Kevin Kerrane

I 'came back to' baseball as a fan last year (2024 as of this small review) and, true to my own peculiar form, have been devouring baseball books ever since. This is one of the best I've read. Like Ritter's The Glory of Their Times, Kerrane's wonderful book has all the saltiness and force you could ever want.

I'm serious. I have no idea whether baseball scouting today bears any resemblance to the thing described here ... but hot damn, what a description this is! The 'baseball men' in this show more book, whom Kerrane is wise enough to let speak for themselves at length, leap off the pages, pour you a scotch, and regale you with story after story.

There's also a lot of thought herein: is baseball scouting an art or a science? Should it be more one than the other? What makes a great player? Can you see it in a kid who isn't great, or even very good, yet? And how does that work?

Sterling stuff. show less

The Art of Fact lives up to its billing as literary journalism;
unfortunately, it is also pretty depressing.

Not that the reporting isn't often impressive; it's the selection of content that can weigh readers down,
getting us off to a rip roaring start with a hanging and moving into Dickens totally without redemption...

it would have been welcome if Whitman had led off the collection. It's one to end wars forever.

"Bronx Slave market" was brutally honest.

"Armies of the Night" offered Mailer's show more self-absorbed and humorless tedium.

It works as an uneven collection from the opening horror and onto more boring tedium (Tom Wolfe) and into brilliant (John McPhee).

"Juke Joint" was the most readable and Hershey's HIROSHIMA the most powerful.

Wars and violence and more cruelty than can be imagined -
is this the best that humans can come up with after climbing down the trees and crossing the savannas?

It was also surprising not to see Mary McGrory's evocative JFK writing
alongside Jimmy Breslin's lighter "It's an Honor." show less

I loved this book, especially the reporting of the 1981 Phillies draft - and the new afterwards with a listing of all the players discussed. The old-time scouts racial profiling was disappointing if not unexpected. Highly recommended for any baseball fan.

Kerrane's book remains among the very finest of all books about baseball.