Customer Reviews

Five Seasons: A Baseball Companion

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This is a depressing book. Not because its subject is depressing; we're not talking about the Ukranian famine of 1932 here. No, this is a "You are there" book written at the end of baseball as we knew it. We weren't aware of that at the time, though we could see that things were changing. But we thought, and were repeatedly assured, that the changes would work themselves out. However, if you're over 40, you know they didn't, and baseball is a far less fun activity as a fan than it was then. There are innumerable little tidbits that make you see how much things have deteriorated. Tom Seaver pitches 12 innings. 12! A manager today would have the talk radio hordes ready to unman him for that, but it is only one of many. Steve Carlton threw 30 complete games in 1972. Contemplate that. 30. More than most teams, heck, probably more than most divisions today. He won 27 games on a team that won 59 total. Unfathomable. But unlike the managers who fear their million dollar boys will throw out their arms, Carlton came back and achieved that for more than another decade. Sure he was a great. But there are innumerable tales through here of guys who weren't greats, just solid players, performing in ways that would be unheard of, or at the minimum, worth millions of dollars, today, and doing it happily, without whining, griping, complaining, simpering or gloating.

Angell chronicles 5 wonderful seasons in the history of baseball, the years of Finley's Athletics and the Big Red Machine, and a new owner for the Yankees named George Steinbrenner, the arrival of Robin Yount and Mark Fidrych and George Brett and oh so many others. But because it is reporting, he also documents the arrival of guys who flashed briefly and then vanished. Baseball is like that.

But it is the creeping arrival of ugliness that hurts to read. Reggie's showboating. Young kids who don't respect their manager. And big money. The sports page went from stories about hits and errors to tales of contract negotiations, threats, and free agency. I know money has always been a part of the game, and there were drunks, wife-beaters, and thugs in baseball since the beginning. But the big contracts and big payrolls have made all the teams change their perspective, and though throughout this book the players assure us we won't think differently about them as a result of these changes, we do. Teams are no longer teams as they once were, a reliable group of guys who continued for years together and added the missing piece or replaced the aging veteran incrementally. They are an assemblage of whomever can be gathered up to make a winner. Because we still want a winner, but we no longer care about the guys who do the winning. How sad. And for me and many of my generation, how boring. Baseball just isn't what it was, and it isn't the DH or the long season or frigid World Series games. No, it's money, and the game has been permanently corrupted by it. So read this to see how it once was, how glory and honor could be achieved on the field rather than in the contract.

And feel disheartened for what we've lost, with nothing good to replace it.

Roger Angell's love for the game flows throughout this fine book. Every bit of his prose is a joy to read, and the tales are enchanting. Covering five seasons, Angell brings to life the ebb and flow of the game and the people who make it great - from the players, the coaches, the management personnel and not the least, the fans.

If you want to read a book that captures what baseball means, pick up this one. You won't be disappointed!

Part two of Roger Angell's 15 year written love affair with baseball...this book picks up where "The Summer Game" left off and doesn't miss a beat, covering the 1972 through 1976 seasons. Each chapter has all the classic written/observed anecdotes that Angell is famous for, as well as expert detailed coverage of the game(s) and the ever-discouraging front-office activities that the 70's were famous for (the Reserve Clause, the advent of Free Agency...etc). Still, Angell's ability to write insightful and elegant observations are what make this and The Summer Game standout and really makes all other baseball writing pale by comparison. For this book, he also adds something different when he takes on small projects such as following a Major League scout around the country, visiting with three Detroit Tiger fanatics and detailing the almost tragic rise and fall of Steve Blass, the Pittsburgh Pirate hero from the 1971 World Series. Each of these off-normal stories essentially "tells" itself, but Angell frames each in his own inimitable style that really defines "story-telling". I have such high regard for his writing that I wish he'd take on other projects (like history writing in general), as I'm sure that he'd excel there too (of course, being in his 80's probably has a lot to do with which projects he chooses to undertake). I read recently that Angell hates being called the "Poet Laureat" of baseball writing, but I can't think of a finer term for so marvelous a writer. This book should be combined with "Summer Game" and re-issued as a single volume for future writers to use as a model for taking a subject and turn it into expert storytelling. Highest recommendation!

Perhaps there is a quibble here.maybe the summer game is the finest baseball book ever written.Roger Angell is a poet[appropriate for e.b. white's stepson],and the finest chronichler of the game. he is a FAN,not a beat reporter,and is a grown up, far more interested in the beauty on the field than the foibles off.From the opening essay on the ball itself,to a wonderful essay on three detroit tiger fans,this is lovely. HOW COULD THE PUBLISHERS LET THIS GO OUT OF PRINT? With the unfettered garbage [george will's pompous assinine writings come to mind] that is baseball publishing,allowing this to languish out of print is sad, if not a crime.

First, you must understand that Roger Angell has an ear for the language that's unlikely to be surpassed for many years. He was particularly a master of cadence. His virtuosity made even ordinary narrative sing.
Second, Angell understands, indeed reveres, the eloquence of ordinary people.
Third, he sees in this complex, maddening game a key to the virtues of his countrymen.
Home, especially if you know nothing or care less about baseball, this is a marvelous lesson in how to write.

Roger Angell writes about baseball with a poetic mix of reverence, humor and eloquence. He's provided readers with several five-star baseball narratives, and this one is as good as any. It's now dated, covering the national pastime from 1972-1976, but it remains well worth reading. Among the themes are the Charlie Finley's Oakland A's, Hank Aaron's home run feats, the Big Red Machine, the coming of free agency and big money, and the superb 1975 World Series between Cincinnati and Boston - whose sixth game is considered by many fans as the greatest one ever played. Among the personalities covered are Reggie Jackson, Lou Brock, Steve Blass (who mysteriously lost his control), and a trio of middle-aged Detroit Tiger fans whose love for baseball seems a reflection of the author himself. In addition to his flowing prose, Angell mixes his maturity with a child's awe. Angell may not be the top baseball writer of all time, but few doubt he's a serious contender.

"Five Seasons" is just as good as "The Summer Game", but my personal perceptions, part of maturation, changed my perception of the book. Roger Angell's first work covered events before I was aware of them and then those that occurred in my most formative, fanatical, baseball-crazy years. "Five Seasons" describes years in which I was still a huge baseball fan (I always have been and always will be), but they are all events I witnesed. For this reason, and because as I grew older my interests - girls, cars, awareness, life - changed, so too does my impression of Angell's writing. Do not take this as any kind of put down. To a younger reader who did not witness the events in "Five Seasons", I assure you that Angell's writing can fill you with wonder as much as "The Summer Game" did for me. It has been said, and I agree here, that baseball is the preferred game of intellectuals, or at least educated people. Nobody embodies this reality better than Angell and his writings.

STEVEN TRAVERS
AUTHOR OF "BARRY BONDS: BASEBALL'S SUPERMAN"
STWRITES@AOL.COM

This is baseball writing that is as good as it gets -- often too New York focused, but still illuminating about the game and the time period.