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Why Time Begins on Opening Day
A collection of essays on the sport of baseball, its myths, superstars, pennant races, strategies, ballparks, and other facets of the national pastime
300 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 1984
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April 4, 2018It is the time for my annual re-read of the classic baseball book - in my view the best baseball book ever written - Why Time Begins on Opening Day by Thomas Boswell. Now out of print, this book is like a warm pair of slippers or a hot tub...you can just slide into this book and be warmed with the magic of the game of baseball. Though written circa 1984 and detailing the tales of the late 70's and early 80's, this book isn't dated. So often you will find yourself noticing that the logic about the game written here applies to baseball played today. The early point about how you will never hit .300 with a bat on your shoulder should be carved on every dugout wall. The magic description of the Hall of Fame continues to resonate and brings a clearer understanding why that institution is special.
The last chapter discusses how baseball stays with you like a friend at least seven months of every year. In the time the book was written, Boswell writes of wondering if Rose will break Cobb's hit record and mentions how each breakfast is spent with the box scores.
Today we get to wonder will Pujols get the 82 RBIs he needs to get to 2000... each day I get to spend breakfast with MLB Network's Quick Pitch and see the highlights of every game played the night before. Time passes but the enjoyment of the game doesn't diminish. It might change slightly but baseball is still the friend it has always been lo these past 150 odd years.
My Rating: 5++ stars
This review https://www.nnlightsbookheaven.com/si... and all our reviews are featured on N. N. Light's Book Heaven. Stop by and see what else we're reading/reviewing.
The last chapter discusses how baseball stays with you like a friend at least seven months of every year. In the time the book was written, Boswell writes of wondering if Rose will break Cobb's hit record and mentions how each breakfast is spent with the box scores.
Today we get to wonder will Pujols get the 82 RBIs he needs to get to 2000... each day I get to spend breakfast with MLB Network's Quick Pitch and see the highlights of every game played the night before. Time passes but the enjoyment of the game doesn't diminish. It might change slightly but baseball is still the friend it has always been lo these past 150 odd years.
My Rating: 5++ stars
This review https://www.nnlightsbookheaven.com/si... and all our reviews are featured on N. N. Light's Book Heaven. Stop by and see what else we're reading/reviewing.
February 22, 2017
This is one of my favorite baseball books of all time and I read this every year! Tom Boswell weaves together a beautiful collection of the ins and outs of baseball, from the minors to the umpires. Every true baseball fan needs to own this book!
I read this every year and every year, it gets better and more insightful.
MR N
I read this every year and every year, it gets better and more insightful.
MR N
April 5, 2021
The newest of baseball fans can get a great appreciation for baseball in the 70s and 80s by reading this wonderful book by long-time Washington Post columnist Thomas Boswell. This 1984 book is full of impressions which paint a wonderful look back into a era many remember fondly and some will find fascinating.
As a Washington Post writer covering the only major league team in the area at that time (pre-Washington Nationals), much of the book is focused on the Baltimore Orioles. He does a marvelous recap of the 1982 season that saw the Birds produce a terrific effort to tie the Milwaukee Brewers for the AL East with one game to play, only to lose to the Brewers in the final game. He writes a lot about Earl Weaver and his approach to baseball. There is a chapter dedicated to Baseball Hall of Famer Jim Palmer, and he mentions a bunch of young, up-and-coming Birds -- specifically the development of a guy named Cal Ripken, Jr.
Yet there is more... Boswell also goes into the history of the game, the ballparks that have played a historical part of the game -- Fenway Park, Yankee Stadium, Memorial Stadium, Tiger Stadium, etc. He talks about pinch hitters, Cooperstown, umpires and their lifestyles, and fans. All of these tie into Boswell's ability to cover every angle of baseball during the late 70s and early 80s.
Some wanting to get a good look at this era of baseball should read this book.
As a Washington Post writer covering the only major league team in the area at that time (pre-Washington Nationals), much of the book is focused on the Baltimore Orioles. He does a marvelous recap of the 1982 season that saw the Birds produce a terrific effort to tie the Milwaukee Brewers for the AL East with one game to play, only to lose to the Brewers in the final game. He writes a lot about Earl Weaver and his approach to baseball. There is a chapter dedicated to Baseball Hall of Famer Jim Palmer, and he mentions a bunch of young, up-and-coming Birds -- specifically the development of a guy named Cal Ripken, Jr.
