Baseball Books

Without giving away anything about the guts of the book, Paul Mather is a 12 year old baseball pitcher. He lives, breathes and drinks in baseball. It's his life. But, as you soon learn, he is hampered in his dream world of baseball by a disease that sidelines him.

This book is a true treasure for anyone looking for a character with a noble and hopeful spirit in the face of desparation and illness. This may be a great book to share with ill children. It's got a lot of "atta-boys" in it.

You keep hanging tough, Paul Mather!

5 stars all the way!

Alan Holyoak

So, I bought it ("No bag, please.") and began reading on the sidewalk, on my way back from lunch.

Quite a book, this is. It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me look around my commuter-rail car to see if anyone had kepped to what I was reading and emoting about. Oh Joe, Joe, JOE @!#$&^@%#%$(!@%#*
Indeed, you coulda made us more than proud.

If you're a baseball fan, and you want a book to memorize, this is one of the very best.

Though he grew up a Dodger fan, forced to wait 'til next year seemingly forever, his love not just for the Dodgers, but for the game, is made manifest through his memoir and his reprinted articles. His painting of baseball in his earlier years as a game engulfed in wonder and mystique is shared by many who cherish old-time baseball.

Kahn is not remiss in placing baseball in the context of the social realm in which it was played--a time where writers were reluctant to write about the off-the-field lives of players and where racism, which barred blacks from playing in the majors for almost 50 years, slowly gave way to integration, very slowly. He saw the Jackie Robinsons and the Willie Mays and the Monte Irvins in Major League Baseball as baseball players, not black baseball players.

This book is funny at times, sad at others, but always piques interest. Kahn does an outstanding job of painting vivid images of a time when baseball truly was an art, and writing about it truly a game.

As soon as I started reading, I was hooked. Although I was not alive during the 1950's, I have always been fascinated with baseball during that era, particularly the lovable Brooklyn Dodgers. Kahn's latest book does such a wonderful job of describing what it was like to be around baseball every day in that bygone era.

The easiest interview I have ever done was that one I did with Roger. His love for baseball was evident from the first question I asked him. His insight gained from covering the Dodgers in the 1950's is something every baseball fan could use. In this season of home runs, the average fan is once again starting to appreciate baseball. Roger Kahn will make you appreciate it even more.

It is amazing how some people look at Japan and see what is not there. For instance, one reviewer on this book said how most "Japanese players never had much real education, as high schools were more like minor leagues, so the player mostly read mangas (comic strips) on bus rides."

Mangas are much more than comic strips. They are books, written by adults largely for an adult audience. Business people with degrees read mangas.

In fact, the ignorance of Japanese culture reflects in many unfortunate incidences between Japanese citizens and American citizens. Mr. Cromartie's slugging of a pitcher more than illustates this point.

Baseball in Japan is brutal. They burn out their pitchers, for instance, rather than rotate them. In this book you'll see that Warren Cromartie started out his first season first as the hero that was going to save his team, then as the first half of the season wore on he was viewed by the press as a bum who wasn't worth the money they paid for him (Japanese players were, and maybe still are, paid very low salaries for the receipts they bring in for their owners). He then became a hero who batted very well on the second half of the season. Did Mr. Cromartie improve his batting? Perhaps. But more than likely by the second half the season the pitchers in Japan had worn out their arms, and could no longer throw as well.

Get this to learn Japanese culture, Japanese baseball, and one man's confusion and eventual acceptance of both.

Cromartie came back to the States and played his last season with the Royals as a pinch hitter/1B and finished the season with a .307 average as a part time player.

Get this book. It's worth it.

Cromartie came back to the States and played his last season with the Royals as a pinch hitter/1B and finished the season with a .307 average as a part time player.

Get this book. It's worth it.

I grew up watching Warren Cromartie play for the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants during the late `80s. Cromartie was one of very few gaijin players who left a great impact, not only by the way he played the game, but also by his cocky attitude and behavior. For the Japanese media who love to stereotype American players as brashly self-arrogant, lazy, and powerful, Cromartie was such a perfect fit. Of course, they would not report on his side of story, this biography may be of a greater interest for those who viewed him as a gaijin those days. To me, the reader may miss the most interesting points if she just reads this book just as an account of "bizarre" experiences that an American went through in one of the most exotic places in the world.

With the presence of such colorful personalities as the manager Sadaharu Oh (whose career homerun record of 868 surpasses the American counterpart), his teammates, and old-fashioned traditionalists who would be labeled downright racists in many other civilized nations, the story never seems to bore the reader.

Unlike many other player biographies ghost written by mediocre sport writers, this is surprisingly an engaging book. Robert Whiting does a great job of incorporating his own views on cultural disparities between Japan and America into Cromartie's endeavor as a gaijin player. Many opinions expressed in the book overlap Whiting's other works on baseball, such as "You Gotta Have Wa" and "The Chrysanthemum and the Bad," but "Slugging It Out in Japan" is probably the most emotionally involved pieces of all.