The Summer Game (Bison Book) (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"This collection of essays takes you into the heart of baseball as it was in the 1960s, conveyed with humor and insight. . . . The key here is that Roger Angell is a stunning writer. He is also in many ways a highly cerebral one and yet utterly down to earth-a writer who can translate the nuances of the game with perfect clarity."-Tim McCarver, The Wall Street Journal (The Wall Street Journal )

"Page for page, The Summer Game contains not only the classiest but also the most resourceful baseball writing I have ever read."-New York Times Book Review (New York Times Book Review )

"Only Angell's love of language surpasses his passion for baseball. . . . A splendid book."-Newsweek (Newsweek )

"A decade's worth of meditations and observations . . . searching for the Higher Game, the cosmology behind each pitch, each swing, each `shared joy and ridiculous hope' of summer's long adventure."-New York Review of Books (New York Review of Books )

"Fans know that Angell, fiction editor for The New Yorker, is one of the heavy hitters of baseball writing. Dating back to 1977 and 1972, respectively, these are two of his finest collections. Essential for public and academic libraries."-Library Journal (Library Journal )

Product Description

The Summer Game, Roger Angell’s first book on the sport, changed baseball writing forever. Thoughtful, funny, appreciative of the elegance of the game and the passions invested by players and fans, it goes beyond the usual sports reporter’s beat to examine baseball’s complex place in our American psyche.

Between the miseries of the 1962 expansion Mets and a classic 1971 World Series between the Pirates and the Orioles, Angell finds baseball in the 1960s as a game in transition—marked by league expansion, uprooted franchises, the growing hegemony of television, the dominance of pitchers, uneasy relations between players and owners, and mounting competition from other sports for the fans’ dollars.

Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, Brooks Robinson, Bob Gibson, Sandy Koufax, Carl Yastrzemski, Tom Seaver, Jim Palmer, and Casey Stengel are seen here with fresh clarity and pleasure. Here is California baseball in full flower, the once-mighty Yankees in collapse, baseball in French (in Montreal), indoor baseball (at the Astrodome), and sweet spring baseball (in Florida)—as Angell observes, “Always, it seems, there is something more to be discovered about this game.”

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Product Details

• Paperback: 303 pages
• Publisher: Bison Books (March 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803259514
• ISBN-13: 978-0803259515
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #483,782 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Summer Game: Roger Angell on baseball, May 3, 2001

By	Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

This review is from: The Summer Game (Mass Market Paperback)

The subtitle of this book tells it all: "Roger Angell on baseball." The articles collected in "The Summer Game" first appeared in "The New Yorker" from 1962-72. Angell is not only a first-rate writer but a true fan of the game. He writes about the rise of California baseball, the wonderful world of expansion including the comical and agonizing sufferings of the Amazin' Mets, the fall of the mighty New York Yankees, baseball in French (Montreal's Expos), baseball indoors (the Houston Astrodome), baseball in the spring, baseball during the winter hot-stove league, and the Miracle Mets of 1969. Many of the articles focus on the World Series, so fans of the Dodgers, Cardinals and Orioles will enjoy their double triumphs within this period, while the Tigers and Pirates will remember their classic seven-game Series, and the Red Sox fans will have to endure with having come ever so close. There is humor in these writings, but there is also affection, so when Angell expresses his bitterness over the arrogance and greed that threatened to overwhelm the game he loves he speaks for all of us. Yes, it is insane that the writing of Roger Angell or Red Smith or any of the other great sportswriters of the last century are out of print. They do not need to be preserved on the internet, they need to be in print on paper.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Bard of Baseball, February 16, 2006

By	Miss Jane "book girl" (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

Pure chance -- and luck -- brought me to Roger Angell's books. I was shopping for baseball titles as gifts, and clicked on Summer Game in the search results. First, I am a literature student, who loves good writing. Second, I am a huge baseball fan. Third, I'm a girl. On the basis of previous reviews, I purchased Summer Game and Five Seasons, for me AND for my step-father. From the very first page I was blown away. Angell's vocabulary is tremendous; his use of metaphor phenomenal. Baseball really is poetry. I've had several eyebrows raised in my direction on the train as I laugh out loud at his descriptions of players, fans, owners, botched plays, you name it. Nothing and nobody escapes his notice. A bonus for me is suspense: most of these essays pre-date my arrival on the planet by a good 5 years, so I'm too young to know the outcome of a particular World Series or playoff round. Within 2 days, I'd ordered the rest of Angell's baseball books on amazon. They will join the complete works section of my collection, which includes Shakespeare and Jane Austen -- to name a few! Don't hesitate to buy these books for yourself, or for a friend. You'll heartily enjoy them!

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I cannot believe this book is out of print., April 18, 2000

By	D. E. Pierce (Huntsville, AL United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Summer Game (Paperback)

The fact that this book (and Mr. Angell's other remarkable books about baseball) is out of print disturbs me on two levels. As a baseball fan, I have found these books to be an invaluable source of comfort during the long winter months when our game goes into hybernation. As a reader, I have found in these volumes beautiful writing and keen insight, something that is so often lacking in what passes for journalism today. Mr. Angell (longtime fiction editor at The New Yorker) writes about baseball as a fan, and he does so for fans. Real fans - those of us who recognize that a double and a single are preferable to a home run, those that marvel at a right fielder's gorgeous one-hop throw to third to nip the sliding runner, those that hurt just a little bit during rain delays. If, by some wild stretch of the imagination the publisher of the Summer Game (I don't remember who it was right off) reads this, I think a single collection of the best of Angell's baseball writings is in order - if not a re-pressing of all.