Yet there is more... Boswell also goes into the history of the game, the ballparks that have played a historical part of the game -- Fenway Park, Yankee Stadium, Memorial Stadium, Tiger Stadium, etc. He talks about pinch hitters, Cooperstown, umpires and their lifestyles, and fans. All of these tie into Boswell's ability to cover every angle of baseball during the late 70s and early 80s.
Some wanting to get a good look at this era of baseball should read this book.
October 2, 2018
It never gets old.
December 6, 2023
Written more than 40 years ago, and it still holds up. This book covers observations by famed baseball writer Thomas Boswell from approximately the late 1970s through the 1983 season and World Series. The chapters each cover a topic, but they're not really organized in a specific way. Some are about positions (third base, pitcher, catcher), but others are about managers or the game's myths or the strife that was entering the game deeply in the early 80s. They're full of real-time quotes and also old-time anecdotes, and the entire book is a pleasure to read. I had to stop myself from consuming it in one sitting, but instead to let it wash over me slowly like watching a baseball game from the outfield bleachers.
A few highlights for me. The chapter on the Orioles teams of the time was great. Boswell runs through the team's clubhouse, giving paragraph-length sketches of each of the players and how he fits into perhaps the most cohesive team of the era. I remember those O's teams well -- Palmer, Bumbry, Lowenstein, Murray, Sakata, and manager Earl Weaver -- and it's great to hear their backstories and their banter. And to understand that they really did approach the game differently than their opponents. The fact that the Oriole Way worked so well makes it astonishing that it wasn't copied wholesale. Nowadays when a sports team has success, its strategies are disseminated and copied immediately, but I guess not in those less cutthroat times.
Boswell goes back to the O's time and again in this book because he did most of his daily baseball reporting for The Washington Post, and the O's were the local team at the time. So there's a chapter on the Ripken family that is pretty good. There's a lot about how fiery and angry Cal Sr. was, and clearly that's why he didn't get a manager until he was nearly 50 and then barely lasted a season. One of the great things in this book is that it's a moment in time, and some offhand comments take on an immortality because of what happened later. One of these is Cal Ripken Jr., who had completed two seasons by then (great seasons), remarked that he'd like to play every inning of every game for 20 years. He nearly did that -- and who could have imagined he'd break Lou Gehrig's consecutive game streak at the time, except that clearly he had the mentality that enabled him to do it?
Another inadvertent look into the future is in a diatribe Boswell wrote after the 1981 American League playoffs, when the surprise A's lost to the Yankees in 3 straight games. The A's had bullied their way to the West Division title, and Boswell writes with scorn about their style of play promoted by Billy Martin, the tyrannic manager. And then he complains that the A's are "stylin'" at the plate to waste time and knock pitchers out of rhythm. He claims one at-bat took 8 minutes, and he notes that the A's averaged an ungodly 2 hours, 55 minutes per game. This was 25 or so minutes more than any other team. Ironic, given that game lengths crept up in the 2000s to the point that the major leagues instituted a series of rules before the 2023 season to try to get things under control and down under 3 hours again.
I like how much Boswell likes every aspect of the game and that he seeks out players who feel the same way. He writes of the joy players have in just playing catch, and he likens it to the wonder each of us feels as a kid when we stick our glove out for a throw from our dad, and the ball is stuck in there. Boswell finds joy in the obsessions players have over their bats, batting style, grip on a pitch, and so on --- all the insider things that make this an art, not just a sport.
Even when a player turns out to be reprehensible as a person, such as Pete Rose or Gaylord Perry, Boswell reminds us of an inner grace that they have. About Rose, who's become a caricature over the decades of his exile from baseball, Boswell writes of his selflessness to switch to third base in the middle of his career to help the Reds get great hitters in the outfield. With Rose at third, the Big Red Machin of 1975-76 was one of the greatest teams ever. Few players would have taken that chance on such a high-profile move, but Rose did everything right on the field. Perry, a first-class jerk, nonetheless was grateful for every minute he had in the game. His dignified views on how to play the game that hearkened back a century were part of keeping baseball's lineage alive at a time when Astroturf and drugs were changing the game for the worse.
