Customer Reviews

Nine Innings

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a young boy, I read Okrent's Ultimate Baseball book. As a much older man, I watched Okrent on Ken Burns' Baseball and enjoyed his witty thoughts. Finally, I came to 9 Innings. It is a terrific read. What a great idea to look at the world of baseball through the lens of one game. It was a fascinating look at the game and the Brewers in the their brief glory days. Everything from the grounds crew to the ownership books was noted. The game, between the AL Champion '82 Brewers and the soon to be World Champion '83 Orioles, was entertaining. But, the picture of life in a small market and behind the scenes stuff is the best. The updates at the end strangely gloss over a Brewers team that came within one win of the World Championship and ignore the Orioles championships (and Hall of Famers Murray and Ripken) entirely. That is ok. A brillant book by a real traditionalist. Not dated if you are a true fan.

Dan Okrent went to the Oriole-Brewer game of June 10, 1982, and here he gives a play-by-play account of the game with enormous background on each team. He shows how a baseball game is like an iceberg -- how what you actually see of it is just one-tenth of what it's all about. If you've spent the last few years wondering about Bud Selig, Okrent offers a comprehensive look at today's acting commissioner. Arnold Hano wrote a similar book about Game One of the 1954 World Series (A DAY IN THE BLEACHERS), but Okrent proves just how compelling a non-descript game in mid-season can be in its own right

This is an excellent baseball book for the thinking fan. The book focuses on one seemingly unimportant mid-season 1982 contest between the Baltimore Orioles and the Milwaukee Brewers. As author Daniel Okrent recounts the game, he weaves in such baseball lore as the history of the slider, player behavior in the locker rooms, catcher's signals, scouting, etc. Every chapter covers an inning, and every inning leads to lengthy sidebars on many facets of baseball. The book is a bit dated, but Okrent's prose and subject matter make important reading for any fan wanting to know about the nuts and bolts of baseball. Some may not like that the author focuses more heavily on the Brewers, who won that year's AL pennant (Baltimore took the World Series a year later). Fittingly, these two teams battled each other in the season's final game to decide the division title. Fans will learn a lot about baseball from this engaging and thoughtful book.

I love Daniel Okrent, the public editor of the NY Times. I find his column -- and the very existence of his job -- to be fascinating, and I am always interested in what he has to say. It turns out, however, that my love of Okrent goes deeper than just his current position. Last night I finished reading his book Nine Innings. The book covers the Brewers-Orioles game that took place on June 10, 1982. No, there's nothing special about that game, even though the Brewers managed to make it to the World Series that year. It's just one game in the middle of the season, and he covers it in excrutiating depth, using pitching changes and at-bats as excuses to ruminate on everything related to the history of the game, the biographies of the individual players, the city of Milwaukee, and oh so much more.

Unlike Moneyball, which I recommend that everyone reads whether or not they are baseball fans (and if you haven't read it yet, shame on you. go get it now), I don't think Nine Innings would appeal to anyone who is not already a baseball fan. Or maybe a Milwaukeean. But if you are, I suggest you find this book

This is a fine book, recommended to all baseball fans. The book is structured around a single game in June 1982, with a description of the game and asides on players and events. Each chapter covers one inning, although the events of the inning may occupy only a few lines in each chapter.

By now (2000), most of the players and events are ancient history. But the game remains the same, and any fan would enjoy this book

I read this book back in 1998, when I was getting back into baseball. To read it is to enjoy a baseball game, just the same as if you are in the stands, pitch by pitch. It gave me all the background that I was interested in ( 40 man vs 25 man roster, free agency rules though those need to be updated with every collective bargaining agreement). The stars of this game are gone, but it calls back there names, just as a good conversation with the guy in the seat next to you might. I agree it could be updated, and to do a new game would be a beautiful picture of how the game has changed.

Okrent's jumping off point is a pitch-by-pitch account of a single, unremarkable baseball game in 1982. Milwaukee against Baltimore. Nothing to set it apart from the other dozen games played that day, but Okrent breaks it down so we can watch the strategies play out. Righty versus lefty, old hand versus young kid. A nice slow-paced trip through nine innings. More, he looks at the bigger picture. The background of each player, coach, and executive on the teams. How they got to where they were in June 1982.

It's a nice book, and if you remember those teams, with Ripken and Ted Simmons and a young Robin Yount, then it's fun to go back and see them again in action. But while the book is ostensibly about baseball, or rather Baseball, in a timeless and transcendent way, it does suffer from being... dated. It's been over 20 years since this game was played, all the players are long gone. It's interesting as far as it goes, but it would be even more interesting if there were an updated edition. Maybe a game from 1998 or something, so we could relate a bit more to the players, issues, and controversies of the day. In fact, it would be interesting if Okrent or a copycat would write a new edition of this book every generation, and the resulting series would be a wonderful history of what changes --and doesn't-- in the game over time.

This is a nice book. As slow but interesting as the game itself.

In this book, as other reviewers and the editorial reviews have stated, Daniel Okrent writes a play-by-play account of a single baseball game which, in its normality and relative unimportance, serves as a good setting. No one remembers this game now, as they would a famous playoff game or All-Star contest. This matchup between the Baltimore Orioles and the Milwaukee Brewers was simply one of the many games played on that late-Spring day and was nothing more or less.

But the game's meaninglessness, on the surface, would seem to make this a tediously boring read. To the contrary, it is a fascinating look into the world of baseball in any generation and makes you realize that the sport is made up of much more than the simple, routine actions that take place on the field. Okrent also makes clear the importance of each of these actions - individual pitches, defensive positioning and in-game managerial decisions - by discussing and analyzing the thought processes of making each crucial choice.

But the more interesting aspect of the book is the off-the-field components that Okrent deals with in similar depth and interest. He discusses the anatomy of an individual trade, delves into the art of player scouting, and writes much about the baseball media, including Milwaukee's beat writers and the club's radio network. As the book's introduction said, the on-field happenings are really nothing more than the tip of the iceberg and Okrent convincingly backs up this statement.

Additionally, his afterword, written in early 2000, is an incredibly insightful closing which will comfort those who have grown discontented with the changing face of baseball and will interest those who still love it for what it is.

Okrent did a teriffic job with Nine Innings and the product that he put out on the table is a book that any baseball fan will love and should step up to the plate to.

This is my favorite baseball book. It's about the game and all the layers that go into it. You can do this with any sport, but I love baseball and Okrent dissects both pitch counts and player histories with care. I remember these players, but I've never rooted for either team and I still think that this book is fascinating. I often think of this book as I go to ballgames and strike up conversations with fellow fans about not only the situations of the game in front of us, but how this game connects to so many other games in the past.

True fans will really enjoy this book, an inning by inning look at a mid-1982 Brewers-Orioles game with frequent digressions on topics like scouting, the abolition of the reserve clause, the shifting balance of power between hitters and pitchers, etc. I agree with one other reviewer that the coverage tipped more heavily toward the Brewers organization and more 'in-depth' background on the Orioles could have been included. In some instances, of necessity perhaps, there was repetition from chapter to chapter and the author was overly fond of the word 'egregious.' Reading Okrent's afterword (dated January of 2000) made me wish that he might write another book, a kind of 9 Innings Redux. The afterward brings up so many important and interesting aspects of the game today, from the inability of many teams to compete (we need revenue sharing!), to the surge in home runs in the late 90's, to the gorgeous new retro parks that have gone up....I cast my vote to have him profile a 21st century contest (maybe in the National League this time) and give us another look at the very best game there is.