Living on the Black: Two Pitchers, Two Teams, One Season to Remember (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: hometown discount, bullpen session, hundredth game, New York, World Series, Red Sox (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From The Washington Post

The title of John Feinstein's Living on the Black refers to the area on the outer edges of the strike zone where veteran pitchers whose fast ones have slowed to under 90 mph must consistently place the ball. The term also reflects the precarious situation that the New York Yankees' right-hander Mike Mussina and former New York Mets left-hander Tom Glavine were in at the start of the 2007 season.

Mussina and Glavine, then 38 and 41 respectively, were struggling to hold on to their jobs and keep batters off balance with a guile accumulated during a total of 36 years in the majors. Both men made it, but just barely; their personal milestones -- Glavine passed the 300 mark in total victories, and Mussina reached number 250 -- were overshadowed by their teams' dismal finishes.

The Yankees did their usual postseason fold while the Mets, leading their division by seven games with 17 left to play, crashed and burned in one of the greatest collapses in baseball history. Glavine took the season-ending loss, failing to last through the first inning. One of the game's most articulate players, he was philosophical when asked if he was devastated. "To me, devastating is finding out that a neighbor's eight-year-old is going to lose a leg to cancer." Less philosophical Mets fans were, well, devastated.

A columnist for The Washington Post and author of 22 previous books, John Feinstein must have known that as a writer he was living on the black himself by picking two aging pitchers for his subject. The resulting book is strong on human drama -- both players come across as noble, bloodied warriors -- but extremely short on baseball drama. Like Mussina and Glavine over the last couple of seasons, Living on the Black starts out strong and begins to run out of steam about halfway through. Yankee and Mets fans know how it all comes out, and baseball fans who don't like these two teams may not care.

Feinstein tries to pump up the narrative by reminding us that "they are two of the best pitchers of all time. And they aren't quite done yet." That's debatable, but even if it were true, it's been so long since either pitcher was at his peak that many may have forgotten. That Feinstein captures them artfully in their decline only serves to make their story painful to read. Living on the Black has a hard time living up to its subtitle: for Mussina and Glavine as well as for Yankees and Mets fans, the season was really one to forget.

Copyright 2008, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Emulating the format of the Kunhardts’ Lincoln: An Illustrated Biography (1992), this volume, with nearly 1,000 illustrations, depicts the 60 years of commemoration following Lincoln’s death in 1865. As explained by historian David Herbert Donald (Lincoln, 1995), little information that is now second nature in Lincoln biographies was publicly known in 1865; consequently, this fascinating work can be appreciated for its presentation of the revelations about Lincoln’s life. Pivotal to these pioneering efforts was the research and biographies by Lincoln’s law partner, William Herndon, and by his secretaries, John Nicolay and John Hay, who aspired to write definitive portraits. Their publishing efforts, and those of other Lincoln associates, interweave with the Kunhardts’ accounts of other forms assumed by Lincoln celebration, encompassing collections of artifacts, commissions of statues and monuments, birthday observances (culminating in the 1909 centennial), and, most important historically, the fate of his political legacy of preserving the Union and ending slavery. The last, with the failure of Reconstruction to achieve legal equality for blacks, supplies a dampening contrast to the otherwise exalting trajectory taken by Lincoln’s memorializers, the authors making a pointed comparison between a 1908 anti-black riot in Lincoln’s hometown and Springfieldians’ staging of a whites-only centennial banquet scant months later. An engrossing invitation to scrutinize its every page and image, the Kunhardts’ work is sure to be one of the most popular books in the bicentennial effusion of Lincoln volumes. --Gilbert Taylor

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 544 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; First Printing edition (May 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316113913
• ISBN-13: 978-0316113915
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #283,035 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not for the Casual Fan, May 27, 2008

By	Lesa Holstine (Glendale, AZ) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Sports writers tend to specialize in one sport or another, but John Feinstein writes about different sports, and does every one equally well. However, his latest book, Living on the Black: Two Pitchers, Two Teams, One Season to Remember, is definitely for readers who are more than just casual baseball fans. It's for those readers who are passionate enough to want to read about the 2007 season, following each pitch made by Tom Glavine and Mike Mussina. I'm one of those baseball fanatics.

When Feinstein picked Tom Glavine of the New York Mets and Mike Mussina of the New York Yankees, he selected two experienced pitchers who were very different. He knew if one was injured during the year, he still had another pitcher to follow. Glavine, a lefty, who never went to college, is a future Hall of Famer who spent his career in the National League. Mike Mussina, a righty, went to Stanford, and pitches in the American League. By selecting these two men, Feinstein could also examine the culture of the two New York baseball teams.

Feinstein sets the scene for his book by telling about the careers for these two masterful pitchers. Since Glavine and Mussina both cooperated with the author, it makes for a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the lives and careers of the two players. And, then 2007 proved to be an interesting year. Tom Glavine went for his 300th win, and the Mets went down to the wire in their Division. Mike Mussina struggled to find his pitches after spending time on the Disabled List, and the Yankees' woes jeopardized Joe Torre's career. Feinstein's writing is so good that even those of us who remember how 2007 turned out are left hanging on every pitch.

John Feinstein's Living on the Black: Two Pitchers, Two Teams, One Season to Remember is one book for baseball fans to savor, and remember.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Book But A Little Too Detailed, August 20, 2008

By	Samantha L. Sayre (WV United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

John Feinstein is a very good sports author. I love most of his books. I thought this was an interesting concept for a book. I enjoy both pitchers, Mike Mussina and Tom Glavine, that he chose to follow. Mr. Feinstein showed a different side of both pitchers. He had a great season to follow with the New York Mets collapse and the New York Yankees fighting to make the playoffs. I really enjoyed Mike Mussina's breaking down of what a pitcher truly is and what they do.

Now the bad, I hated that Mr. Feinstein went through game by game giving the highlights that someone could have gotten from the boxscores. He left me asking questions as I read about what the two pitchers thought or how it effected them that I wish he would have answered. The first part of the book where Mr. Feinstein goes through each of their careers to date was fascinating. However he couldn't sustain that pace and the critical analysis after he started with the 2007 season. I really did enjoy this book but wish he would have had a better editor that would have made the book flow a little tighter.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent book but could have been better, October 5, 2008

By	R. C Sheehy "deadsox" (Foxboro,MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As someone who has read John Fienstein's books for more than ten years now I can say that I have seen some of his books that are good to great and some that are poor to lousy. This one sadly rates in the second category. Overall it is a weak and overwrought story and essentially a 500 page plus book that could be half that length with a good editor.

The book also contains a number of errors that a good editor would have caught along with the long winded phrases. Plus the fact that he dwells so long on the prep of two pitchers when focusing on either Glavine and the Mets or Mussina and the Yankees would have sufficed. Basically this book is too much information and too little strength. I hope his next work is better!