Excellent novel, whether you're a baseball fan or not

books:


	• The End of Baseball: A Novel Peter Schilling Ivan R. Dee, Publisher, 2008 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 6 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

When Baseball was America's Pastime

Peter Schilling brings back the game of baseball complete with the personalities, the idiosyncrasies, the after hours stories and all of the fun that this sport once had. This is an amazing novel that just sucks you in and doesn't let go. I couldn't wait to find time every day to continue my reading. It is somewhat unique in its use of historic information and mixing of baseball story fiction. In it, Schilling has captured an era in the sport just as African Americans are beginning to be "allowed" into the game. But in this story, not just one Black ballplayer is in the Majors, an entire team is being moved up.

Schilling has written an enjoyable and moving story that shows many of the great Negro League players coming together and playing in the Major Leagues on the same team: Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige among them. The antics of Bill Veech Jr. contribute to the main storyline and how the difficulties from the all White league and their overbearing Commissioner continually throw up barriers to the entry of this special team on the hallowed Fields.

In addition to the game of baseball, the societal ills of the general population and the mind games of J Edgar Hoover, himself, are all part of the plot. This is a slice of Americana; America going through the pain of WWII with their boys of summer as their only distraction. Only this summer has the potential of bringing out real change for the sport. Bill Veech, Jr., is the man trying against all odds, fictitious and historic, to keep the team together against the powers of baseball and others desperately trying to keep the status quo. This is a baseball story for the ages. A terrifically different novel for anyone tired of the same old stuff.

I was amazed at how perfectly interwoven truth and fiction were done by Schilling. The character studies are on target and made a part of the story blurring the lines of fact and fiction like nothing I'd ever read in the world of baseball writing. The ending is beautiful and fulfilling. I am giving it my hearty recommendation of 5 stars. There just isn't much not to like.

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Great Fiction that happens to be about baseball

I am not a baseball fan or what you would call a sports fan by any stretch of the imagination, but Peter Schilling's "The End of Baseball" is one of the most enjoyable pieces of fiction I have read in many years.

Mr. Schilling knows how to engage his reader with detailed characterizations that enable his characters to escape their paper home and emerge from the pages as human beings that make you both laugh and cry -- and that's just what I found myself doing.

Mr. Schilling does not talk down to his audience and his plot advances with subtlety and suspense. The story unfolds with many surprises, heartbreaks, and hurrahs.

There are no gimmicks or mechanical gods to save the day in "The End of Baseball". Only genuine people trying to live through extraordinary circumstances.

I give it my highest recommendation.

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A rip-snorting baseball yarn

Peter Schilling, Jr.'s inventive novel "The End of Baseball" describes a mesmerizing 1944 baseball season that might have been - if Bill Veeck had been able to purchase a major league team and recruit an entire team of Negro Leaguer stars.

Veeck loses a leg at Guadalcanal. Before enlisting in the Marines, he had been a successful minor league baseball team owner whose innovative promotions lured fans to the ballpark and whose competitive teams kept them coming back for more.

In "The End of Baseball," Veeck returns to civilian life and purchases the Philadelphia Athletics. He turns the ball club into an instant contender by secretly signing Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, Oscar Charleston, Buck Leonard, Cool Papa Bell, Willie Wells, Roy Campanella, and other Negro League stars.

The book contains many poignant moments on and off the field. To his credit - and to our good fortune! -- Schilling provides the historical and social perspective the story demands. He captures the essence of the men and the game they play for life and, perhaps, death.

In real life, Veeck owned the Cleveland Indians and signed the American League's first black player, Larry Doby, and also Satchel Paige. He had less talent to work with on his St. Louis Browns ball club, so he grabbed the spotlight by sending a midget to the plate. When he owned the Chicago White Sox, Veeck put player names on the backs of uniforms and introduced the exploding scoreboard. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1989.

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Excellent novel, whether you're a baseball fan or not

This book has it all: the high drama of a "what if?" season of baseball, historical cameos, and real social commentary. If you're looking for an always-entertaining page turner, look no further. The End of Baseball simulates what it's like to be swept up in a particularly thrilling baseball season in 1943, and reading it is like having a spot in the bleachers to watch the team that almost was. It has subtle character studies, and closely observed details that summon up that time and place: America as a country in the midst of WWII, the African American baseball community prior to Civil Rights. It will keep you up nights reading!

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Excellent Baseball Novel

The End of Baseball is a wonderful baseball novel, one that combines a rich history of the game with an intriguing look at one of the more controversial periods in our nation's favorite past-time. The author does a great job of bringing to life these characters and their very intriguing circumstances.

reviews: page 1, 2

Hungry for a pennant, young Veeck jettisons the team's white players and secretly recruits the legendary stars of the Negro Leagues, fielding a club that will go down in baseball annals as one of the greatest ever to play the game. Here are the behind-the-scenes adventures that bring this dream to reality, and a cast of characters only history's pen could create: the players themselves-the tragic Josh Gibson, the remarkable but self-centered Satchel Paige, the Cuban wonder Martin Dihigo, the veteran stalwarts Cool Papa Bell, Willie Wells, and Buck Leonard, and the rising stars Roy Campanella, Artie Wilson, and Dave Barnhill--plus Walter Winchell, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, and J. Edgar Hoover! The End of Baseball is the most rollicking, free-spirited baseball yarn in years, the unvarnished truth of that incredible season and the men who lived it.

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