Baseball

Baseball
by Geoffrey C. Ward

Geoffrey C. Ward

› Visit Amazon's Geoffrey C. Ward Page

Find all the books, read about the author, and more.

See search results for this author

Are you an author? Learn about Author Central

, Ken Burns
(194)

Buy new: $35.00 $26.60
23 used & new from $18.16

(Visit the Bestsellers in Sports & Outdoors list for authoritative information on this product's current rank.)

Baseball is indeed a mirror of American life, and Ward and Burns show how well America's story is told through baseball. Their book is the companion to a nine-part PBS television documentary scheduled to begin on September 18. In format and approach it resembles the authors' previous best seller, The Civil War (LJ 9/1/90). Each chapter, or "inning," proceeds chronologically with a dominant theme and dramatis personae. The profusion of striking illustrations add an extra dimension to each chapter. Another nice feature is the interlaced essays by such fine writers as Roger Angell, Robert Creamer, and Thomas Boswell on the hold that baseball has on ordinary people. The narrative gains force and momentum in sections examining the injustice of segregation and the forgotten heroes of the Negro leagues. Because the book is based on a documentary filmscript, the narrative sometimes seems a bit episodic, jumping from scene to scene and story to story. Overall, however, this rich and suggestive history is one of the finest books produced on baseball. Highly recommended.
--Paul Kaplan, Lake Villa Dist. Lib., Ill.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Baseball comes to PBS? Don't worry, all you public-broadcasting snobs. It's not as bad as it sounds. Your local PBS affiliate hasn't outbid the major networks for the Game of the Week. Instead, Ken Burns, whose Civil War documentary won more than 40 film and television awards, has turned from Bull Run to Bull Durham, producing a new, nine-part video on baseball that will air in the fall. Published in conjunction with the PBS program, this lavishly produced, gorgeously illustrated history of the game rises far above the often dreary companion volume genre. Coauthored by Burns and Geoffrey Ward, the book devotes its nine chapters (or innings, as they're called) to a decade-by-decade survey of the evolution of baseball. Complementing the historical material are more than 500 photos, some in color, and several impressionistic essays by various luminaries including Thomas Boswell and George Will. Perhaps surprisingly, the essays are the only weak link. Yes, baseball inspires us all to flights of rhetorical fancy, but isn't it time to call a moratorium on this sort of thing: America is about hope and renewal. And gloriously, so is baseball, pulsing with the mystery of the seasons and life itself. Thanks for sharing that, John Thorn, but the pictures and the unadorned facts presented here say it far more eloquently. Baseball doesn't need purple prose; the game's faces, names, dates, and numbers carry their own poetry, and Ward and Burns, unlike some of the essayists, wisely avoid the temptation to wax lyrical. Fans will find plenty to quibble about in these pages (too much Mantle; not enough Mays), but with the exception of The Baseball Encyclopedia, there is no better one-volume history of the sport. Bill Ott --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

. Read more

Find the best price Click Here