Game Time: A Baseball Companion

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 native Omaha, where the ex-hurler discussed his "I'm not your friend" attitude on the mound. There's also a moving look at several World Series (the last being 2002), an examination of scouting, and a look at such personalities as Tim McCarver, David Cone, (the late) Dan Quisenberry, and Ted Williams. We even get a look at the author's boyhood introduction to the game. This edition is probably best savored like a fine wine rather than read straight through. A vintage 86 year-old at this writing, may Angell's wit and wonderful pen keep busy for years to come.

When it comes to baseball, the mind is unreliable and selective in what it remembers. Games and seasons blend into to one another and most second basemen or relief pitchers fade from view forever soon after they leave the diamond for good. Old teams and players live on only as lines of statistics in massive baseball encyclopedias or deep historical databases. Lost, too, are the millions of moments that make up every game. But Roger Angell has been quite good, over the years, at capturing those moments and preserving them as though in amber. And so, in reading his collection of baseball pieces that span more than forty years, one feels a bit like the lucky archeologist who has stumbled upon magnificent specimens so exquisitely preserved as to seem positively lifelike. Angell writes with almost scientific precision: "With the strange insect gaze of his shining eyeglasses, with his ominous Boche-like helmet pulled low... Reggie Jackson makes a frightening figure at bat." Angell is not just an observer; he is also the ultimate fan, rooting for childhood favorites or for a team whose story has caught his fancy that particular year. Game Time is laid out like the baseball year, with pieces about the languor and anticipation of spring training in the beginning and closing with multi-faceted recollections of several past World Series. The many pieces taken together are like one long summer spanning forty years, a summer when you went to the ballpark frequently but listened to most of the games on the radio on the back porch at dusk.

Roger Angell is one of the best essayists around. His work in the New Yorker has always been among the best material in the magazine, not only because it is excellent writing, thoughtful and elegant but because he is always amusing and tells a wonderful story. Baseball is one of his great loves and it shows in the pieces he writes about the National Pastime. He enjoys the pacing, the action, the smells, the storylines and especially the characters and he conveys this passion to his readers. Game Time is a wonderful anthology of nearly 30 essays Angell has written during his 40 years as "sports-writer." They cover all aspects of the baseball season, many baseball personalities and the intricacies of the games. He is not just a poet who appreciates the aesthetic values of the sport, but he recognizes and discusses the strategies and skills as well as anyone. These is a great collection by one of the best baseball writers around and will provide many laughs and lessons to all baseball fans as well as people who simply love excellent non-fiction essays.

I picked this up about a week ago, and finished it just this afternoon. Inbetween that time, and between the covers of this great book, I found myself caught up in the exhiliration of victory, the agony of defeat, and a variety of emotions inbetween. Roger Angell is to baseball what Shakespeare was to theatre: he captures the wide spectrum of players and coaches, fans and managers, rookies and old pros, that have made baseball a fascinating sport to follow.Individual pieces that stick out for me are the David Cone profile, the scout, Smokey Joe Wood, and many others that make this book a wonderous journey. This is for the diehard fans, to be sure, but baseball novices will also enjoy some of the many thoughtful and well-written pieces contained here. You will finish this with a deeper appreciation of baseball itself (despite its bloated state now, Angell makes no apologies for his continued interest long after other, more traditional fans have thrown up their hands in disgust. There is just as much joy in describing the Angels-Giants match-up in '02 as there is in memorializing Teddy Ballgame Williams), and Angell's work here is truly some of the finest sports reporting I've ever read. As stated in the introduction essay, Angell's work appeared mainly in the "New Yorker", where he could have time to construct his thoughts without the threat of a nearer deadline. Thus, his writing here does service to the majesty of the events described.For the baseball fan in all of us, Roger Angell's work is truly a gift and a joy to read. I highly recommend this work. However cynical you may be about the more recent baseball world, you will enjoy this book.

If you are familiar with past baseball books of Roger Angell you know you are in for another treat with his latest offering. Part of the book includes passages from past books, but, at least to me, it doesn't detract from this book at all. A good part of the book covers recent playoffs and World Series including 2002 and if you followed the games during the past several years, these parts of the book will have additional meaning to you. A lengthy section on former Cardinals' fireballer Bob Gibson and a visit with Smokey Joe Wood while viewing a college game between Yale and St. Johns with Ron Darling and Frank Viola matching up against one another are included as is a section on broadcaster Tim McCarver "There's a lahn drahve!", and another on a scouting mission with California Angels scout Ray Scarborough. Some of these offerings go back to the early 1960's until through the year 2002. In describing playoff and World Series games, Angell doesn't merely recite game facts as to who got hits and scored runs. He has a knack for making the reader feel he is there and tells the story with colorful prose. Here are a few examples: "The hankie hordes were in full cry at the Metrodome, where the World Series began." "We repaired to Milwaukee, where, on a cold and blustery evening in the old steel-post park, County Stadium, Willie McGee staged his party." Regarding Dennis Eckersley: "His eyes burning like flashlights as he spoke." "Luis Sojo, a Venezuelan, is thirty-four but looks as if he'd put on a much older guy's body that morning by mistake." After working on a screwball in high school to imitate Giants' pitcher Carl Hubbell, Angell said, "I began walking around school corridors with my pitching hand turned palm outward, like Carl Hubbell's, but nobody noticed." I could go on and on and on with colorful tidbits found in the book, but I don't want to spoil it for you. Suffice it to say, if you buy this book you are in for a treat. Don't speed read it. This isn't a book to be gulped. It is like a Godiva chocolate bar. This book is to be savored.