Ah Astroturf. Boswell was writing during the heyday of plastic fields and giant bowl stadiums that also were used for football. It was a time when the styles of play differed way more than they do now, as teams experimented with what worked best in which environment. Teams like the Cardinals and Royals developed speedy, defense-first teams that bedeviled sluggers like the Brewers, O's and Dodgers when they came to town. But the small-ball approach couldn't usually withstand power in the game's final showdowns, a fact that Bill James noticed in some of his earliest findings. And, yes, wonderfully Bill James is referenced a couple of times in this book. Boswell, who fancied himself a statistics guy, clearly recognized that James and others were advancing to another level of analysis, and he credits them with starting to uncover things we take for granted now, like that players are at their peak around age 27 (not early 30s as was assumed at the time), that Fenway Park is great for left-handed hitters (plop a weak fly off the wall in left), and that Houston's and St. Louis's pitching staff greatness was a much a product of the park and defense as the quality of the hurlers.
If you remember baseball in the '80s, you can relive Mark Fidrych's failed comeback, Fernando Valenzuela's electrifying rookie season, and how Tom Seaver and Jim Palmer wrung out the last greatness of their careers. You can recall spicy Earl Weaver and the early greatness of Whitey Herzog. You can remember turf hits bouncing over fielders' heads. You can hear how Mike Schmidt went from being really good but flawed to an all-time great, and how Robin Yount just missed reaching the highest of hallowed levels. And you can remember the astounding salaries of $500,000/year granted to the game's best players. It wasn't an innocent time, but it was slower and, perhaps, more gentlemanly than it is today. Certainly the world the players lived in was smaller and more all-baseball than the social media swirl of today. And Boswell captures all of this from both a fan's perspective and a player/coach view, too.
A few highlights for me. The chapter on the Orioles teams of the time was great. Boswell runs through the team's clubhouse, giving paragraph-length sketches of each of the players and how he fits into perhaps the most cohesive team of the era. I remember those O's teams well -- Palmer, Bumbry, Lowenstein, Murray, Sakata, and manager Earl Weaver -- and it's great to hear their backstories and their banter. And to understand that they really did approach the game differently than their opponents. The fact that the Oriole Way worked so well makes it astonishing that it wasn't copied wholesale. Nowadays when a sports team has success, its strategies are disseminated and copied immediately, but I guess not in those less cutthroat times.
Boswell goes back to the O's time and again in this book because he did most of his daily baseball reporting for The Washington Post, and the O's were the local team at the time. So there's a chapter on the Ripken family that is pretty good. There's a lot about how fiery and angry Cal Sr. was, and clearly that's why he didn't get a manager until he was nearly 50 and then barely lasted a season. One of the great things in this book is that it's a moment in time, and some offhand comments take on an immortality because of what happened later. One of these is Cal Ripken Jr., who had completed two seasons by then (great seasons), remarked that he'd like to play every inning of every game for 20 years. He nearly did that -- and who could have imagined he'd break Lou Gehrig's consecutive game streak at the time, except that clearly he had the mentality that enabled him to do it?
Another inadvertent look into the future is in a diatribe Boswell wrote after the 1981 American League playoffs, when the surprise A's lost to the Yankees in 3 straight games. The A's had bullied their way to the West Division title, and Boswell writes with scorn about their style of play promoted by Billy Martin, the tyrannic manager. And then he complains that the A's are "stylin'" at the plate to waste time and knock pitchers out of rhythm. He claims one at-bat took 8 minutes, and he notes that the A's averaged an ungodly 2 hours, 55 minutes per game. This was 25 or so minutes more than any other team. Ironic, given that game lengths crept up in the 2000s to the point that the major leagues instituted a series of rules before the 2023 season to try to get things under control and down under 3 hours again.
I like how much Boswell likes every aspect of the game and that he seeks out players who feel the same way. He writes of the joy players have in just playing catch, and he likens it to the wonder each of us feels as a kid when we stick our glove out for a throw from our dad, and the ball is stuck in there. Boswell finds joy in the obsessions players have over their bats, batting style, grip on a pitch, and so on --- all the insider things that make this an art, not just a sport.
Even when a player turns out to be reprehensible as a person, such as Pete Rose or Gaylord Perry, Boswell reminds us of an inner grace that they have. About Rose, who's become a caricature over the decades of his exile from baseball, Boswell writes of his selflessness to switch to third base in the middle of his career to help the Reds get great hitters in the outfield. With Rose at third, the Big Red Machin of 1975-76 was one of the greatest teams ever. Few players would have taken that chance on such a high-profile move, but Rose did everything right on the field. Perry, a first-class jerk, nonetheless was grateful for every minute he had in the game. His dignified views on how to play the game that hearkened back a century were part of keeping baseball's lineage alive at a time when Astroturf and drugs were changing the game for the worse.
