Fathers Playing Catch with Sons: Essays on Sport (Mostly Baseball) (Paperback)

~ (Author) "But I don't want to go..." (more)
Key Phrases: outfield grass, pitching machine, Fenway Park, Dock Ellis, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"Half of my poet friends," confides Donald Hall, one of America's best poets and essayists, "think I am insane to waste my time writing about sports and to loiter in the company of professional athletes. The other half would murder to take my place." Either way, aficionados--both of games and words--should simply be thankful.

Hall's lyrical voice, graceful craft, and spiritual bravado are evident throughout from the opening title essay--a first-person reminiscence of a spring-training sojourn with the Pirates--to a meditation on football that serves as the volume's final gun. In between, he offers lovely, finely tuned odes to Fenway Park, Old Timers' games, Ping-Pong, and former Celtic forward Kevin McHale. From a reader's perspective, "Proseball," a grand tour of baseball literature, is particularly poignant; as Hall goes down his line-up, your heart should break when you realize just how much good writing--from Roger Angell, Thomas Boswell, and Red Smith, for starters--is currently, and tragically, out of print. --Jeff Silverman

Review

"Hall surprises even the well-read fan.... His vignettes are vivid and haunting." -- San Francisco Chronicle

"Nobody who likes to... 'enter the intense, artificial, pastoral universe of the game' will fail to be charmed by Hall's musings." -- Newsweek

"There will always be golden boys playing in games that have diamonds in them, and those boys will always get old, and life will change, but there's something gently beautiful in that process. Baseball is one metaphor for the changing of the seasons, and Hall-as poet and seer here-raises Sport to Art." -- Los Angeles Times

"There will always be golden boys playing in games that have diamonds in them, and those boys will always get old, and life will change, but there's something gently beautiful in that process. Baseball is one metaphor for the changing of seasons, and Hall--as poet and seer here--raises Sport to Art." --Los Angeles Times

"Nobody who like to . . . 'enter the intense, artificial, pastoral universe of the game' will fail to be charmed by Hall’s musings." --Newsweek
-- Review

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: North Point Press (January 1, 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865471681
• ISBN-13: 978-0865471689
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #721,504 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nostalgic look at our childhood memories., March 31, 1999

By A Customer

Donald Hall had taken me by the hand and walked me up the runway into the Polo Grounds for my first baseball game all over again. His recap from the drive to the ballpark, the surroundings, the weather right to the clothes he wore made me feel like it was 1962. This is a must read for a father of a young boy who is just starting to attend sporting events. The stories brought a tingle to my spine and a tear to my eye. I relived watching Larry Jackson beat my Mets and remembered getting my first autograph by Sandy Koufax. Being 42 didn't matter anymore, I felt like I was 6 years old again and seeing the greenest grass I had ever witnessed albeit at such a young age and growing up in New York City. It is a book you read to your son at bedtime and you hope he never falls asleep so you can keep reading.