Roger Angell has been writing about baseball for more than forty years . . . and for my money he's the best there is at it," says novelist Richard Ford in his introduction to Game Time. Angell's famous explorations of the summer game are built on acute observation and joyful participation, conveyed in a prose style as admired and envied as Ted Williams's swing. Angell on Fenway Park in September, on Bob Gibson brooding in retirement, on Tom Seaver in mid-windup, on the abysmal early and recent Mets, on a scout at work in backcountry Kentucky, on Pete Rose and Willie Mays and Pedro Martinez, on the astounding Barry Bonds at Pac Bell Park, and more, carry us through the arc of the season with refreshed understanding and pleasure. This collection represents Angell's best writings, from spring training in 1962 to the explosive World Series of 2002.
(20030406)
In Game Time, Roger Angell's essays illuminate baseball's heart and history in careful prose that New Yorker readers have grown to anticipate each spring. The collection spans the forty-plus years of Angell's baseball writing career and includes many of his favorite pieces as well as never-before-published material.
Rather than stringing the selections together chronologically, the book's editor, Steve Kettmann, groups them by the three seasons of the game--spring, summer, fall. The structure works well to expose the breadth and depth of Angell's writing across the years. As Richard Ford promises in the introduction, "It is by getting those. . . baseball essentials (strategies, nuances, protocols) down onto the page, and cementing the hard foundation without which sporstswriting can't earn your time away from the game itself, that Angell has made his bones."
The downside of this approach, however, is that some selections feel dated or misplaced for readers who did not live through the seasons in question. Many of the rookies scouted or players traded have long since faded into the obscurity. And for essays like "Distance," which profiles pitcher Bob Gibson, placement in "Summer" seems forced, the piece beginning as it does with recollection of Gibson's seventeen strikeout record set in the 1968 World Series.
But these are faults to be expected in a collection that represent the vastness of Angell's contribution to baseball. In Angell, baseball is blessed to have found its perfect fan: literate, humble, and always eager for spring.--Patrick O'Kelley
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
More Great Writing From Angell:
Considered by many as baseball's poet laureate, Roger Angell displays his moving style in this compilation of top writing. Many of these previously-published essays date back to the 1970's and 1980's, yet each is worthy of a reading replay. Angell is at his best as he speaks with 91-year old Smokey Joe Wood (star of the 1912 World Series) in the Yale University grandstand watching young collegians Ron Darling and Frank Viola duel on the mound. The author was just as good interviewing Bob Gibson in his... more info
Worth reading just for Smoky Joe:
I bought this book because Angell has an account of going to a college baseball game with 1912 Red Sox pitcher, Smoky Joe Wood. Angell and Wood sit in the stands, talk baseball (and life) and watch future star Ron Darling pitch a nailbiter. The rest of the book is a little drawn out but Angell remains one of the most gifted baseball writers of his generation.
Good, but not his best:
Roger Angell is a marvellous writer on baseball. Warm, human and involving he never fogets that it is just a sport that he is writing on and no matter how much he (or we) might love it there are plenty of more important issues going on in life. At his best his writing can be gripping ( A's v Mets 1973), thrilling ( Reds v Red Sox 1975) insightful (essays on Bob Gibson and David Cone) and life affirming ( the essay on the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates is a particular favourite of mine). His enjoyment of life is... more info
Reruns and Some "New" Material:
After I bought "Game Time" I was immensely disappointed to realize that the greatest baseball writer of our times has done it again! He has issued a second consecutive collection of his writings composed of a majority of material previously published. Those of us who have read all of his earlier baseball books and wait in anticipation of his next article can't help but feel taken by this. He did it in "Once More Around the Park" and now, again, in "Game Time". Once was enough to irritate a loyal following... more info
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