Join Amazon Prime and ship Two-Day for free and Overnight for $3.99. Already a member? Sign in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
by Eliot Asinof
|
by Bernard Malamud
|
by John R. Tunis
|
by Jerome Charyn
|
by William Brashler
|
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
One of baseball writing's best utility men, Asinof is justly famed for Eight Men Out, his masterful exploration of the tragic events that led to the surreal stain of the 1919 Black Sox scandal; it is a deservedly enduring work of baseball nonfiction. Asinof's first literary at-bat, though, was in the fictional league. Man on Spikes--long out of print until that egregious error was rectified with the debut of Southern Illinois University Press's Writing Baseball series--is about as unromantically clear-eyed a look at baseball as exists in the genre. Its hero is a journeyman ballplayer named Mike Kutner, based, intriguingly, on a real journeyman ballplayer named Mickey Rutner, who Asinof played minor league ball with, and who, in one of the game's cosmic jokes, winds up on the same page as Babe Ruth in the alphabetical listings of The Baseball Encyclopedia.
One of baseball writing's best utility men, Asinof is justly famed for Eight Men Out, his masterful exploration of the tragic events that led to the surreal stain of the 1919 Black Sox scandal; it is a deservedly enduring work of baseball nonfiction. Asinof's first literary at-bat, though, was in the fictional league. Man on Spikes--long out of print until that egregious error was rectified with the debut of Southern Illinois University Press's Writing Baseball series--is about as unromantically clear-eyed a look at baseball as exists in the genre. Its hero is a journeyman ballplayer named Mike Kutner, based, intriguingly, on a real journeyman ballplayer named Mickey Rutner, who Asinof played minor league ball with, and who, in one of the game's cosmic jokes, winds up on the same page as Babe Ruth in the alphabetical listings of The Baseball Encyclopedia.
Kutner, like Rutner, is never quite good enough to stick in the Majors, but his dream of making it allows ownership to abuse and exploit his talent for the 16 seasons after he signs his first contract. Dreams die hard, and sports dreams die particularly hard; Asinof works this theme beautifully, until, in the end, Kutner can finally hang up his spikes and hold onto something more tangible than reverie: sustaining love. This is a novel bursting with passion, understanding, and the insight of someone who's played the game and can translate its feelings without filtering them through rose-colored flip-ups. --Jeff Silverman
Review
"Like the glove work of Cal Ripken, Jr., which looks easy till you try it and fall on your can, the writing of Eliot Asinof looks so easy that you don't realize he has conveyed an entire milieu in the life story of a very ordinary man with one special talent and an all-consuming love for his sport. Then you discover that you're having trouble reading the page because of the mist in your eyes and the tension in your chest." —Harlan Ellison, San Francisco Chronicle Book Review
"Out of print for nearly 30 years, this classic baseball novel by the author of Eight Men Out realistically portrays the trials of a career bush leaguer who struggles for nearly two decades before finally making it to the major leagues. Many critics regard this book to be among the finest examples of sports fiction ever written."
—USA Today Baseball Weekly
"[A] serious baseball novel, lucidly and dramatically written."—Douglas Wallop, New York Herald Tribune
Be the first person to add an article about this item at Amapedia.com.
› See featured Amapedia.com articles
Conditions of Use
|
Privacy Notice
© 1996-2009, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates
"The truest novel I've ever read is Man on Spikes."—Jimmy Cannon,
New York Post
See all Editorial Reviews
New York Post
"I hope that all baseball fans who like to read books will read Man on Spikes." —James T. Farrell, New York Post
"[A] plain and honest book, the first realistic novel I can remember having read." —John Lardner, New York Times
See all Editorial Reviews
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Look Inside This Book
Citations
(learn more)
20
books
cite this book:
See all 20 books citing this book
- Extra Innings: WRITING ON BASEBALL (Sport and Society) by Richard Peterson on 9 pages
- Making the Team: The Cultural Work of Baseball Fiction by Timothy Morris on 5 pages
- From Ritual to Record: The Nature of Modern Sports by Professor Allen Guttmann in Back Matter
- Brooklyn Dodgers: An Informal History (Writing Baseball) by Frank Graham Jr. in Front Matter
- Line Drives: 100 Contemporary Baseball Poems (Writing Baseball) by Brooke Horvath PhD in Front Matter
See all 20 books citing this book
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Help others find this product — tag it for Amazon search
No one has tagged this product for Amazon search yet. Why not be the first to suggest a search for which it should appear?
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
|||||||
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Customer Discussions
Beta (What's this?)
New! See all customer communities, and bookmark your communities to keep track of them.
|
This product's forum
(0 discussions)
Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Active discussions in related forums
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Product Information from the Amapedia Community
Beta (What's this?)Be the first person to add an article about this item at Amapedia.com.
› See featured Amapedia.com articles
Listmania!
|
|
Look for Similar Items by Category
|
Best Books of 2008 |
Buy Three Books, Get a Fourth Free |
|||||||||
|
Your Recent History
(What's this?)|
You have no recently viewed items or searches.
After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. Look to the right column to find helpful suggestions for your shopping session. |
Continue shopping: Top Sellers
| ||||
| ||
| ||
| ||
| ||
| ||