Ah Astroturf. Boswell was writing during the heyday of plastic fields and giant bowl stadiums that also were used for football. It was a time when the styles of play differed way more than they do now, as teams experimented with what worked best in which environment. Teams like the Cardinals and Royals developed speedy, defense-first teams that bedeviled sluggers like the Brewers, O's and Dodgers when they came to town. But the small-ball approach couldn't usually withstand power in the game's final showdowns, a fact that Bill James noticed in some of his earliest findings. And, yes, wonderfully Bill James is referenced a couple of times in this book. Boswell, who fancied himself a statistics guy, clearly recognized that James and others were advancing to another level of analysis, and he credits them with starting to uncover things we take for granted now, like that players are at their peak around age 27 (not early 30s as was assumed at the time), that Fenway Park is great for left-handed hitters (plop a weak fly off the wall in left), and that Houston's and St. Louis's pitching staff greatness was a much a product of the park and defense as the quality of the hurlers.
If you remember baseball in the '80s, you can relive Mark Fidrych's failed comeback, Fernando Valenzuela's electrifying rookie season, and how Tom Seaver and Jim Palmer wrung out the last greatness of their careers. You can recall spicy Earl Weaver and the early greatness of Whitey Herzog. You can remember turf hits bouncing over fielders' heads. You can hear how Mike Schmidt went from being really good but flawed to an all-time great, and how Robin Yount just missed reaching the highest of hallowed levels. And you can remember the astounding salaries of $500,000/year granted to the game's best players. It wasn't an innocent time, but it was slower and, perhaps, more gentlemanly than it is today. Certainly the world the players lived in was smaller and more all-baseball than the social media swirl of today. And Boswell captures all of this from both a fan's perspective and a player/coach view, too.
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November 12, 2008My most favorite book of all time. One of my greatest loves is baseball, and reading this book can explain why. It's written with detail, wisdom, and a true understanding of why the great game is so much more than a sport. The author is perceptive and insightful and tell wonderful stories that even non-sports fans can relate to.
July 5, 2010
An underrated baseball writer, damn near as good as Angell. Baseball fans should read him.
July 7, 2020
When I started into baseball reading in the early 90s, I discovered Thomas Boswell and he became my favorite baseball writer. He is literate, thoughtful, and passionate about the sport. This collection of articles and chapters written specifically for the book is from the mid-80s, and as such some of the chapters are a bit dated. And being a writer for the Washington Post, his subjects tend to skew more towards the Baltimore Orioles. But there are a number of chapters that are universal and timeless, like his examination of major-league managers through history as falling into four personality types. Reading his chapter on players from the 80s who could become the greatest of all time at their positions is interesting in hindsight. My favorite chapter is the one on Cal Ripken and his family, written after Cal's second year in the league, where he is quoted as saying that he would like to play every inning of every game for the next 15 years! Which he pretty much ended up doing. (the context was a discussion of the Ripken work ethic and approach to baseball and life in general) This is writing that is a cut above most sports prose. Very worthwhile read.
April 23, 2021
I don’t know why Tom Boswell’s name is seldom mentioned with others in the Pantheon of Baseball writers . He gets Baseball and essence of its character and charm . If I don’t reread this book every few years I feel I’ve done himself, and the game I love, a disservice . If everyone has any doubts about Tom’s insights, start reading the last chapter first . Like having a brilliant professor, he unlocks secrets that you saw for years in plain sight but rarely acknowledged. This book is one of my all time favorites . The book and the author are both keepers !
May 2, 2020
I always like to read baseball books in the spring and it seemed appropriate to reread this one since no one seems to have any idea when opening day will be this year. When I was stationed in DC in the early 1990’s, Tony Kornheiser, Michael Wilborn and Thomas Boswell all wrote for the Washington Post sports sections. It was a great time to be a hardcore sports fan. Needless to say, if you love baseball, you will enjoy this book.
May 22, 2017
One of the greatest books ever written about our national pastime.
December 16, 2017
One of the great baseball books.
April 17, 2020
If you love baseball, you are welcome :-) Wonderful essays from the 1980s, by Tom Boswell.
September 20, 2022
Loved this book 35 years ago, love it now.
