Pitchers are the heart of baseball, and John Feinstein tells the story of the game today through one season and two great pitchers working in the crucible of the New York media market. Tom Glavine and Mike Mussina have seen it all in the Major Leagues and both entered 2007 in search of individual milestones and one more shot at The World Series-Glavine with the Mets, Mussina five miles away with the Yankees. The two veterans experience very different seasons--one on a team dealing with the pressure to get to a World Series for the first time in seven years, the other with a team expected to be there every year. Taking the reader through contract negotiations, spring training, the ups of wins and losses, and the people in their lives-family, managers, pitching coaches, agents, catchers, other pitchers--John Feinstein provides a true insider's look at the pressure cooker of sports at the highest level.
From Booklist
Starred Review Emulating the format of the Kunhardts’ Lincoln: An Illustrated Biography (1992), this volume, with nearly 1,000 illustrations, depicts the 60 years of commemoration following Lincoln’s death in 1865. As explained by historian David Herbert Donald (Lincoln, 1995), little information that is now second nature in Lincoln biographies was publicly known in 1865; consequently, this fascinating work can be appreciated for its presentation of the revelations about Lincoln’s life. Pivotal to these pioneering efforts was the research and biographies by Lincoln’s law partner, William Herndon, and by his secretaries, John Nicolay and John Hay, who aspired to write definitive portraits. Their publishing efforts, and those of other Lincoln associates, interweave with the Kunhardts’ accounts of other forms assumed by Lincoln celebration, encompassing collections of artifacts, commissions of statues and monuments, birthday observances (culminating in the 1909 centennial), and, most important historically, the fate of his political legacy of preserving the Union and ending slavery. The last, with the failure of Reconstruction to achieve legal equality for blacks, supplies a dampening contrast to the otherwise exalting trajectory taken by Lincoln’s memorializers, the authors making a pointed comparison between a 1908 anti-black riot in Lincoln’s hometown and Springfieldians’ staging of a whites-only centennial banquet scant months later. An engrossing invitation to scrutinize its every page and image, the Kunhardts’ work is sure to be one of the most popular books in the bicentennial effusion of Lincoln volumes. --Gilbert Taylor
Review
"The main narrative...is compelling, but the true enjoyment of books like these are in the details, and Feinstein does not disappoint.... This smart season tour makes a treat for both casual and die-had fans." ---Publishers Weekly Starred Review
Description:
Pitchers are the heart of baseball, and John Feinstein tells the story of the game today through one season and two great pitchers working in the crucible of the New York media market. Tom Glavine and Mike Mussina have seen it all in the Major Leagues and both entered 2007 in search of individual milestones and one more shot at The World Series-Glavine with the Mets, Mussina five miles away with the Yankees. The two veterans experience very different seasons--one on a team dealing with the pressure to get to a World Series for the first time in seven years, the other with a team expected to be there every year. Taking the reader through contract negotiations, spring training, the ups of wins and losses, and the people in their lives-family, managers, pitching coaches, agents, catchers, other pitchers--John Feinstein provides a true insider's look at the pressure cooker of sports at the highest level.
From Booklist
Starred Review Emulating the format of the Kunhardts’ Lincoln: An Illustrated Biography (1992), this volume, with nearly 1,000 illustrations, depicts the 60 years of commemoration following Lincoln’s death in 1865. As explained by historian David Herbert Donald (Lincoln, 1995), little information that is now second nature in Lincoln biographies was publicly known in 1865; consequently, this fascinating work can be appreciated for its presentation of the revelations about Lincoln’s life. Pivotal to these pioneering efforts was the research and biographies by Lincoln’s law partner, William Herndon, and by his secretaries, John Nicolay and John Hay, who aspired to write definitive portraits. Their publishing efforts, and those of other Lincoln associates, interweave with the Kunhardts’ accounts of other forms assumed by Lincoln celebration, encompassing collections of artifacts, commissions of statues and monuments, birthday observances (culminating in the 1909 centennial), and, most important historically, the fate of his political legacy of preserving the Union and ending slavery. The last, with the failure of Reconstruction to achieve legal equality for blacks, supplies a dampening contrast to the otherwise exalting trajectory taken by Lincoln’s memorializers, the authors making a pointed comparison between a 1908 anti-black riot in Lincoln’s hometown and Springfieldians’ staging of a whites-only centennial banquet scant months later. An engrossing invitation to scrutinize its every page and image, the Kunhardts’ work is sure to be one of the most popular books in the bicentennial effusion of Lincoln volumes. --Gilbert Taylor
Review
"The main narrative...is compelling, but the true enjoyment of books like these are in the details, and Feinstein does not disappoint.... This smart season tour makes a treat for both casual and die-had fans." ---Publishers Weekly Starred Review