A Season in the Sun [Paperback]

Roger Kahn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2000

In 1976 Roger Kahn spent an entire baseball season, from spring training through the World Series, with players of every stripe and competence. The result is this book, in which Kahn reports on a small college team’s successes and hopes, a young New England ball club, a failing major league franchise, and a group of heroes on the national stage.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Baseball is too often confused with the Major Leagues. . . . Baseball is also college and Little League, high school and vacant lot and American Legion and Class A. A Season in the Sun takes its form from Roger Kahn’s notion of baseball’s scope. To make this book, Kahn spent [a] summer touching down at the four corners of the baseball world. . . . For baseball’s characteristic stories—anecdotes and lore the game is rich with—Roger Kahn is best of all, with his sweet ear for the cadence of baseball talk. . . . Take Roger Kahn’s A Season in the Sun down from the bookshelf to hear the soft baseball voices repeating old games in your ear, stories for summer nights or for long winters away from the diamond and the green.”—New York Times Book Review

(New York Times Book Review )

"A time capsule of the ''70''s as well as a prescient look at what the game would eventually become.”—USA Today Baseball Weekly

(USA Today Baseball Weekly )

From the Publisher

6 1-hour cassettes --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 199 pages
• Publisher: Bison Books (February 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803277938
• ISBN-13: 978-0803277939
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,404,165 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fine work from Roger Kahn, July 1, 2007

By 

A. Doubleday "grrwoof" (Bridgeport CT USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Season in the Sun (Paperback)

The other reviewer is a bit confused. Dropping an i or an e is likely the work of a typesetter. Dave Halberstam's mistakes, noted by Bill James, are of a different order. Halberstam writes that in '47 Jackie Robinson ran wild against Yogi Berra, leading Berra to ask to be turned into an outfielder. Actual fact: during the 1947 World Series Robinson stole a total of one (uno) base, while Berra was catching. As for Scully's first name, he and Mr. Kahn were both covering the Dodgers in the 1950s and one does best to assume Mr. Kahn called him Vince.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a season in the sunI, December 15, 2009

By 

Edward J. Cooke (Del.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: A Season in the Sun (Paperback)

If you enjoyed " The Boys of Summer " , you will enjoy this book .

3.0 out of 5 stars Mildly Entertaining - Baseball in 1976, June 8, 2011

By 

stoic (Mobile AL) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: A Season in the Sun (Paperback)

Roger Kahn is famous as the author of The Boys of Summer, his melancholic portrait of the post-baseball lives of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Perhaps hoping that lightning would strike twice, he later wrote about the state of baseball in 1976. The result was A Season in the Sun.

The book is a loosely-connected series of vignettes about baseball. In addition to the prologue and two epilogues, the chapters are about:
- ex-Dodger outfielder Wally Moon, who is coaching baseball at a small college in Arkansas,
- one of 1976's most-successful franchises (the Dodgers) and one of its least successful (the Astros),
- minor league baseball in Pittsfield, Massachusetts,
- the very different lives of three retired major leaguers (Artie Wilson, Stan Musial, and Early Wynn),
- baseball in Puerto Rico,
- Bill Veeck's attempts to revive the White Sox,
- and Johnny Bench.

The chapters are of variable quality. To me, the standouts were the stories of two great characters - Bill Veeck and Early Wynn - and also the material on minor league baseball in New England. A lot of the other material is average. Also, potential readers should know Kahn is a "New Journalist"; that is, he makes himself a character in the book, which allows him to insert his opinions on everything that happens.

For those interested in Roger Kahn's work, I would recommend that they first read The Boys of Summer and then Good Enough to Dream (about the year that Kahn owned a minor-league franchise). For those who cannot get enough Kahn, A Season in the Sun is a decent read.