September 4, 2014
People who know me realize that while I’m open to watching other sports, baseball has been, is, and always will be my first love. Various reasons exist for this, not the least of which is the abundance of quality literature centered around the diamond game. Examples include, but are certainly not limited to: Ball Four, Bill Veeck, Pennant Race, Crazy ’08, Satchel and various other biographies, and doesn’t even get into sabermetric-inclined books such as Bill James’ Abstracts.
When I saw Why Time Begins On Opening Day available on the cheap, I grabbed it, thinking it might be a bunch of essays defending baseball against other pretenders (ahem, football). While Boswell’s writing is good, it serves more as a snapshot to the state of the game in the 1981-1983 era. Nothing wrong with that, in the sense that the effort illuminates that some aspects of the game haven’t changed (i.e. the perception that the game is on the decline, old players complaining about the wimpyness of the modern sport, and a disturbing Jeter-like obsession with the Ripken family – to be fair, Boswell did write for one of the area’s papers, so that bias isn’t altogether unexpected). While it was a quick and basically enjoyable read, it left this reader lacking. Worth the $1 I spent on it, but not much more.
When I saw Why Time Begins On Opening Day available on the cheap, I grabbed it, thinking it might be a bunch of essays defending baseball against other pretenders (ahem, football). While Boswell’s writing is good, it serves more as a snapshot to the state of the game in the 1981-1983 era. Nothing wrong with that, in the sense that the effort illuminates that some aspects of the game haven’t changed (i.e. the perception that the game is on the decline, old players complaining about the wimpyness of the modern sport, and a disturbing Jeter-like obsession with the Ripken family – to be fair, Boswell did write for one of the area’s papers, so that bias isn’t altogether unexpected). While it was a quick and basically enjoyable read, it left this reader lacking. Worth the $1 I spent on it, but not much more.
March 30, 2013
Coming back to Boswell, who I read when he began publishing his collections, was a quiet pleasure. Published in 1985, Why Time Begins on Opening Day was written amidst the fairly ugly era of the early 1980s--the 1981 split season remains one of the lowest low points of major league history. Through it all, Boswell maintained a firm sense that baseball would survive itself, a lesson that's been repeated with the steroid era. The keys are his appreciation for the ways in which the continuity of the game is always being reshaped by new thinkers who appreciate the continuity--Whitey Herzog's the exemplar here--and his ability craft portraits of the players and managers that capture their complexity--Jim Palmer, Earl Weaver, the Ripkens.
Loved the essay on "The Greatest of All Time," which suggests that Mike Schmidt and Robin Yount (then just a shortstop) might wind up as the greatest ever to play their positions and thinking through the criteria. (I'd say Schmidt made it, Yount didn't quite.) Other favorite essays include his reflections on managerial "types"--he sees four (the Fearless Leader, the Little Napoleon, the Tall Tactician, and the Eccentric Uncle)--on catchers, pinch hitters, and defense.
Loved the essay on "The Greatest of All Time," which suggests that Mike Schmidt and Robin Yount (then just a shortstop) might wind up as the greatest ever to play their positions and thinking through the criteria. (I'd say Schmidt made it, Yount didn't quite.) Other favorite essays include his reflections on managerial "types"--he sees four (the Fearless Leader, the Little Napoleon, the Tall Tactician, and the Eccentric Uncle)--on catchers, pinch hitters, and defense.
July 26, 2013
This is a book of its era, for sure (the early 80's to be exact), but it remains timeless. It is a baseball book, obviously, but it is also a philosophical treatise. It is "just" a sports book, yet it is poetry all the same.
Baseball fans of all ages will enjoy this book as a love letter to their favorite sport. Since it came from my childhood, I smiled at every obscure name I could now look up on baseball-reference.com, but even if you've never heard of Earl Weaver, if you have an affinity for the game you will appreciate Boswell's adulation of the national pastime.
It provides both the long view of the overall, uppercase, Game, as well as the raw, in-the-dugout view of the dirty details of "the game." It will give you a feeling of what baseball looks and feels like from the perspective of everyone from a twenty year major leaguer to a career minor league journeyman, from a fan of fifty years to an unappreciated umpire.
If you love the game, you will love this book. If you read this book, you will love the game. One of my all-time favorites for ANY genre of book, and may be the greatest sports book ever written. A true classic.
