Slider [Paperback]

Patrick Robinson (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: HarperCollins (2002)
• ASIN: B000OA65V4
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Patrick Robinson is the co-author of the recent New York Times bestseller, "A Colossal Failure of Common Sense - the inside story of the collapse of Lehman Brothers."

Before that, he co-authored Lone Survivor for Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell which was #1 on the New York Times non-fiction bestseller list for eight months in 2007.

Patrick is also the author of eleven international bestselling suspense thrillers, including To the Death, Nimitz Class, Hunter Killer, and Diamondhead, the first book in his brand new series.

He lives in Ireland and spends his summers in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't Bother If You Like Baseball, September 8, 2002

By 

MK White (Richland, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Slider (Hardcover)

For a baseball fan, this book is awful, almost painful. It's pretty clear the author doesn't really understand baseball. The book is full of obvious errors. For example (from page 69):

"Scott Maloney, pumped up for the battle, came straight out and whacked a double off Fisher's second fastball, straight into the left-center gap. Ray Sweeney came up and took the first pitch, an inside fastball he banged right between the first and second baseman. This put runners and first and second."

Okay, a double followed by a single puts runners at first and second? A single on a pitch the batter "took"? Not only is the author clueless, but apparently no one bothered to employ an editor.

Not all of the baseball-related errors are this awful, but most of the baseball narrative has minor flaws, inconsistencies, and just doesn't sound right. I gave up after about a hundred pages, but according to other reviews the book gets worse as it goes along.

DON'T BOTHER WITH THIS BOOK!!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This slider is out of the strike zone, March 2, 2008

By 

John "Reader" (Chicago, Israel) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Slider (Hardcover)

I was at my local library the other day and, since spring training had just started, I thought a baseball book woould be just the thing. But this is a bad book -- clichéd from beginning to end.

First of all, the reader doesn't get any real sense of place. The baseball league on the cape is just a stage set. It must be wonderful to play on the cape, by the beach, in the sunshine and salt air, in the balmy summer breezes, babes all over the place. You wouldn't know it to read this book. It has only the sketchiest sense of place.

The characters are cardboard through and through. The main character's baseball crisis is right out of a cartoon strip and not particularly believable. He shows no self awareness. So what if his coach is a jerk. So what if the coach says he's late when he's not. He's the coach. Don't contradict him. What an idiot. If coach wants to call your pitches, then throw what he calls. Get over it. The coach wants him to learn a slurve? Learn it. Wouldn't it be great to have another pitch. Ho doesn't have to abandon his slider.

The main character keeps calling his slider his "bread and butter" pitch during the conflict with his coach. I saw no evidence of that until the end of the book. He continually worried about it during his first season on the cape. If you can't throw your bread and butter pitch when you need it with 100% confidence in it, then maybe it's not your bread and butter pitch. The main character is the only character in the book who is fleshed out at all, and his loss of confidence is simply one among many plot devices and none of them is made to make much sense as anything else.

The laudatory quotes on the back were misleading. I saw them and thought I had a book worth reading. I should have looked closer -- from baseball players. Have you ever seen them interviewed? Until they retire and go on TV, nothing but clichés, just like this book. Book reviews? Only if they're by Moe Berg.

There are many smaller problems, too. Just as one example: the author takes the 'Wolves bus on a tour of Manhattan before the big game. There's a big crowd cheering for them at the "stop sign" at 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue. Stop sign? Put a stop sign there and midtown Manhattan will be gridlocked in fifteen minutes. Try stop light.

As another example: the Bombers owner shuts down the team after they lose. Who shuts down a major league team during the season? In fact, who shuts down a major league team, ever? Nobody's done that for over a hundred years. You sell the team. A team with a great stadium in Brooklyn ought to fetch a very nice price. Or you finally get good, knowledgeable baseball people working for you. You work to build teams. You work on a good minor league system. If you've overpaid for talent you suck it up or get rid of them and don't re-sign them. You sign some kids. If you're going to lose you might as well do it cheaply. You finish badly and you get good draft choices. You make some smart trades. You build from the ground up. What owner doesn't know this. Especially a self-made billionaire. Give us a break.

Maybe some of this is supposed to be funny. If so, Robinson missed any humor by a mile. He missed writing a good book by more than that.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars NOT FOR FANS, March 11, 2005

By 

Homer (CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Slider: A Novel (Paperback)

It's difficult to believe anyone could write this badly. To fail to hold the reader's interest in a sports book, particuliarly a baseball book, is almost impossible. Sports have a built-in dramatic shape. Plus you are usually singing to the choir. Robinson, however, has through maudlin sentimentality, grandiose hyperpole and ponderous repetition, drained the life out of this story.
The descriptions of baseball's skills and techniques are so sadly inaccurate only someone who has has never thrown a ball or swung a bat could have written them.