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For one thing, he's a journalist - worse yet, a sports journalist. That means that he talks more and knows less about the world - especially the world of sports - than anyone else.
As if that weren't bad enough, he writes for the Los Angeles Times, the worst newspaper in the country. Actually, it's tied with about 1500 other newspapers for that honor.
And there are holes in this story. Some of them are fairly minor. I've only been a baseball fan for about 35 years or so, but I was under the impression that if first base is empty and a batter is hit by a pitch, the ball is dead and the runner on second base doesn't go to third.
David Ferrell sees other things that I haven't seen in my 35 years of following the game. He sees a professional sport dominated by career criminals and anti-social elements. He might be confusing baseball with boxing. Baseball does have its share of ne'er-do-wells, and if self-centeredness was a capital crime, the feds would have used the Organized Crime and Racketeering Act to shut down the game long ago. But it's hardly populated by prison inmates.
To be honest, his book is at least partially meant as a satire, and it may be that Ferrell meant to satirize the occasional baseball felon by creating a world filled with them. Ferrell himself may not be sure whether he meant to write a serious work or a dark comedy. The team in this novel, the Boston Red Sox, of course, is genuine baseball team, and the Sox's opponents are genuine baseball teams. The names of players on the Sox and their opponents are a mixture of fact and fiction.
But I doubt that we're supposed to take seriously a parent corporation known as "Amalgamated Ball Cocks, the world's largest producer of toilet valves, floats and rubberized accessories".
The premise in this book is simple: Despite several very close calls, the Boston Red Sox have not won a World Series in the memory of any living person and are widely regarded as a team cursed by destiny with the inability to ever win one. Giants fans can relate to this frustration very well, but then again so can Cubs fans, White Sox fans, Indians fans, etc.
In the book, the Red Sox have put together a team that, in spite of a complete absence of chemistry (the 1919 White Sox were a fraternal brotherhood, by comparison), has the chance to win the gold ring and end that curse - but a rash of serial murders connected with the team threatens to blow away their championship dreams.
This story is largely about a corrupt front office that seeks to obstruct and even mislead justice in order to win a baseball championship, but I found the notion interesting as a personal challenge, rather than as an attack on corporate malfeasance. The book made me look into my soul to find out how far I would go to bring the Giants a world championship if such a thing were possible on planet Earth and if I had such power. I was startled by what I found.
"Screwball" is an attack on a baseball world that doesn't really exist, in spite of the kudos given on the back cover by would-be renegades such as Jim Bouton. Ferrell imagines an ultra-competitive world of sports where winning is everything and subsumes all considerations, moral and otherwise.
But anyone who really believes this has never witnessed any of the numerous occasions where an overpriced superstar received considerably more playing time than a minimum-wage youngster with superior ability. Baseball history is also replete with occasions where management tried to force a successful player with an unorthodox style into conforming with a textbook form that didn't suit him.
And there was a time when major league owners, spending ungodly sums of money on "name" players, were insanely trying to appear penny-wise by reducing their rosters from 25 to 24 - often depriving themselves of talented low-cost substitutes who can often make a difference in a close pennant race.
Winning ISN'T necessarily a priority in baseball; it often takes a back seat to other factors such as egotism, corporate arrogance, budgetary constraints (real and contrived), and, of course, political correctness. Ferrell is wrong to distort and oversimplify the picture by suggesting otherwise.
He should know better because journalists like him, who never would have dared to physically confront John Rocker, an immensely talented pitcher, destroyed Rocker's career for a few intemperate and politically-incorrect public remarks of the nature that most people would chuckle at in private - and perhaps even echo.
The idea that a talented baseball player could be protected from accountability for serial murder - when his livelihood can be endangered for complaining about spiked hair on New York subways - is sheer whimsy.
But for all of its faults, "Screwball" is a very readable story, with a rip-roaring climax that will provide more than enough thrills for any baseball fan or crime novel aficionado.
And Ferrell also gets grand-slam credit for his creation of the awesome and surrealistic Ron Kane: a 110 mile-per hour fastball (!!!!) packed into six feet four inches of impervious and supremely masculine athleticism and ultra-charismatic menace: a combination of Richard III, The Major (from Stephen King's "The Long Walk"), and Sidd Finch.
I worship every foot of ground that Ron Kane walks on and pray that a merciful God will breathe life into David Ferrell's fictitious character and bring him to the Giants. I pray that a vengeful God will clone him, and put one in every neighborhood where a journalist resides. Where ANY pompous authority figure resides.
To borrow again from Stephen King - this time from "Cain Rose Up" - eat the world, Ron Kane! You gulp that sucker right down!
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I have great respect for these men in this book for they are our future. Chicago, my home, is a better please because of these talented men...Continue to speak with your mighty voices.
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To keep it shorter, there are fewer characters, and therefore the interaction between them is more frequent and intense. The Black Tulip is also a great glimpse into the world of flowers in Holland. Many have heard of the tulip frenzy. This book gives a glimpse of it and what it drove men to do.
Also, there is the forbidden romance between two that should really have no contact at all between themselves. Dumas weaves their tale, and their emotional stress in a very believable manner.
This is Dumas' most famous novel, and one of his shortest. At 200 or so pages it is a fast read full of intrigue and twists. If you like drama with historical footnotes interwoven, then you will enjoy this book.
EJ
-- The characters are incredibly believable and have developed personalities that are realistically complex.
-- The depiction of tragedy, justice, despair are noteworthy.
-- The story is rich and flows smoothly.
-- It's an interesting look at the past, especially the politics and the references to the tulip-craze of Europe some hundreds of years ago. Even though it has fictional elements it still feels like you're holding a slice of the past in your hand.
-- I've always hated romances, but the love in this story is carefully drawn with a subtle touch and depicted with realism. Genuinely entertaining.
-- It's depiction of the ways that popular opinion can be swayed and deceived by politics, nationalism, and patriotism is chilling.
-- It simultaneously shows us human nobility and human pettiness.
When I first picked up this book I didn't expect much. When I finished it I realized how much the impression it made lasts with me.
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Goines creates a vivid portrait of the lives of incarcerated men. He describes overcrowding, filthy conditions, violence, and other aspects of life behind bars. A major theme is the racially charged nature of prison life, with whites as an abused minority within the inmate population. Goines writes at graphic length about homosexual acts in prison; prison sex is always described in the most vile context.
Goines' writing is crisp, and the story moves along effectively. His characters are memorable and disturbing. Some of the social protest (starting with the hit-you-over-the-head title) seems a little forced. But this is definitely not a white-bashing book; there are a couple of sympathetic white characters, and in fact the most abusive and twisted characters are black! Overall, a fascinating look at a "community" (i.e. the inmate population) that most people will probably never experience directly. For another literary work that offers a gripping view of life in a racially mixed prison, try Miguel Pinero's great play "Short Eyes."
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I have no military background at all, let alone combat experience. But Poyer's account of this fictional small-unit mission, by a squad of Force Recon U.S. marines with a Navy missle expert and a biological warfare doctor, during the Persian Gulf War rings true on every page. The achievement is all the more remarkable because his previous novels about the U.S. Navy today have usually been focused on naval and naval air themes.
Poyer captures the strange intimacy of a Force Recon unit, whose members may not even be friends, yet they must be willing to die for each other. As the mission progresses, the squad finally enters Bagdad, and the sense of physical and emotional claustrophobia is almost palpable.
The reader can share in the extreme isolation of these combatants, the constant pressure to avoid detection, to avoid battle, the obsessional nature of the mission objective -- to discover if the Iraquis have created launchable missles armed with a deadly smallpox variant, and if so, to destroy them.
By under-writing the traditional action elements, Poyer lets the characters, with all their flaws and doubts and problems, emerge ever more clearly, and surely, as the focus of our attention. Against all odds, the squad moves toward its objective by all means possible. Over and over again, we're aware of how things both great and small hinge on the decision, the choice of single member of the squad.
Often that is the squad leader, Marine Gunnery Sargeant Marcus Gault. In Gault, Poyer has created a remarkable portrait of the nature of small-unit combat leadership: "Black Storm" could almost (again speaking as a civilian) be a primer on the subject. As the team leader, Gault is continually facing and making life and death decisions, each one measured against the merciless standard of the mission's success.
But Poyer doesn't cast Gault, or any of the characters, in traditionally "heroic" terms. In fact, the character of a sociopathic, if not psychotic, British SAS sergeant, with whom the Marines make contact inside Iraq, acts as a mirror of how the same military virtues Gault displays have the potential to become monstrous.
It is the very "ordinariness" of Gault and the others that is so compelling: young men, most of them, with terrifying responsibilities. And yet..."they soldier on."
