A False Spring

I first read excerpts from "A False Spring" about 30 years ago when they appeared in three consecutive issues of Sports Illustrated. From the moment I began reading that first installment, I was entranced. It is hard to describe exactly why, but I am sure that the baseball action in the book was not the reason. Instead, I remember Jordan's vivid portrayls of such seemingly mundane things as a prarie thunderstorm, an afternoon fishing in the swamplands of Florida and the glow of the instruments on his dashboard. These depictions riveted me, I'm convinced, because they put into words how I saw the world. As an 11 year-old, this was a unique and novel experience for me.Jordan's portrayal of his own feelings of dissatisfaction, disappointment, anger, rage and finally resignation also resonated with me. Most of the reading I had done up to that point portrayed life's events in a linear fashion that was totally at odds with what I had already experienced. I was fascinated that Jordan could take an accessible subject matter and weave all of these other elements into it. Mind you, all of this came to me from reading the three SI excerpts. I never did read the book until, by chance, I was searching on this site and came across a name I remembered. So, 30 years later, I got a copy and tried to find out whether this book would have meaning for me anything like what I experienced as an 11 year-old.Some pompous windbag spoke at my college graduation ceremony about the test for what he called "clahsic stahtus." According to this guy, any writing qualified for that status if one could read the work at widely spaced intervals and still feel the same spark as in the previous readings. He assumed, I guess, that peoples' perceptions and interests change over the years and that only writing that had a certain breadth would be able to appeal to a reader who had undergone those changes."A False Spring" certainly passed the test. All of the vivid descriptions -- the hand-me-down uniforms, the barracks-like atmosphere of minor league spring training, the experience of pitching in frozen northern outposts-- remained as vital and gripping as before, as did Jordan's portrayal of the unravelling of his baseball career. With the benefit of 30 years' experience, I was able to understand the author's struggles in more than the visceral way I did as an 11 year-old. Further, I got the strong sense -- confirmed in Jordan's later memoir, "A Nice Tuesday" -- that Jordan himself had not figured out exactly why things had gone so wrong for him. At times, reading this book was like watching someone reliving some horrible nightmare. At other times, it was simply a pleasant experience to read Jordan's description of day-to-day life in small town America in the late 50s. Throughout, the book was just as gripping as those SI excerpts that grabbed me 30 years ago.I have read that Pat Jordan set about to create a persona in this book and that the portrayal of that persona

Like so many baseball books, this really isn't just about baseball. It's about a young mans' journey growing up. It's about what happens to a "can't miss" prospect when he does miss. Pat Jordan looks back 15 years after he threw his last pitch--trying to figure out what happened. He's still not sure-I got the feeling he wrote this book for theraputic reasons. But we learn a lot about Mr. Jordan, and some of it is not too flattering. It's obvious he's still searching for the answers, and that's what I like the most about the book-because YOU understand while reading that he just didn't have what it takes to be a big league pitcher. A wonderful peek inside Mr. Jordan's "coming of age." Highly recommended!

I ran across Pat Jordan's A False Spring many years ago. I was intrigued by the book then and I still rate it as one of my all-time favorite sports books. It is a sports memoir which is unique in the genre in that it is a story of a loss of talent as well as the discovery of self. Pat Jordan was a high school baseball phenomenon in Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1959. At the end of his high school career, he signed a bonus contract with the Milwaukee Braves. His first assignment was in McCook, Nebraska in the class D Nebraska State League. Another young pitcher named Phil Niekro was a teammate. Their careers would take decidedly different paths. Niekro would go on to a brilliant major league career, but in three years Pat Jordan would lose his fastball and be out of baseball for good. Time Magazine said of the book: "Pat Jordan is a failure by all professional baseball standards. But it is in the dissection of that failure that his book discloses the dimensions of a man and a game ... for out of Ex-Pitcher Jordan's experience has come one of the best and truest books about baseball, and about coming to maturity in America." This is a fascinating story. If it grabs you like it did me when I first read it , it will find a permanent place in your sports library.

Sports Illustrated called this book one of the twenty "must have" sports books in your collection. After reading this book I can see why. Pat Jordan does a phenomenal job of detailing his experience. He begins as a brash, cocky young phenom receiving a large bonus, and winds up languishing on a "D" class minor league team and wondering "why?". Jordan writes about his minor league experience with such detail that you feel that you are there with him, experiencing the frustrations of desiring to move ahead and go to "the show". As a former athletic department tutor at a large university, I can tell you that many, many athletes with the greatest potential wound up going nowhere. Sometimes, the line between success and failure is a thin one.

I first read "A False Spring" close to 23 years ago and it remains as one of the best books I have ever read...I have read it again numerous times over the years and am always captivated by Jordan's writing style. A haunting tale about a kid who could throw hard but didn't really know how to pitch, and was released by the Braves in three years. He does an admirable job describing his failings as a young man..The clarity in which he remembers this short career so many years later is astounding. Even a non-baseball fan will appreciate this outstanding work.