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1. You can't remember what happened last baseball season (perhaps the most memorable season of our generation);
2. You remember what happened but you don't mind reading about it for the zillionth time;
3. You want to know which of Mike Lupica's kids is the "nester";
4. You crave more turgid sports writing, with its transparent efforts to create dramatic effect by using endless clipped sentences and paragraphs.
Lupica is a master of this style. Why write a whole sentence when you can break it into two fragments? Or three fragments? Better yet, you can really enhance the drama of a sentence fragment.
By making it a paragraph.
The following are examples of "sentences" written by Lupica: "With the game." "And memories of Kerry Wood." "Then Jeff Bagwell." "And the Cubs right fielder, Sammy Sosa." "Yet." "Even in Grand Prarie, Texas."
All of these are found on just two pages. Page 39.
And page 40.
And the last four examples were entire paragraphs!
To be fair, Lupica does throw in some behind-the-scenes material, including conversations with: the scout who discovered Sammy Sosa, the best friend of Roger Maris, the high school coach of Kerry Wood, Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, Bobby Thomson, Daryl Strawberry, Cal Ripken, Derek Jeter. Even these are mostly predictable, though. The scout remembers Sammy as a ragamuffin in old spikes. Roger didn't like to talk much about his 61 homers. Kerry struck out a lot of guys in high school. And so on. Still, these little vignettes, wedged between the bad writing and the stories about Lupica's precocious kids and fabulous wife (who smiles, shakes her head, and sighs...'oh, those boys!'...as Mike and the kids sit glued to the tube watching yet another game) at least make the book tolerable. Plus it's a pretty quick read and the 1998 season was a great story. Just don't expect much insight, and put on some hip boots to wade through the Lupica prose.
Example. Here for you. The Reader. Of my review:
(PG. 20-- "McGwire had attended one of those Fan Fests that big-league teams hold during the winter, and had signed more than 300 autographs. For free. It only made him more of a giant. More like Babe Ruth."
I mean, how does this drivel slip past the editor? I found myself skimming this book instead of reading it. Lupica repeats OVER AND OVER the phrase, "magical season," to the point where it's just not so magical anymore.
When authors include their real life experiences, I like to hear how everyone really sounded. Lupica's 8-year old child just does not speak like this. I'm sorry.
Ugh, I regret spending [money] on this and am sad that someone I know was mentioned. In it. Blegh