Slider [Kindle Edition]

Patrick Robinson (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Known for writing submarine thrillers like The Shark Mutiny, Robinson demonstrates his knowledge and love of baseball in this tale of a Louisiana college student who opts to play summer ball in Maine for a league that has produced a number of major league players. Jack Faber's father, Ben, an impoverished sugar cane farmer, drives him up the coast, and on the way they pick up another outstanding prospect, Tony Garcia, accompanied by his mother, Natalie. Natalie is a struggling music teacher and adamantly opposed to Tony playing baseball. In spite of their differences, Natalie and Ben are attracted to each other. Jack has a terrific season with the Seapuit Seawolves, is named most valuable player and is offered a major league contract, which he turns down. When Jack returns to college, a tough new coach breaks his spirit in a matter of days with unwarranted criticism, and Jack ends up quitting baseball. But his coaches in Maine still believe in him and invite him back to the Cape Marlin Baseball Summer League, where they rebuild his confidence with infinite care. The story might have ended here, but Robinson heads off on a tangent in the final pages when a billionaire major league owner forces his underproducing team to play an exhibition game against the Seawolves, the catch being that if his team loses he will shut down the franchise. The ending defies credibility as does a deus ex machina discovery of natural gas on Ben Faber's property that makes him a multimillionaire and allows him and Natalie to get together. Plenty of baseball play-by-play provides fodder for fans, but scattered action distracts from the fun, and too many characters crowd the playing field.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Robinson's baseball novel is constructed around one of the most vexing questions in sports: Why would a successful pitcher suddenly find himself bereft of the physical tools that made him a star? The book's hero, Jack Faber, is the reigning king of a prestigious collegiate league, but bad breaks and self-doubt have robbed him of his skills. Hamstrung from the start by a predictable plot and occasionally stilted dialogue, the novel still manages to offer up several characters worth worrying over. There is the introspective hurler who seems destined for pro ball, the conflicted mother who wants her son to quit the game and concentrate on his studies, and the frustrated ex-ballplayer who seems bent on derailing the career of every phenom. Robinson is a baseball traditionalist; in his world, there is still a team playing at Ebbets Field. With solid accounts of game action and salty ballpark language, this makes a passable addition to the literature of the game. Think Michael Shaara's For Love of the Game with less style but more guts. Kevin Canfield
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 412 KB
• Publisher: HarperCollins e-books (October 13, 2009)
• Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers
• Language: English
• ASIN: B000TU16RW
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #314,636 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

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.