Bang the Drum Slowly

I picked up this book some years back on a whim. Once I read it, it became one of my all time favorites. It is a heartwarming story about friendship and the extent to which one man will go to help another. Mind you, this isn't a story about one man laying down his life for another. That sort of heroism belongs in a different class altogether. Fortunately, most of us don't find ourselves in those situations. However, all of us, in one way or another, will likely find ourselves in a situation similar to the one that Henry Wiggen finds himself in. Henry's teammate, Bruce Pearson, is a borderline major league catcher who discovers, over the winter, that he has a terminal disease. Henry, an all-star major league pitcher, is the only non-family member who knows this secret. The relationship between Henry and Bruce is not one of best friends. The relationship is based more on the fact that Henry has sold Bruce a life insurance policy (which is what the pitcher does in the off-season). As such, Bruce, somewhat limited in intelligence, puts a special sort of trust in Henry. Although it would be easy to dismiss this trust as misguided, Henry takes the full responsibility for it and puts his own career on the line in doing so. In fact, he puts both careers on the line for his teammate and does it all so that Bruce's last year on Earth is a meaningful one. See how the little secret becomes a rallying cry for an under-achieving team. The ending is poignant in many ways but our hero is there to the end. Unless you've got ice water in your veins, this book will touch you deeply. As you read it, ask yourself, "Would I have done the same thing?" The honest answer for most of us, unfortunately, is no.

As I was a-walking the streets of Laredo, As I walked out in Laredo one day, I spied a young cowboy all wrapped in white linen, All wrapped in white linen and cold as the clay. I seen by his outfit that he was a cowboy, And as I walked near him these words he did sigh, Come sit down beside me and hear my sad story, I am shot in the breast and I know I must die. It was once in the saddle I used to go dashing, Once in the saddle I used to go gay, First down to Rosie's and then to the card house, Shot in the breast and am dying today. Get 16 gamblers to carry my coffin, 6 purty maidens to sing me a song, Take me to the valley and lay the sod o'er me, I am a young cowboy and know I done wrong. O bang the drum slowly and play the fife lowly, Play the dead march as they carry me on, Put bunches of roses all over my coffin, Roses to deaden the clods as they fall The quartet of Henry "Author" Wiggen novels by Mark Harris are one of the high water marks in sports literature and Bang the Drum Slowly in particular is, by any measure, one of the great American novels. Writing before free agency made players millionaires and anticipating such groundbreaking tell-alls as False Spring and Ball Four, Harris treated sports realistically--players are work a day drudges who have off season jobs and swear and drink and womanize, management cares about little other than the bottom line, matters off the field effect performances on the field, etc. This honest approach, distinctive narrative voice and poignant subject matter combine to make this an unforgettable novel. I'm sure even most folks who haven't read the book have seen the movie. Henry Wiggen, star left handed pitcher for the NY Mammoths, is called to Rochester, MN to pick up his roommate Bruce Pearson, the team's third string catcher. Pearson has just found out that he is dying from Hodgkin's Lymphoma (which is now often survivable). Henry who has always had a difficult relationship with Pearson, mostly because the catcher is such a simpleton, takes on a sort of protectors role, even ending his contract holdout with the club in exchange for a contract clause saying that Bruce can not be cut. As the season unfolds, both Henry ends up having a career year and Bruce too begins to play well, Henry's sudden friendship (including even teaching him the game of TEGWAR--The Exciting Game Without Any Rules) giving him increased confidence in himself, and the team hangs around first place. Then as fellow players begin to find out about Bruce's condition, they too lay off of riding Bruce and they start to gel as a team. Finally though, Henry gets a call from Red Traphagen, the team's retired catcher, now teaching school in San Francisco. When Red tells him that the club has wired him several emergency contract offers, Henry knows that club management has found out about the illness. They call Author up to a suite of t

"Bang The Drum Slowly", by Mark Harris, is a classic, in my opinion. It is right up there with "The Catcher in The Rye" by J.D. Salinger and "You know Me Al" by Ring Lardner. This book is moving, funny, and it makes the reader really want to know Henry "Author" Wiggen, who is the narrator and also a pitcher for the New York Mammouths. Wiggen (with Mark Harris really behind the character, of course), writes in a semi-illiterate style that simply adds to the novel's charm. It must be emphasized that this is not a baseball book, even though it takes place in a baseball atmosphere. Therefore, non-baseball fans shouldn't shy away from this brilliantly written book.

Why this isn't included in every list of the greatest American novels, I do not know. Using baseball, the perfect milieu for an American novel, as its starting point, and written in vernacular, it covers half a dozen subjects (friendshipo, dying young, loyalty, prejudice, etc.) effortlessly, while detailing the ups and downs of one season with the New York Mammoths. Henry "Author" Wiggen, the protagonist of Harris' equally good novel "The Southpaw", tells the story of his friend and catcher, dying of Hodgkins disease. It is smart, funny, sad and ultimately moving. You'll be surprised by the depths of this simple tale

I've read this book half a dozen times, and I'll probably read it once or twice again before I die. Written in the vernacular. The narrator is Henry Wiggen, a pitcher for the New York Mammoths baseball team sometime in the late 1950s. One of the catchers is dying of Hodkins disease, and nobody knows but Wiggen. A very funny, very sad story about the way we treat people better when we know they're dying. Also a wonderful book about baseball