Two sweet Cheater’s Guide reviews
DMZ · April 1, 2007 at 9:51 am · Filed Under Book reviews, Off-topic ranting
A nice recommendation in the Detroit News and a really positive review in the Chicago Sun-Times. Now I can tell you to order the critically-acclaimed (and Jim Bouton… uh, what would you call that, baffling?) Cheater’s Guide to Baseball. Hee hee hee.
Opening Day post coming.
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9 Responses to “Two sweet Cheater’s Guide reviews”
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It’s a good book. Be proud.
Very nice. I’ve just started reading it, and will post a review on Rain Delay when I finish it. I’ll also review it on Amazon, it’s good stuff.
DMZ,
As a whole, I loved the book. Very witty, extremely detailed, and very informative (I especially liked reading about Billy Martin, the Black Sox scandal, and Barry Bonds’ possible cycles). The amount of research you must have put into this book is tremendous, and I thank you for that. However, there are a few weaker points that I wanted to mention (because every book can’t be perfect).
I think the book would play better as a collection of stories/capsules as opposed to trying to prove a point about cheating, as (in my opinion) the introduction and closing of the book are the two weakest parts. It’s almost as if you knew you needed at least a 5 page introduction and then had to stretch out the thoughts you had to fill the space.
The closing of the book basically rehashes the introduction and provides no new conclusions about what we just read. Again, to me it felt like you knew that you needed a conclusion and then worked one in there.
There are other comments that I have, but nothing major (ex. you define “Baltimore Chop” in 2 consecutive passages in the beginning….I actually never knew where this came from!).
Another reason that I may have not liked these parts that much is because it was pretty straight-forward writing, not the DMZ writing I love (i.e. I was waiting for zingers that never came in these parts).
Overall, like I said, I enjoyed the book and I will be recommending it to my friends (mentioning that the book as a whole gets a lot better than the introduction). Nice work….can’t wait for the next one!
Well, I don’t know what to tell you at this point – it is what it is, and if it makes you feel any better, trying to put a good structure around the topic and organization was something everyone involved in the book argued about from its inception. I am glad you liked what you liked.
So, did the Pierzynski reference get corrected in the final printing?
As an FYI, I live in Maryland and the Barnes and Noble near my house had four copies of the book prominently displayed at the Baseball Showcase table.
So it’s truly a coast-to-coast phenomenon!
Barnes and Noble at the Mall of America, as well as at Eden Prairie Town Center in the Twin Cities are both sold out of the copies they initially ordered as of this afternoon.
DMZ, congrats on the book! I see that the endorsements are causing the sales rank to rise at Amazon…up to #835 at my last check (up from around 8000 last time I looked before that). Really great, am enjoying mine already…
DMZ, thought you might like to know that my dad (who bought me a copy of Ball Four) laughed a lot about your Billy Martin “All-Star” team, laughed off the bit of the Bouton review I related and then said: “Some baseball people would include Jim Bouton on the Billy Martin team.”
So Dad will be getting your book as his father’s day present because now I know he’ll enjoy it immensely.