IN THE TIME OF BOBBY COX

Sportswriter and SLAM Magazine executive editor Whitaker documents his passion for the Atlanta Braves, but the results read like notes for a more ambitious book the author may have had in mind.

This might have been a very different story if the last season for Bobby Cox, the Braves’ longtime manager, had resulted in a championship, or if the author’s family life had taken the turn he’d anticipated. Since neither happened, he had to scramble to find a structure for a book that lacks a consistent narrative arc. Most chapters attempt to combine a profile of a favorite Brave with a life’s lesson—e.g., “EMOTION: How Greg Maddux Is Like Traveling Cross-Country With Your Grandparents” and “FAILURE: How David Justice Is Like Starring in a Commercial for a Gas Station.” Unfortunately, Maddux isn’t much like traveling cross-country with your (or even Whitaker’s) grandparents, and the thematic link between Justice and a TV commercial in which the author participated is even more tenuous. During a mid-book “INTERMISSION,” the longest chapter, the author sets aside the literary conceit in favor of a list (both annotated and not) of his 400+ favorite Atlanta Braves. The book will appeal mainly to those who love the Braves as much as Whitaker, though few of them will find illuminations worthy of Roger Angell and other acclaimed sportswriters. By making the narrative more about himself, finding metaphors for life in a fan’s baseball obsession, the author shows familiarity with Frederick Exley’s A Fan’s Notes, without approaching the quality of that classic. Yet most sports fanatics will nod with recognition when the author writes, “[t]he players we identify with identify us as humans. Being a fan of a player is like joining a political party; wearing his jersey is the equivalent of planting a sign in your front yard.”

A sometimes enjoyable but uneasy mix of memoir and baseball book.