Bunts

In thisNew York Timesbestseller, Pulitzer Prize-winning author George F. Will returns to baseball with more than seventy finely honed pieces about the sometimes recondite, sometimes frustrating, yet always passionately felt national pastime. Here are Will's eulogy for the late Curt Flood ("Dred Scott in Spikes"), Will on Ted Williams ("When Ted Williams retired in 1960, a sportswriter said that Boston knew how Britain felt when it lost India. Indeed, Britain felt diminished, but also a bit relieved"), and Will on his own baseball career ("I was a very late draft choice of the Mittendorf Funeral Home Panthers. Our color was black"). Here are subjects ranging from the author's 1977 purchase of a single share of stock in the Chicago Cubs to the memorable 1998 season, which is discussed in an all-new essay.For fans ofMen at Workand Will's other baseball writings, this book is as pleasurable as a well-executed bunt.

George F. Will is a syndicated columnist whose writings appear in more than 480 papers nationally. He writes a biweekly column for Newsweek and appears each Sunday on ABC's This Week with Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts. A winner of the Pulitzer Prize, he lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

Contents

Introduction

The Cubs and Conservatism
The Fan's Funny Sort of Seriousness
The Most Consoling Word: "Overdue"
Players Are Bought and Sold? Say It Ain't So.
Warren Buffett Misses a Gravy Train
The Chicago Water Beetles
Alexander Cartwright and the Joy of Baseball
The Case for I.T. (Ineptitude Transfer)
The 1980 Cubs' Strength: Candor
The Answer Is: Ronald Reagan. The Question Is: Who Is the Only Person to Have Held America's Two Most Difficult Jobs?
Baseball and Socialism
Baseball and Communism
The Earl
The Pythagoras of Winchester, Kansas
Ancient Greece Got It Right
Speaking Stengelese
Baseball in the Unmitigated City
Baseball by the (Elias) Book
The Answer Is Harry Chiti. The Question Is...
The Nation's Failings in the National Pastime
The Work of Louisville's Fathers
Ring Lardner, Call Your Office
La Plata's Cheerfulness Quotient
The DH: On the Other Hand...
Blue-Collar Government
The Fuse That Lit the Fire
Perhaps the Players Are Livelier
Systems Equilibrate, Really.
Skill, and "Mere" Will
"The Moment's Over"
Let There Be Lights
Good Character, Not Good Chemistry
A Mosaic of Memories
Play Bail!
Revenge of the Ectomorphs
Pete Rose's Chromosomes
Living on the Lip of a Volcano
Pete Rose and His Friends
A Professional Catcher
The 1990 Lockout: No Hits, Many Errors
The Prodigy
George Steinbrenner: An Acquired Taste
Baseball Lit. 101
Blame Burt Wilson
George Will's Baseball: A Conservative Critique by Donald Kagan
The Romantic Fallacy in Baseball -- A Reply to Donald Kagan
Chicago Baseball: "Never a Lovely So Real"
Baseball Along the Backroads
"I Can't Stand It, I'm So Good"
The Season of '41
The Collision Between Bart and Pete
Marvin Miller: Sore Winner
Local Ownership and Other Traditions
Love at Camden Yards
The Lurid Monotony of Billy Martin
Steve Palermo's Game of Inches
Baseball's Basic Dilemma
Fifties Baseball: Not Long on Nuance
Andy Van Slyke and the Present Monetary Status of Baseball
Bill Rigney: Baseball's Favorite Uncle
Coming Back to Clark and Addison
John Olerud: Not Neon
A Stupendous Mystery
Tony Gwynn, Union Man
The 14 Million, and the 276 Million
Babe Ruth, Replacement Player
The Strike: A Postmortem
A Grown-Up
Brett Butler, Human Bunt
The Infield Fly Rule and the Absence of Chivalry
A Splash of History as a Cure for Nostalgia
Hard Feelings Along the Lower Hudson River
Explaining the Power Surge: Up from Oliver Stone
Dred Scott in Spikes
Leyland in Teal
Alomar in Context
The Argument Against Democracy
Fans to Owners: "Down in Front"
Purists vs. Impurists
"Them Are the Bases"
Miller Time

Conclusion
1998: OK, Try to Top This
Acknowledgments
Index
Art Credits and Text Permissions

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Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials