A diary of the 1990 minor-league season, written by Fireovid, the minor's winningest pitcher in the 1980's, and edited by Winegardner (Prophet of the Sandlots, 1989; Elvis Presley Boulevard, 1987). Despite a good record, Fireovid has enjoyed only a few brief stints in the majors. As 1990 rolls around, the situation looks worse than ever: He is now 33, ``a fossil in my present environment.'' Much of the diary thus consists of laments over his lot as a minor-league pro rather than major-league prospect. But, in Fireovid's case at least, 13 years in pro ball bring with them impressive maturity and insight. His complaints are gentle, his envy muted by an appreciation of how lucky he is to be playing ball at all. This man loves his sport, and most of the pleasure here comes from his notes on the ups and downs of baseball life on and off the diamond—why no pitcher wants to be on the mound the day his teammates receive their new bat shipment (``they swing their toys at any pitch that comes within an area code of the strike zone'') or what it's like to hump around America on a minor-league budget (travel by bus, hotels without air conditioning, etc.). The season crawls along almost unnoticed; it's the sidebars—offers to coach in the Montreal organization or to play ball in Italy, efforts to keep an aging body fit—that sparkle. At season's end, Fireovid winds up with the second-best ERA in the league (2.63) and a losing record (10-12). What does 1991 portend? Another six months playing a young man's game—and some accolades for that rarity, a baseball book unblemished by egomania.
Pub Date: July 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-02-538381-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1991
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
Bill, Hillary, and Al? Nope—Boston Globe sportswriter May means big as in BIG. His three are the towering trees of the Boston Celtics: Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish, whose lives and baskets are cheered to the rafters in this gung- ho hoop-scoop. May has a hot topic here since, as he shouts more than once, the tremendous trio did indeed make up ``the greatest frontcourt in the history of basketball.'' Also the longest-lived, dribbling together for nearly a decade, snaring heaps of championships along the way. As a portraitist, May hits three-pointers every time. Bird: the hick from French Lick, Indiana; the human basketball machine; winner of three consecutive MVPs; the best team player in history and, except for Michael Jordan, the best, period. McHale: laid-back, undervalued, dribbling and driving with breathtaking grace but always in Bird's shadow. Parish: the silent one, indestructible and inexorable, still on the courts in 1993, now the oldest player in the league. As a historian, however, May slows the game to a snail's pace as he reports in endless nit-picking detail about the trio's high-school days, scouting reports, signings, and contract hassles. Things speed up when the guys hit the NBA and tear up the court, blowing away archrivals Philadelphia and Los Angeles and—in the 1985-6 season, when they were 40-1 at the Boston Garden—reaching an apex of basketball harmonics never seen before or since, and making a strong claim to being the best team ever assembled in any sport. ``If I could, I would go back and play that year every year for the rest of my life,'' says McHale with an intensity that readers, egged on by May's partisanship, will likely echo. Not as thrilling as a Bird-McHale-Parish charge to the basket, but good enough for those who never saw—or who want to recapture—the real thing. (Eight pages of b&w photographs—not seen)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-671-79955-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1993
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