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THE BASEBALL

STUNTS, SCANDALS, AND SECRETS BENEATH THE STITCHES

Not the type of book to read in one setting, but its information could fill many seasons of baseball broadcasts.

A baseball book by an obsessive for other obsessives.

The latest by self-proclaimed “ballhawk” Hample (Watching Baseball Smarter, 2007) brings a whole new dimension to the term “inside baseball.” In contrast to the countless other books celebrating the sport, this one focuses on the ball itself—its history, production, place in popular culture, desirability as a collectible and pretty much anything else that the author has been able to dig up concerning the sphere. Because Hample is plainly a resourceful sort (“Since 1990 I’ve snagged 4,578 baseballs at forty-eight different major league stadiums”), he provides plenty of revelations to even the most passionate follower of the game. This isn’t a book to read for any literary quality but for its myriad factoids and tips. The narrative is divided into three parts, with the anecdotes about famous incidents involving the ball, memorable souvenirs and the ball’s appearance in movies and TV of most interest to the general reader. The second part delves deep into the evolution of the baseball (nearly 70 pages, almost year by year), detailing the switch from high-quality horsehide from Belgium to cheaper domestic fare (1942) and from Spalding to Rawlings (1977, when “home runs increased by a whopping 63 percent”). The third section, “How to Snag Major League Baseballs,” offers advice on when to arrive (early), what to wear (visiting team’s garb might earn a reward from one of its players), how to act (persistent but polite) and what to bring (glove).

Not the type of book to read in one setting, but its information could fill many seasons of baseball broadcasts.

Pub Date: March 8, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-307-47545-9

Page Count: 368

Publisher: Vintage

Review Posted Online: April 6, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2011

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WHY WE SWIM

An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.

A study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.

For Bay Area writer Tsui (American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. Drawing on personal experience, history, biology, and social science, the author conveys the appeal of “an unflinching giving-over to an element” and makes a convincing case for broader access to swimming education (372,000 people still drown annually).

An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.

Pub Date: April 14, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-61620-786-1

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Algonquin

Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020

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SWIMMING STUDIES

While the author may attempt to mirror this ideal, the result is less than satisfying and more than a little irritating.

A disjointed debut memoir about how competitive swimming shaped the personal and artistic sensibilities of a respected illustrator.

Through a series of vignettes, paintings and photographs that often have no sequential relationship to each other, Shapton (The Native Trees of Canada, 2010, etc.) depicts her intense relationship to all aspects of swimming: pools, water, races and even bathing suits. The author trained competitively throughout her adolescence, yet however much she loved racing, “the idea of fastest, of number one, of the Olympics, didn’t motivate me.” In 1988 and again in 1992, she qualified for the Olympic trials but never went further. Soon afterward, Shapton gave up competition, but she never quite ended her relationship to swimming. Almost 20 years later, she writes, “I dream about swimming at least three nights a week.” Her recollections are equally saturated with stories that somehow involve the act of swimming. When she speaks of her family, it is less in terms of who they are as individuals and more in context of how they were involved in her life as a competitive swimmer. When she describes her adult life—which she often reveals in disconnected fragments—it is in ways that sometimes seem totally random. If she remembers the day before her wedding, for example, it is because she couldn't find a bathing suit to wear in her hotel pool. Her watery obsession also defines her view of her chosen profession, art. At one point, Shapton recalls a documentary about Olympian Michael Phelps and draws the parallel that art, like great athleticism, is as “serene in aspect” as it is “incomprehensible.”

While the author may attempt to mirror this ideal, the result is less than satisfying and more than a little irritating.

Pub Date: July 5, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-399-15817-9

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Blue Rider Press

Review Posted Online: May 6, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2012

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