In the end we, at least we civilians, are left facing the awe-full mystery of men and women willing to sacrifice their lives.
LTC Lenson's diaspora scrabbles across the rocky deserts of Iraq only to slosh trough the sewers of Bagdad. Poyer's warts-and-all portrait of personal and military ethics brings the combat experience into fine focus.
While BLACK STORM is set in the closing moments before the allied invasion of Iraq it is not a history lesson. BLACK STORM reads the tea leaves of tomorrows headlines. Read this book before some Hollywood hack neuters it for the screen.
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I am a white man who can choose to be indifferent towards his ethnic heritage. It is impossible to tell when I walk down the street whether my ancestors were originally from Russia, England, or Sweden. I am actually of German extraction, and this fact bores me to death. The German language and culture is meaningless to me, and I have absolutely no interest "in getting in touch with my roots." An Afro-American, however, does not have this option. Their blackness is inescapable and perhaps even suffocating. I recall Sidney Poitier's public criticism of journalists who constantly asked him questions pertaining to racial issues. Poitier had to remind these probably well meaning individuals that there were also many other facets of his life that were being ignored.
The very concept of a viable middle class black life is an oxymoron to many decent white Americans. Afro-Americans who garner most media attention are the very wealthy artists and athletes, and their opposites residing within the "permanent underclass" areas of our nation's impoverished ghettoes. Blacks either get their pictures on a Wheaties box, or a wanted poster---virtually nothing in between. David Dent has succeeded admirably well in depicting black Americans as varied socially, economically, and educationally as the rest of "main stream" America. I am glad that I read this book.
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This book has more than a few areas where it deals with its material in a way that is different from (and in some cases superior to) that of Mounce. The preposition section on particular is wonderful.
I highly recommend this text as a supplement to that of Mounce.
(P.S. Broadman and Holman's printing company did a terrible job in the binding of this book. Almost everyone I know who owns this book has had the pages separate from the binding within a few months. Be prepared to glue it back together!)
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The book details the stupidity of racism and what it has cost this nation. I especially enjoyed the text on President Thomas Jefferson and his intimate relationship with a black women Mary Hemmings. It's a shame that Jefferson did not take care of all the children he fathered and some of his black decendents today are still fighting for recognition. By today's standards, Jefferson would be considered a dead-beat dad. This book will shatter the clay foundation of traditional education and have you wondering why you were decieved, misinformed, and miseducated. Americal will never have a black President until the conspiracy to distort history is stopped. This book is a starting place for anyone interested in getting at the truth about blacks in America and this book is a starting place for whites to begin the search for their black relatives in their families. Until the search begins we will always remain a country of strangers enslaved by ignorance. America this bible verse is for you, You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. In this book, many interracial couples feel they are the ones who will be the best hope for Americas future because they have the best of both the black and white world.
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Garrow is also unafraid to discuss King's frailties, implicitly positing (and answering) the question: don't a persons public actions and deeds outweigh their private shortcomings? (yes)
This is not only the best book on King that exists, it may very well be the best book on the Southern Civil Rights Movement of the 60's that exists.
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On its return to base in Portsmouth Virginia Brigadier General Wild was relieved of command and the brigade disbanded.
From there the focus moves to the general manager, Neville Wulfmeyer, and the niece of the owner of the BoSox who are being blackmailed by the sender of the video.
This is where the book begins to go haywire. Wulfmeyer has no scruples. At one point he suggests they kill someone else to throw the police off the trail. In another instance, he kidnaps the manager's wife to avoid paying a bonus.
Certainly hyperbole is a tried and true method in satire, but Ferrell has about as much subtlety as a gangsta rapper. Kane throws the baseball 111 mph on a consistent basis. Every single member of the Red Sox is a ding-a-ling. One of them tosses a teargas cannister into a carload full of nuns. Another holds up a liquor store. About the only stabilizing influence is the manager, Augie "Big Fish" Sharkey. He's developing a king-sized ulcer, guzzling Pepto Bismol like water, but he tries to do the right thing, investigating the murders on his own. Ferrell does him an injustice in the end with a completely unrealistic resolution, the implication of which would destroy Major League Baseball if it were true.
Something else that bothered me throughout the book was an Honus Wagner snuff can Sharkey carries as a good luck piece (until it's stolen). One of the reasons Wagner's baseball cards are worth over a half million a piece is because he objected to his image being used to sell tobacco to children, a hypocritical stand to take if he actually chewed the stuff (which I doubt).