The Veracruz Blues [Hardcover]

Mark Winegardner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1996

Based on the actual events of 1946, a portrait of major league baseball is seen through the eyes of the Pasquel brothers, a family of rich industrialists who want to bring the big leagues to Mexico. A first novel. 25,000 first printing. Tour.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Using real names and events, Winegardner playfully recounts how in 1946 one quixotic man nearly established a third, fully integrated major baseball league in Mexico. In 1994, the year without a World Series, aging baseball reporter Frank Bullinger Jr. sets out to write about la temporada de oro-the Season of Gold of 1946. Although Bullinger shapes the story, he frequently steps aside for chapters told by others: Theolic "Fireball" Smith, an acerbic black pitcher; Roberto Ortiz, a Cuban power hitter; and the Bronx's own Danny Gardella, a first-baseman who claims to have "caught" manic depression from a neighborhood kid named Rocco. Together, this Babel of voices tells how wealthy Mexican industrialist Jorge Pasquel offered ridiculous sums of money to American ballplayers willing to jump to the Mexican league. Whether Pasquel was "(a) Mephistopheles, (b) Gatsby, (c) Barnum, (d) an egomaniacal war-profiteer" or a few other possibilities, including "philandering murderer" and "civil rights pioneer," Bullinger leaves to the reader. As a milieu, baseball begs writers to indulge in the pleasures of tall tales and broad characterization, and Winegardner-whose only previous book is the nonfiction Prophet of the Sandlot: Journeys of a Major League Scout-excels at it. The brand of baseball played south of the border is equal to that of American ball, but sometimes the umps pack pistols-and the train tracks that cut through right field in Tampico are fully functional. In Bullinger, a frustrated novelist who hung out with Hemingway, he's created a narrator who sounds like Damon Runyon or Ring Lardner at their bourbon-soaked best. The novel invites comparisons to other baseball books, but Winegardner does something special here: he writes about both baseball and the past with a nostalgia that isn't cloying, always aware of how the ridiculous cohabits with the sublime.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Winegardner, previously known for his outstanding book about baseball scouting, Prophet of the Sandlots (LJ 1/90, o.p.), hits a home run with this first novel. The story is based on fact. In 1946, a Mexican entrepreneur began to buy the best baseball players-black, white, and Hispanic-from Central American leagues and from the majors, offering American players (who were bound in virtual slavery by the reserve clause) decent salaries for the first time. Yet good players do not necessarily work together to build good teams. The story of the Veracruz team's rise and fall is told by a sportswriter, several of the players, and the mistress of the Mexican magnate; each voice is distinct and interesting. This book is highly recommended not only for sports nuts but also for readers of serious fiction.
Marylaine Block, St. Ambrose Univ. Lib., Davenport, Ia.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult; First Edition edition (February 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670866369
• ISBN-13: 978-0670866366
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,961,120 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mark Winegardner was born and raised in Bryan, Ohio, near Exit 2, a town of 8,000 which supplies the world with its Dum-Dum suckers and Etch-a-Sketches. His parents owned an RV dealership there, and every summer he traveled with his family across the USA in various travel trailers and motorhomes. By the time he was 15, he had been in all 48 contiguous states. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude from Miami University and went on to receive a master of fine arts degree in fiction writing from George Mason University. He published his first book at age 26, while still in graduate school. He has taught at Miami, George Mason, George Washington, and John Carroll Universities, and is now a professor in the creative writing program at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida.

Winegardner has won grants, fellowships and residencies from the Ohio Arts Council, the Lilly Endowment, the Ragdale Foundation, the Sewanee Writers Conference and the Corporation of Yaddo. His books have been chosen as among the best of the year by the New York Times Book Review, Chicago Sun-Times, Los Angeles Times, the New York Public Library, and USA Today. His work has appeared in GQ, Playboy, Ploughshares, TriQuarterly, DoubleTake, Family Circle, The Sporting News, Witness, Story Quarterly, American Short Fiction, Ladies Home Journal, Parents and The New York Times Magazine. Several of his stories have been chosen as Distinguished Stories of the Year in The Best American Short Stories.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars best baseball novel ever written, March 1, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Veracruz Blues (Paperback)

This is more than a baseball book, but ... that's, sadly, how people will read it. Even given that, this rich, historically detailed book makes even the best other good baseball novells -- The Natural, D. Hays's The Dixie Association, The Southpaw, DeLillo's Pafko at the Wall (which is the 2nd-best baseball novel) -- look slight in comparison. A great novel about race and American imperialism and sex. That a book this good could go out of print is a scandal, but maybe Winegardner's new fame (he's the author of the upcoming sequel to The Godfather) will propel this masterpiece back into print and help it garner the audience it deserves.

The New York Times Book Review, The Nation and USA Today have both called this book the best baseball book ever written. It's actually one of the best American novels of the past 50 years.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars not just about baseball, January 20, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Veracruz Blues (Hardcover)

At the risk of being overly enthusiatic, this book should be considered a classic. Its many characters, many of whom serve as narrators, all assist in telling many truly American stories. For theorists, the story can be interpreted from a racist, marxist point of view. The magic of this novel is almost matched by the short lived utopia that the players in the summer of 1946 shared, playing in a world where color didn't matter, and the players had fun. Like any utopia, the Mexican league was only a mirage, but the humor and wisdom of the novel is not

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great baseball book and more, September 25, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: The Veracruz Blues (Hardcover)

This guy can flat-out write. the first 100 pages or so are wonderful. After that,it flattens out to good. He is very adept at weaving real historical figures(Babe Ruth, Ernest Hemingway,etc.) into a fictional setting. A fun read