Worth reading just for Smoky Joe

books:


	• Game Time: A Baseball Companion Roger Angell Harvest Books, 2004 - 416 pages average customer review:based on 10 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

More Great Writing From Angell

Considered by many as baseball's poet laureate, Roger Angell displays his moving style in this compilation of top writing. Many of these previously-published essays date back to the 1970's and 1980's, yet each is worthy of a reading replay. Angell is at his best as he speaks with 91-year old Smokey Joe Wood (star of the 1912 World Series) in the Yale University grandstand watching young collegians Ron Darling and Frank Viola duel on the mound. The author was just as good interviewing Bob Gibson in his native Omaha, where the ex-hurler discussed his "I'm not your friend" attitude on the mound. There's also a moving look at several World Series (the last being 2002), an examination of scouting, and a look at such personalities as Tim McCarver, David Cone, (the late) Dan Quisenberry, and Ted Williams. We even get a look at the author's boyhood introduction to the game.

This edition is probably best savored like a fine wine rather than read straight through. A vintage 86 year-old at this writing, may Angell's wit and wonderful pen keep busy for years to come.

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Good, but not his best

Roger Angell is a marvellous writer on baseball. Warm, human and involving he never fogets that it is just a sport that he is writing on and no matter how much he (or we) might love it there are plenty of more important issues going on in life. At his best his writing can be gripping ( A's v Mets 1973), thrilling ( Reds v Red Sox 1975) insightful (essays on Bob Gibson and David Cone) and life affirming ( the essay on the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates is a particular favourite of mine). His enjoyment of life is clear and his preference for the Reggie Jackson Yankees over the Steve Garvey Dodgers is telling in this regard. Sadly this book is a mix of old and new - I would have loved a whole book of new material. Some of the new stuff is excellent - it was good to be reminded of the 1996 series again and theauthor's frustration with Pete Rose is palpable - but I think it loses a little in comparison with some of the older material. Also, the format is disconcerting: Angell's work benefits from the slow burn of the chronological build up from pre season hope to World Series excitement. The book is an enjoyable read but "5 seasons" is the best place to start with this masterful writer.

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The ultimate fan

When it comes to baseball, the mind is unreliable and selective in what it remembers. Games and seasons blend into to one another and most second basemen or relief pitchers fade from view forever soon after they leave the diamond for good. Old teams and players live on only as lines of statistics in massive baseball encyclopedias or deep historical databases. Lost, too, are the millions of moments that make up every game. But Roger Angell has been quite good, over the years, at capturing those moments and preserving them as though in amber. And so, in reading his collection of baseball pieces that span more than forty years, one feels a bit like the lucky archeologist who has stumbled upon magnificent specimens so exquisitely preserved as to seem positively lifelike. Angell writes with almost scientific precision: "With the strange insect gaze of his shining eyeglasses, with his ominous Boche-like helmet pulled low... Reggie Jackson makes a frightening figure at bat." Angell is not just an observer; he is also the ultimate fan, rooting for childhood favorites or for a team whose story has caught his fancy that particular year. Game Time is laid out like the baseball year, with pieces about the languor and anticipation of spring training in the beginning and closing with multi-faceted recollections of several past World Series. The many pieces taken together are like one long summer spanning forty years, a summer when you went to the ballpark frequently but listened to most of the games on the radio on the back porch at dusk.

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Worth reading just for Smoky Joe

I bought this book because Angell has an account of going to a college baseball game with 1912 Red Sox pitcher, Smoky Joe Wood. Angell and Wood sit in the stands, talk baseball (and life) and watch future star Ron Darling pitch a nailbiter.

The rest of the book is a little drawn out but Angell remains one of the most gifted baseball writers of his generation.

Reruns and Some "New" Material

After I bought "Game Time" I was immensely disappointed to realize that the greatest baseball writer of our times has done it again! He has issued a second consecutive collection of his writings composed of a majority of material previously published. Those of us who have read all of his earlier baseball books and wait in anticipation of his next article can't help but feel taken by this. He did it in "Once More Around the Park" and now, again, in "Game Time". Once was enough to irritate a loyal following but we were, perhaps, too loyal and purchased enough copies of "Once More Around the Park" for his publisher to try it again. What agrivates matters for me is that I have been a subscriber to "The New Yorker" magazine for a number of years and, therefore, had already read most of the "new" material.

Oh well, I guess I have to admit that Angell's writing is so good that I rather enjoyed re-reading some of his essay and articles. I especially enjoyed re-reading "Distance" which was about Bob Gibson. Actually, that essay (about mid-way through the book) got me refocussed enough to read the remainder of "Game Time" in short order. The recap of recent seasons was almost like deja vu. The steam I started off this review with is supplanted by the real pleasure that I felt in reading the last 200 or so pages. All is forgiven Roger but please store up a bit more new material before you issue another book.

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reviews: page 1, 2

Roger Angell has been writing about baseball for more than forty years . . . and for my money he's the best there is at it," says novelist Richard Ford in his introduction to Game Time. Angell's famous explorations of the summer game are built on acute observation and joyful participation, conveyed in a prose style as admired and envied as Ted Williams's swing. Angell on Fenway Park in September, on Bob Gibson brooding in retirement, on Tom Seaver in mid-windup, on the abysmal early and recent Mets, on a scout at work in backcountry Kentucky, on Pete Rose and Willie Mays and Pedro Martinez, on the astounding Barry Bonds at Pac Bell Park, and more, carry us through the arc of the season with refreshed understanding and pleasure. This collection represents Angell's best writings, from spring training in 1962 to the explosive World Series of 2002.
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