Customer Reviews

Bunts: Curt Flood Camden Yards Pete Rose and Other Reflections on Baseball

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Those who have read Will's "Men at Work" already are aware of the author's knowledge of the game as well as his talent to put it into words. This is a compilation of the author's articles on Baseball that have appeared primarily in his newspaper columns over the years. Mr. Will, a spokesman for the political right, discards his politics for these excursions into his passion. Indeed, one is surprized by how often Mr. Will sides with the players in the labor/management diputes that litter modern Baseball. The author shares his nostalgia for the past and his appreciation of the heros of the present. If he seems a bit caught up in his Cubs and Orioles, he can be forgiven because the reader has his/her own favorites. We know the frustration and joy of the same loyalties he shares with us.

I read the first two thirds of the book one "column" at a time between other books. I did so because I had read "The Best of Jim Murray" some years ago and did so over the course of several days. By the mid-point of that book, I came to the realization that Mr. Murray had written the same column for decades. It was just a matter of changing the name of the subject. You don't catch on to that reading two or three columns a week. Well, I read the last third of the book in the course of several hours. I did not get the same reaction that I got to Murray's book. However, I lost track of the number of times the total season attendance of the 1935 St. Louis Browns (80,922) was compared to the Opening Day attendance of the 1993 Colorado Rockies (80,227). There were other such repetitions of facts and figures that were noticeable when the book is read cover to cover. I suggest you savor the articles and let the book entertain you throughout the course of a summer or a year. However you choose to read it, don't miss this intellectual appreciation of what was once known as "America's Pasttime".

Bunts by George F. Will is a collection of works written by Will between the years 1974 and 1997. Throughout this book, Will discusses the major changes in baseball, such as the designated hitter rule, unionization, recent franchise additions, free agency, and more. A long-suffering Chicago Cubs fan, Will, in several funny articles, describes what it is like to be a fan of a tema that hasn't won a pennant since World War II. A skilled political columnist, we are drawn into the argument over free agency and designated hitting. I love baseball, but sometimes find books about the sport to be tedious and overly stuffed with statistics. While this book does contain statistics (Will knows a great deal about the sport he loves), you're not smothered by them. It was a pleasurable read. The only part of the book I disliked was the rehashing (several times) of the strike disputes and how many times Will felt it necessary to prove that the owners were wrong about free agency. But believe me, you can get through that. Besides, this is a compilation of works - it's not like he intentionally meant to repeat himself. Will's reflections on baseball are remarkable considering that the man never played the sport professionally and is just an avid fan - so much of a fan in fact that he once owned stock in the Cubs franchise! The pictures are great, and the things I learned from this book. I thought I knew alot about baseball, but George F. Will proved me wrong in a way that I found to be interesting and alot of fun!

George Will's ability to weave the fabric of Baseball into everyday life is incredible. I found myself wondering, after finishing this wonderful book, had read a book about Baseball or Mr. Will's philosophy of life? Bunts is a copulation of magazine and newpaper articles written by Mr. Will over the last three decades. His strings them together so that there is never an obvious seam and it flows as if it were written at one time. I found myself laughing constantly at the humor that is ever present in the game and magnified my Mr. Will's writing. If you are a fan of the "worlds most wonderful game" and if in addition you are a fan of Mark Twain's you will love this book. Thank you George Will.

George Will writes about baseball the way I would like to be able to(and he gets paid to do it.) He is a fan, a baseball fan, and he knows the stats that are important to baseball fans. The pace and meter of this book related well to the subject. This is a must have for anyone who loves the game.

Will's book is segmented by nature. It is a collection of essays and reviews, and is therefore not a narrative at all. However, each short stanza reflects as much about Will's personal devotion to the game as his refreshingly candid assessments of American culture. It is primarily a book for Chicago Cubs fans. He traces the evolution of baseball as a whole and counterparts this with the mediocre constancy of his beloved Cubbies. "Bunts" is about undying patriotism to the American pastime and one's team. He speaks well of the connection between media broadcaster and team loyalty. Will cites evidence that an over-reaching Federal Communications Commission once tried to take control of baseball broadcasts and ban partisan sportscasting. If they had succeeded, the late Harry Caray would have never had the chance to delight us as the voice of the Cubs, whose popularity outnumbers nearly every team despite ninety years without winning a World Championship. For the real baseball fan, intent on remembering the past with sentimentalism, intelligence, and conservative flair "Bunts" belongs in the baseball book Hall of Fame.

Is there a better sport than baseball? I submit not. It is a sport that is as old as America (as the reader learns on page 272 of "Bunts"), and as much a part of the American experience as anything. "Bunts", a collection of George F. Will's columns about baseball over the last thirty years, is a marvelous look at baseball from the eyes of the die-hard Chicago Cubs fan. Though I care not for Will's conservative mindset, I appreciate his prose and enjoy some of his takes on baseball. Some of Will's contentions are controversial (the game is better today than ever before), some well-reasoned (the glories of 1950s baseball were not so glorious) and some out-dated (one column mocking the Braves and Yankees, baseball's worst teams according to Will, looks hopelessly out-dated since these two behemoths have won four of the last five World Series). But Will puts himself out in front and you must give him credit for speaking his mind.

Incidentally, the reviewer's particular favorite column is Will's 1991 look at baseball in the Windy City- "Chicago Baseball- 'Never A Lovely So Real'" (pages 171-180)

Baseball fans will enjoy.

The book should come with a large disclaimer: A GREAT DEAL OF THE MATERIAL IN THIS BOOK WAS ALREADY PUBLISHED IN WILL'S PREVIOUS BOOK, MEN AT WORK. I would estimate 40-60% in fact. In addition, Will apparently still only knows how to write two kinds of sentences, one of them so laden with commas that one would have enough time to engage in foreplay during all the pauses. Is this is what Will was doing while writing it? Still, the book is still worth reading since few others are writing so intelligently about the game. And it is interesting to see all in one book this supposed conservative's attitudes change toward things like the Designated Hitter rule, Ted Williams and free agency. San Francisco readers will especially appreciate the tribute to broadcaster Jon Miller, even if the facts it recounts differ somewhat from those in Miller's own excellent and much more readable book, CONFESSIONS OF A BASEBALL PURIST.

My grandfather taught me never to trust a man who wears a bow-tie, but I have to give George Will credit for his deep knowledge of the sport (which never bogs down into pedantry) and - a far rarer commodity in baseball writing - his sterling prose. You don't have to agree with his sour political conservatism (which, in an impressive display of self-knowledge, he attributes to being a Cubs fan) to find this a cracking good read.

The bunt is the quintessential unspectacular stroke of beauty in all sports. Unlike the slam dunk or home run, it lacks the self-aggrandizing adreneline essential to most other athletic feats. Appropriately, then, George Will has titled his book, a collection of stories about the unspectacular and the beautiful in baseball, after this most awesome of offensive maneuvers.

Whether he is decrying the DH or lamenting the democratizion of sports, in "Bunts" George Will brings an intelligent and unique perspective to the national pastime. It is a must for all fans who find sports pages, sports magazines, and sports radio lacking.

Passionate and intelligent, "Bunts" scores!

Has anyone else read _Off Base_ by Andrew Torrez? I think it has the wit and writing style of George Will, but also a fresh perspective that made me open my eyes and realize that a lot of what Will has to say has been said before.

I guess that makes Will a "baseball conservative" as well as a political conservative.