Customer Reviews

Late Innings

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Roger Angell is a wonderful writer, perhaps the most gifted writer in recent decades to approach the game of baseball in a serious way. The chapters here fully support his reputation. But, despite the fact that this book is a 1992 reprint, it will be a tough and largely academic read for all but the most hard-core baseball or Angell fans. It chronicles the 1977-1981 seasons: an era of Reggie Jackson, George Brett, and Tom Seaver; an era when newly-won free agency brought gasps with contracts worth half a million dollars.

Those days are long gone. Die hard fans might enjoy spending a weekend reliving them, but the more general public might be better served by more recent Angell books.

Roger Angell's books on baseball are always insightful and rich. I never tire of his descriptions and his characterizations of people and place.

This book is no exception, and only adds to his solid body of work. He does an apt job of making an amazingly tumultuous era in baseball -- the late 1970s -- serene and part of a broader story of the game. His insights into Tom Seaver, Joe Torre, the Yankees, the Brewers, etc. make for fine reading during the hot summer months of reality or of the mind.