 1962, while the Pirates only won two more titles over the next 47 years (and counting)—so the 1960 upset didn’t prompt a paradigm shift in how teams were made or managed. Lacking any compelling evidence that this game was especially significant to baseball or beyond, Reisler bulks up his chronicle by adding information already familiar to most baseball fans: Talented hitter Roger Maris was a private person who disdained big-city pleasures; Mickey Mantle liked the night life; Roberto Clemente was treated poorly by fans and the press despite his tremendous skills because he was a dark-skinned Latino, etc. Reisler also takes the conventional path in depicting the Yankees as a corporate behemoth and the Pirates as a group of misfits and rebels who wrested the top prize from a team often compared to U.S. Steel. The story of the game itself reads like an expanded box score.
Shows great love for the underdog, but doesn’t make a great case for the game’s larger importance.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-78671-943-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The slight story of big-girl Reece, the 6'3', 170-lb. model and captain of Nike's Women's Beach Volleyball Team. In chapters that alternate between Reece's first-person account and co-author and novelist Karbo's (Trespassers Welcome Here, 1989) description of one not-too-successful summer on the pro beach volleyball tour, we learn both more and less than we'd like about the stunning athlete. Her mother, a circus dolphin trainer, left her with friends from the age of two until the age of seven. Reclaimed by her newly remarried mother, Reece (already five feet tall) began a somewhat peripatetic existence, moving from Long Island to St. Thomas, back to New York, and then to Florida over the next ten years. Reece began playing volleyball and modeling seriously in college, but she felt her modeling career was on the decline by the time she was 21; she stood out too much in a business that required a more chameleon-like look from its supermodels. And she discovered that volleyball was more satisfying than modeling. The only thing she yearns for in her pro ball career is a first-place finish for her team, something Nike has not yet accomplished. The book is an easy read, although the insights are limited (``Using sex as a tool is a sure way for a woman to fail to command respect'') and the life described not remarkably eventful (Reece is only 26 years old). The sports scenes also leave something to be desired, as in the description of the climactic game against the Paul Mitchell team (Hair vs. Shoes). Two-plus pages of ``NIKE 10 serving 7. NIKE—net violation. Side out. Paul Mitchell 7 serving 10. Point, Paul Mitchell 8-10. Side out'' can get a little tiresome. Not much appeal beyond the hardcore beach volleyball enthusiasts set. (16 pages color photos, not seen) (Author tour)
Pub Date: July 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-517-70835-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
An engaging journey through, as poet Merrill puts it, ``the enchanted lands of soccer.'' When, in 1990, the US team qualified for the World Cup for the first time in 40 years, Merrill (an avid amateur soccer player) followed the team through preliminary games stateside and then to Italy for the month-long tournament. The Americans were 500-1 underdogs, given little chance to do more than make a brave showing, especially with Bob Gansler at the helm, a coach so conservative and defense-oriented that his own players had sworn to scrap his game plan. In the opening game, Merrill says, Czechoslovakia ``outclassed'' the US in ``skill, speed, strength, tactics, and creativity,'' but in the second game—largely through the play of New Jersey goalie Tony Meola—the Americans scored a moral victory against heavily favored Italy, to whom they lost by only one goal. The third game, though, against Austria, was an ugly loss marred by ineptness and fighting. As Merrill progresses through the World Cup play (finally won by West Germany in a brutal match against defending champion Argentina, signaling the imminent downfall of superstar player Diego Maradona, whose drug and prostitution connections would bring him to disgrace and banishment), he offers lovely and knowing passages on the art, architecture, and ambience of Italy's cities and provides deep historical background and understanding of the game of soccer itself. Of particular interest are his insights into why ``the world's most popular game'' has never caught on in sports-mad America. The rarity of goals, Merrill contends, has ``doomed'' soccer in a country ``hooked on instant gratification'': Americans want to see lots of scoring but, ``like poetry and jazz, soccer is a subtle art, a game of nuance.'' An intelligent and literate work that could broaden American interest in soccer in time for our 1994 hosting—for the first time ever—of the World Cup.
Pub Date: Nov. 10, 1993
ISBN: 0-8050-2771-8
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf