Review by Booklist Review
This is not the book Roger Angell intended to write last year: "Instead of an inside look at a wizardly old master at his late last best, this was going to be Merlin falling headlong down the palace stairs." It is, however, a brilliant book about baseball and about pitching. In the year 2000, Angell followed David Cone, met his family and friends, visited his childhood haunts. He loops around from the present--the 2000 season--to Cone's long history (Cone was 20^-7 in 1998, 10 years after his 20^-3 record for the Mets) to brief vignettes of Cone as a kid, as a son, as a spouse. These illuminating glimpses of the intense and private Cone we saw on the mound, and Angell's analysis of how Cone thinks about pitching, are riveting. Nothing can really explain last season: the Yankees working through injuries and a dying-fall September; Cone struggling all season as we watched in horror; the Yankees winning the Subway Series in glory despite it all. Angell, perhaps the best baseball writer of our time and one of the best writers period, uses every tool at his command to tell Cone's story: it is beautifully constructed, carefully thought out, and elegantly composed. Sobering and enlightening and funny and real, Angell's account makes us understand why Cone went to Boston, and we hope that will work for him. --GraceAnne A. DeCandido
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This is not the book that master baseball chronicler Angell set out to write, the author acknowledges midway through what is essentially a biography of the well-traveled Cone. Angell had planned an "inside look at a wizardly old master at his late last best," but instead found a "Merlin falling headlong down the palace stairs." Neither Cone nor Angell could have foreseen that after the Yankee pitcher gave Angell full access to him during the 2000 baseball season, Cone would have the worst year of his career, finishing with a 4-14 won-lost record. Although Angell's focal point is Cone's last year with the Yankees, he covers all of Cone's life and career, tracking his baseball journey from his days as a star athlete in Kansas City to his stops with the Mets, Blue Jays, Royals and Yankees. Cone had success with each team he played for, including being one of the core players and unofficial team spokesman for the 1996-2000 Yankees with whom Cone won four World Series. Angell (The Summer Game) not only details Cone's highs and lows on and off the playing field, but does a superb job in recording Cone's anxieties and frustrations as the two men move through the disappointing 2000 season. The combination of Angell's love and knowledge of baseball and his truly fascinating subjects makes for another win in Angell's long list of hits about the American pastime. (On-sale: May 2) Forecast: Given the Yankees' recent dominance, this book will attract a lot of fans despite Cone's disappointing last season and his off-seasonn move to the Red Sox. In addition to radio spots in New York and a TV satellite tour to 25 other markets, fans of America's team of the century will call this book a keeper, not only because of Cone but also because of Angell's deservedly high reputation as a sportswriter. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Cone has won 184 regular season games pitching for the Royals, Mets, Blue Jays, and Yankees, with a perfect game, a Cy Young Award, and other honors over a 16-year career. Angell, author of the classic The Summer Game and other baseball books, blends a diary form account of Cone's sadly frustrating 2000 season with a look back at his earlier years. The New Yorker writer and editor mixes a sympathetic narrative of the pitcher's struggles last summer and his 2001 move to the Yankees' rival Boston Red Sox with a tribute to his rise from young playboy to elder baseball statesman. Angell's graceful prose and baseball savvy should win this a place in most sports collections. Morey Berger, St. Joseph's Hosp. Lib., Tuscon, AZ (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A look at the life, last Yankee season, and psyche of an elder statesman of the pitching rubber. Ever since Cone joined the New York Mets in 1987, he has been one of the most interesting, frustrating, and formidable pitchers in either league. He helped the Mets rumble to a divisional title in 1988, only to collapse against the Dodgers in the league championship series. Tarred with a reputation for hard living and dangerous high jinks, Cone was traded away from the Mets in 1992and landed with the Yankees in 1995. His dramatic Bronx career included a wrenching loss to the Mariners in the first round of the playoffs, seven no-hit innings and a World Seriessaving win against the Braves in 1996, and a perfect game against the Montreal Expos in 1999. New Yorker baseball writer Angell chronicles Cones career in the context of his gut-wrenching, heartbreaking 2000 season, his last with the Yankees. Interspersed with the story of his increasing frustration over what would become a 414 record and the Yankees own lackadaisical slide into the playoffs are chapters on his Kansas City childhood and his domineering father Ed, his early career in the Kansas City Royals farm system, his bittersweet Mets years, his return to New York as a Yankee, his work as a players union representative, and his decision this year to go to spring training with the Boston Red Sox. Throughout, Angell provides insight into the psychology of pitchers and the mechanics of the slider, the wild escapades of young ballplayers on their own for the first time, the ambivalent feelings of the rich sons of working-class fathers, and the void left by the loss (at an age when most people are only hitting their stride) of the skills of a championand, finally, of the game itself. Written with Angells usual economy and intelligence, and with a tact that matches its subjects reticence, this look at an unusual baseball life will appeal to all students of the gameeven those who have little use for the Yankees. TV satellite tour
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
