Slouching Toward Fargo:: A Two-Year Saga Of Sinners And St. Paul Saints At The Bottom Of The Bush Leagues With Bill Murray, Darryl Strawberry, Dakota Sadie And Me [Unabridged] [Hardcover]

Neal Karlen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 6, 1999

In this era of spoiled millionaire athletes and Big Business baseball, the pure, honest spirit of the Game is alive and well in America's heartland -- if also a bit deranged. Neal Karlen describes his two-year journey with the most audacious bush league ballclub ever to plumb the bottom of the pro sports barrel -- a motley collection of has-beens, hopefuls, rejects and mutts who've all been ignored or banished by the majors, and who play with as much gusto off the field as on. Where else but St. Paul could you find a 300-pound pig playing the role of ballboy? Where else can otherwise normal fans do battle during the 7th-Inning Stretch while wearing giant sumo suits? It's just what you'd expect from a club co-owned by comedian and team Czar Bill Murray and run by Mike Veeck, son of legendary promoter Bill Veeck Here is the story of two summers spent in a succession of Motel Sixes and second-rate stadiums -- a story of one championship season, one complete collapse and a town that never lost hope. It is a glorious celebration of the boys who still play the game for fun, told with high spirits, good humor and genuine affection.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Any baseball book beginning with a descriptive list of characters that includes a Benedictine nun, the hold-out college player of the year, a woman pitcher, a 300-pound pig, a seemingly washed-up Darryl Strawberry, a blind announcer, comedian Bill Murray, Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, and the spirit of Bill Veeck--the game's greatest showman--hovering over it all as the holy ghost, is a book that swings for the fences. Slouching Toward Fargo does go deep, even off the deep end at times. The really amazing thing is that it's all true.

A resourceful veteran writer, Karlen spends the summers of 1996 and 1997 following the mismatched misfits who mold themselves into the St. Paul Saints of the unaffiliated A-level Northern League, one of the strangest clubs in one of the oddest leagues in the history of organized baseball. On one level, his chronicle is a certified hoot; the presence of team owners Murray and Mike Veeck, who inherited his father's gene for baseball theatrics, ensures that Fargo flirts with the unpredictable. But this is also a circumspect tale filled with second chances--not the least of which is Karlen's own redemption as a journalist, which resonates in counterpoint throughout. His adventure begins at a personal crisis point when he accepts an assignment from Wenner, who's had a longstanding grudge against Murray, to follow the comedian and do a hatchet-job on him for Rolling Stone. Karlen needs the check, sure, but he needs a reality check too. "It was time to put my scorecard in order," he admits; after all, this isn't his grudge. Can you hear the bass chord of conscience beginning to thrum? "As I followed the team, I would be searching for some clue to my own battered spirit." By the end of his journey, both the clues and the Saints entertainingly add up to a winning volume and a winning team. --Jeff Silverman

From Publishers Weekly

Freelance writer Karlen tells the antic story of how, in order to get back in the good graces of his former boss, Rolling Stone founder Jan Wenner, he agreed to spend a season covering the minor league St. Paul Saints. "Wenner made it clear to my beleaguered editor what he wanted done if I wanted back into Rolling Stone after a long stint as a prodigal: Bill Murray, a co-owner of the St. Paul Saints, and Darryl Strawberry, he of the notable rap sheet, had to be carved." But though he set out with the intention to write a hatchet job, Karlen was won over by Murray (who was hiding from fame), Strawberry (who was on his way back to the majors after drug and tax problems) and the Saints. His book is about how baseball can redeem the human spirit. In fact, just about everyone associated with the teamAfrom owner Mike Veeck (son of the legendary baseball owner and showman Bill Veeck) to the author himselfAfinds redemption. Karlen documents numerous team subplots (the travails of famous has-beens and anonymous hopefuls), comes across high-profile stories (e.g., those of former pro pitcher Jack Morris and Ila Borders, the first professional female pitcher) and re-creates a host of colorful characters, some charming (minor league fans), some despicable (TV and magazine people from the big cities). Readers not acquainted with the independent leagues will appreciate the portrayal of life on baseball's back roads. Unfortunately, Karlen reveals his own redemption within the first few pages, rendering later personal epiphanies anticlimactic. Plenty of rich anecdotes shine through the moralizing, but Karlen's entertaining book would have been even better had he trusted readers to draw their own conclusions about the beauty of baseball.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; First Edition edition (April 6, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380974843
• ISBN-13: 978-0380974849
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,972,294 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Book As Wild, Wacky And Wonderful As The Team It Covers, August 25, 2003

