Well it’s about Times (Update)

June 30, 2014

It took almost half the baseball season, but The New York Times finally published a couple of baseball reviews in its Sunday book section.

https://i0.wp.com/htmlgiant.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/The-Devils-Snake-Curve-356x535.jpg?resize=150%2C225And the honors go to:

Both titles get the full-page treatment, which frankly, I don’t understand, given all the available material out there. I would love to sit in on an editorial meeting when these decisions are made — who argues for which book, and what the thought processes are in terms of inclusion and word count. James McManus’ critique of Will’s third baseball title seems almost as lengthy as the book itself. I also think I would have chosen a different headline; some readers might think “As Bad as It Gets” refers to an assessment of the book, rather than an overview of the Chicago Cubs’ fortunes down through the years.

As for Ostergaard’s novel, by dint of its inclusion in the NY Times, it becomes an “important” work, and the most heralded baseball fiction since The Art of Fielding. I have it on order and am looking forward to seeing whether it’s a true baseball novel or takes the highbrow literary metaphorical approach.

UPDATE: A commenter pointed out that I was egregiously mistaken (my word, not his) in describing The Devil’s Snake Curve as a novel. It is, in fact, a collection of Ostergaard’s essays about the game. All this comparison to Don DiLillo’s Underworld threw me. My apologies for the error.

Although in this piece from MinnPost.com:

MinnPost: In the book, you hint that this started out as a novel. What happened there?

Josh Ostergaard: Yeah. My very first attempt was at pretty straightforward non-fiction, and then that gave way to a novel about a father and son who were collecting information to prove that the Yankees were the worst team in history. My narrator had found a trunk of their belongs and research, and told the story through that. I ended up throwing 95 percent of that book away and starting completely over.

 

 

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