Strike Zone

This is a great story of a little-used pitcher who gets to start the biggest game of the year and a veteran umpire. The pitcher has two things working against him. He had made a comment at an off-season banquet that offended the umpire, who happens to be working behind the plate for this game. The umpire's best friend is in trouble with gamblers and has asked him to throw the game. It's a well-written story, with the point-of-view alternating from chapter to chapter so we see what's going through the pitcher's mind in one chapter and then see the umpire's thoughts in the next one. I've read quite a few baseball novels over the years and this is one of the best.

Yes, it's neat just to see a novel by Bouton.....and it's a good effort. The chapters are alternately from the points of view of the pitcher (a barely-fictionalized version of Bouton himself) and umpire. This fading veteran pitcher has been chosen to pitch the pennant-deciding game, and the umpire, a veteran about to retire, is trying to throw the game against him. If you're a baseball fan, and especially if you're a Bouton fan, you'll be carried along nicely. Some of the players are given actual players' names, and one of the neat things is......well, I'm editing out some of what I originally had here, because it was sort of a "spoiler" and I guess some people didn't like that!! Let's just say that an "actual" player has a role in the outcome of the big game. Recommended for baseball fans, and a must for Bouton fans.

Strike Zone is most definitely a book that sports fans, and non-sport fans alike will want to read. The beginning is a little graphic for younger readers, with some sexual innuendo, but it picks up quickly in Sam Ward's rookie year with the Chicago Cubs in the game between the Phillies and the Cubs for advancement into the playoffs. A duel to the end between the pitcher, and an umpire that's fixing the game, will leave you on the edge of your seat, and definitely wanting a sequal.

After reading this book, I scanned Bouton's passages on stone wall building into my word processer. Then I started entering footnotes, in agreement and exegesis, until I'd written three times as many words on the craft as Bouton had. A great kindred soul experience.

This was the best book I have ever read. It had everything it had sex, scandals, action, suspense, comedy, and just kept making me want to read more. I think Jim Bouton and Eliot Asinof wrote a great baseball book. Even if you don't like baseball this is a great book