By 

W. C HALL (Newport, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Slouching Toward Fargo:: A Two-Year Saga Of Sinners And St. Paul Saints At The Bottom Of The Bush Leagues With Bill Murray, Darryl Strawberry, Dakota Sadie And Me (Paperback)

This is one of the funniest books I've read in a long time. Neal Karlen was a writer for Rolling Stone, sent to St. Paul, Minnesota to "get the dirt" on Bill Murray, iconoclastic actor and part owner of the St. Paul Saints. The Saints are a minor league baseball team, part of the independent Northern League, and operated by Mike Veeck, son of the legendary Hall of Famer Bill Veeck. (Casual baseball fans will most likely recall the senior Veeck for having sent midget Eddie Gaedel up to bat as a pinch hitter. It was only one of many colorful stunts by the games' most creative promoter ever).

Karlen sticks around for a couple of years; the story for Rolling Stone never materializes, but along the way this book emerges, as much about Karlen's crisis of spirit as it is about the Saints and the zany cast of characters surrounding them. But along the way we meet many of those who have given the Saints and the Northern League their unique cachet: on the field performers like former Mets slugger Darryl Strawberry, who temporarily redeems his life and career during a two-month stay with the Saints; former pitching star Jack Morris, seeking one more taste of glory, but on his terms only; Ila Borders, the first female to play in a professional game; and Wayne "Twig" Terwillliger, player and coach for 50 seasons and quiet representative of so much that's right with the game.

There are also wonderful portraits of Sister Rosalind. the nun who offers massages at games; a blind radio announcer convinced he's on his way to the big leagues; an employee of one of the Saints' rivals who earns the title "Most Beloved Woman in the Northern League" and others who find solace, healing and a chance to keep dreaming dreams in this strange, wacky, wonderful firmamenent. I really hated to come to the end of this one. The empty feeling was almost as bad as the night the World Series ends.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Doesn't get more charming than this, August 21, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Slouching Toward Fargo:: A Two-Year Saga Of Sinners And St. Paul Saints At The Bottom Of The Bush Leagues With Bill Murray, Darryl Strawberry, Dakota Sadie And Me (Paperback)

Totally winning, both as a portrait of a team (and town) with heart and of a freelance writer who's struggling with the angel (good, real reporting) and devil (fat Rolling Stone paycheck) on his shoulders. The angel wins, and the reader can't help but cheer. Sex, strong women, kooky characters, fiercely loyal fans, minor-league silliness, bratwurst and the honest-to-God love of baseball, which weirdly enough persists no matter how disillusioning the world gets--this book's for anyone who likes Bull Durham, scrappy writers, or independence of spirit in any form. Ignore the minor editing errors; the book's worth it.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious - Couldn't Put It Down!, December 23, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Slouching Toward Fargo:: A Two-Year Saga Of Sinners And St. Paul Saints At The Bottom Of The Bush Leagues With Bill Murray, Darryl Strawberry, Dakota Sadie And Me (Paperback)

I picked this up at my boyfriend's house, read the first few pages, and stayed home on the sofa for an entire weekend because I couldn't put this book down. I'm not a baseball fan, and not from the Midwest, but Karlen's hilarious and equally moving tale of his two years following around this team of wanna-bes, has-beens, and dreamers (some who "made it," some who didn't) had me chortling out loud and even getting teary-eyed at times. This is really a book about Karlen's own search not just for material for his Rolling Stone article (how this book began), but for his own soul as well. Karlen's writing is always entertaining, leaving you wanting more. I'm buying a bunch of these as late Christmas presents -- it's the best gift I can think of. Uplifting, thought-provoking, and one of the funniest books I've read in a long time. You'll never find characters like this in fiction -- what's amazing is they're all real. It should be a movie.