Baseball fans of all ages will enjoy this book as a love letter to their favorite sport. Since it came from my childhood, I smiled at every obscure name I could now look up on baseball-reference.com, but even if you've never heard of Earl Weaver, if you have an affinity for the game you will appreciate Boswell's adulation of the national pastime.
It provides both the long view of the overall, uppercase, Game, as well as the raw, in-the-dugout view of the dirty details of "the game." It will give you a feeling of what baseball looks and feels like from the perspective of everyone from a twenty year major leaguer to a career minor league journeyman, from a fan of fifty years to an unappreciated umpire.
If you love the game, you will love this book. If you read this book, you will love the game. One of my all-time favorites for ANY genre of book, and may be the greatest sports book ever written. A true classic.
April 1, 2013
Now that I am a participating member of the goodreads community, I can share with my fellow reviewers, one of my annual rights of Spring – dusting off my copy of Tom Boswell’s “Why Time Begins on Opening Day”, and recommending it for its depth of knowledge and insight into my favorite sport to both watch and participate in.
Published in 1984, this book will appeal to baseball fans, as it contributes to further linking generations that this game does so well. As he was a beat writer for The Washington Post covering The Baltimore Orioles when this book was published, Boswell refers to their then colorful manager, the late-Earl Weaver. Hall of Famers, Jim Palmer and Cal Ripken also find their way into Boswell’s insight and reflection on the game. Charlie Lau, considered by many of that time period to be the hitting coach du jour, is also chronicled.
Boswell provides a historically accurate account of the game in his series of essays that comprise this enjoyable read. His stories include particularized knowledge and a unique perspective that gives his writing a flavor appealing to the baseball fan’s palate. No serious baseball library should be without this book.
Published in 1984, this book will appeal to baseball fans, as it contributes to further linking generations that this game does so well. As he was a beat writer for The Washington Post covering The Baltimore Orioles when this book was published, Boswell refers to their then colorful manager, the late-Earl Weaver. Hall of Famers, Jim Palmer and Cal Ripken also find their way into Boswell’s insight and reflection on the game. Charlie Lau, considered by many of that time period to be the hitting coach du jour, is also chronicled.
Boswell provides a historically accurate account of the game in his series of essays that comprise this enjoyable read. His stories include particularized knowledge and a unique perspective that gives his writing a flavor appealing to the baseball fan’s palate. No serious baseball library should be without this book.
August 18, 2020
In the early 80's, the double-play combo of Thomas Boswell and Roger Angell ( the all "ll" team?) rescued baseball writing from the maudlin maw of the sports page hack and elevated it to legitimate literary genre. Practical-philosophical those two were, obsessively unlocking the most elusive parts of the game while lauding its metaphoric value. What distinguished Boswell from his patrician counterpart, however - as this, Boswell's second collection, affirms -was his love of community, from the fraternity of fandom to the bonhomie of the ballplayers (largely his beloved Orioles, then one of the most colorful and quotable units in the game).
February 22, 2016
I can't find the link but when I was looking for best books of 2015 this one came listed as a best books people someone had read in 2015. Anyway I brought it and was happily surprised by good the writing is in fact. You don't have to be a baseball fan to read this book but it helps to be old enough for the names Pete Rose or Reggie Jackson to mean anything and so it's like a time machine back to the 70s and 80s where things weren't so complicated, including baseball.
October 23, 2014
I enjoyed (as always) learning about the game of baseball. Wish they'd write one like this about players now. I didn't have a baseball consciousness until 2003, and though I remember the Jockey ads with Jim Palmer, I don't know those 1970s and 80s players like I do the guys now.
December 31, 2014
An excellent collection of short articles about baseball in the late 1970's and early 1980's. Boswell understands baseball very well and why the game has such a pull on us fans. Boswell is also perceptive about the managers and players he covers. His interview with Jim Palmer is a great piece.
February 23, 2010
A nice collection of stories about baseball in the late 70's/early 80's.
January 3, 2013
Tom Boswell is my favorite baseball writer.
November 29, 2014
A seminal book in the genre...
January 2, 2019
These essays are a lovely read if you’re a baseball fan.
June 7, 2019
Wonderful writing, joyful reading. Even you have no interest or knowledge of baseball still a terrific set of essays. Art!!!
December 23, 2020
Beautiful and at times lyrical
September 11, 2008
A great read--laughing and moving in a way that only baseball can deliver.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews