Sometimes You See It Coming: A Novel [Paperback]

Kevin Baker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 3, 2003

Based in part on the life of baseball legend Ty Cobb, this book belongs in the pantheon of great baseball novels.

John Barr is the kind of player who isn't supposed to exist anymore. An all-around superstar, he plays the game with a single-minded ferocity that makes his New York Mets team all but invincible. Yet Barr himself is a mystery with no past, no friends, no women, and no interests outside hitting a baseball as hard and as far as he can. Not even Ellie Jay, the jaded sportswriter who can out-think, out-drink, and out-write any man in the press box. She wants to think she admires Barr's skill on a ballfield, but suspects she might be in love with a man who isn't really there.

Barr leads the Mets to one championship after another. Then chaos arrives in the person of new manager Charli Stanzi, well-known psychopath. Under Stanzi's tutelage, the team simply falls apart. Then Barr himself inexplicably starts to unravel. For the first time in his life, his formidable skills fail him, and only Ellie Jay and another can help - if he will let them. Hanging in the balance are his sanity, the World Series, and true love.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This uneven first novel about major-league baseball utilizes the sport as both a metaphor for real life and an escape from it. Hero John Barr, "the greatest if not the most beloved player in the game," is equal parts Ty Cobb, Ted Williams and Roy Hobbs, a man with almost surreal natural ability, a deep secret and no friends. He plays for a New York Mets team composed of the sort of eccentrics who populate most serious baseball novels these days--a relief pitcher who attributes his success to the Cabala, and a half-Indian, half-Jewish, all-alcoholic hurler named Moses Yellowhorse being two of the more prominent examples. The book's point of view moves from that of Ricky Falls, the closest thing to a friend Barr has among his teammates, to those of other players and sportswriters and an awkwardly written third-person narration. Much of the material reads like half-digested reworkings of various as-told-to baseball autobios by stars of the late-1970s New York Yankees, including a crazy manager who bears an uncanny resemblance to the late Billy Martin. Baker displays flashes of genuine wit, as in his description of a slumping ballplayer who is "draggin' himself around like his shoes had concrete laces," and he has an undeniable feel for the way men interact with one another. In spite of its shortcomings, the novel acquires momentum and builds to a genuinely satisfying, if predictable, climax. 50,000 first printing, ad/promo.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

John Barr is the greatest ballplayer in history, winner of every possible award many times over, but nobody, not even his teammates, knows anything about this intensely private man. When the manager is busy messing up all the other players on the team, Barr is their only hope of repeating a world series win. So when Barr suddenly seems to forget how to play, a female sportswriter, along with one of his teammates, delves into his past to discover the trauma that has motivated him and now threatens to destroy him. The baseball action is knowledgeably handled, and the unbelievably perfect hero takes on depth and reality as we learn about his history. Recommended for general fiction collections. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/15/92.
- Marylaine Block, St. Ambrose Univ. Lib., Davenport, Ia.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (June 3, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060535970
• ISBN-13: 978-0060535971
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,270,964 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well written saga of a baseball talent and hero, November 1, 1999

By 

Gregory L. Coleman (atlanta, georgia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sometimes You See It Coming (Hardcover)

I bought this for 2 bucks at an A&P checkout counter. It was worth 10 times that. Mr. Baker writes beautifully about the game. Our hero John Barr is more a Freddie Couples on spikes than Robert Redford, yet there are enough subplots to keep the reader curious....Contains one of the greatest descriptions of a perfect throw that you will ever read.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book about baseball and life, August 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Sometimes You See It Coming (Hardcover)

It is unfortunate that this book is out of print. In my mind, it is as stirring a book as "If I Never Get Back" or "The Natural" or practically any baseball book short of "Shoeless Joe." It's about a hybrid Dimaggio/Teddy Ballgame type player who is driven to excel by an almost psychotic urge to prevent things from happening before they happen. The book also includes a cast of memorable characters, from the Rickey Henderson-esque Old Swizzlehead to the shortstop Roberto Rodriguez, who knows two words on English, one of them being "you" and the other word being unprintable in a family website.

A great book; well worth reading if you can get your hands on it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars It would be one star, but..., February 18, 2006

By 

Suffering Bruin "SB" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sometimes You See It Coming: A Novel (Paperback)

I just don't have the heart to rate a work of fiction with baseball as the topic with just one star. Still...

Like a lot of writers who take on baseball, Baker just doesn't take the game all that seriously. How else to explain the caricatures disguised as characters in this tedious tome of a novel? The book has it's "good guys" who are all beyond reproach and it's "bad guys" led by a baseball manager who is so over-the-top foolish it's impossible to find him believable. Because the characters are caricatures, the book lacks credibility. And please, to all fiction writers who write about baseball: enough with the nicknames! Not everyone in baseball has one, particularly names like "Swizzle" and "The Big 'Un". Enough already.

Now, you can get away with thin characters in a novel if you've got a larger point or symbol... or something. Baker drops hints throughout that his book is really about tying in all the wonderful legends and myths surrounding some of the games greats (baseball fans will recognize the past of Cobb, Clemente, among others). His point being... well, I don't think there is one which is terribly disappointing because I've heard Baker is a pretty damn good writer. I think Baker fell into the same trap that other writers fall into when the they write about baseball--they're fascinated by the sport but not enough to take it seriously as a basis for art. I remember when Ken Burns was making his documentary on Jazz and he said it was refereshing to work on a serious subject because his last documentary was on baseball. I can't help but feel that after this effort, Baker is looking forward to his next effort.

If I were to summarize it one sentence, I'd say the book reads like an R-rated after-school special, with characters about as deep as what we grew up watching on ABC--predictable and forgettable.