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Slouching Toward Fargo: A Two-Year Saga of Sinners and St. Paul Saints at the Bottom of the Bush Leagues with Bill Murray, Darryl Strawberry, Dakota Sadie, and Me
Any baseball book beginning with a descriptive list of characters that includes a Benedictine nun, the hold-out college player of the year, a woman pitcher, a 300-pound pig, a seemingly washed-up Darryl Strawberry, a blind announcer, comedian Bill Murray, Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, and the spirit of Bill Veeck--the game's greatest showman--hovering over it all as the holy ghost, is a book that swings for the fences. Slouching Toward Fargo does go deep, even off the deep end at times. The really amazing thing is that it's all true.
A resourceful veteran writer, Karlen spends the summers of 1996 and 1997 following the mismatched misfits who mold themselves into the St. Paul Saints of the unaffiliated A-level Northern League, one of the strangest clubs in one of the oddest leagues in the history of organized baseball. On one level, his chronicle is a certified hoot; the presence of team owners Murray and Mike Veeck, who inherited his father's gene for baseball theatrics, ensures that Fargo flirts with the unpredictable. But this is also a circumspect tale filled with second chances--not the least of which is Karlen's own redemption as a journalist, which resonates in counterpoint throughout. His adventure begins at a personal crisis point when he accepts an assignment from Wenner, who's had a longstanding grudge against Murray, to follow the comedian and do a hatchet-job on him for Rolling Stone. Karlen needs the check, sure, but he needs a reality check too. "It was time to put my scorecard in order," he admits; after all, this isn't his grudge. Can you hear the bass chord of conscience beginning to thrum? "As I followed the team, I would be searching for some clue to my own battered spirit." By the end of his journey, both the clues and the Saints entertainingly add up to a winning volume and a winning team. --Jeff Silverman
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
July 8, 2023
Slouching Toward Fargo transforms the phrase "bush league" into a complement. Neal Karlen spent two years following the Saint Paul Saints, a team on the bottom rung of the bush leagues, and rediscovered fun in baseball. Here, outrageous stunts and promotions amuse enthusiastic fans, while the last-chance ballplayers play the game with great passion if not always great talent.
Karlen began following the Saints on an assignment from Rolling Stone. Jan Wenner, Rolling Stone's publisher had a grudge against actor Bill Murray, one of the Saint's owners, and wanted a hatchet job article to run on him and his ball team. Karlen, who had worked for the magazine in the past and was no stranger to hatchet job journalism, was promised a handsome fee to deliver Murray and his team carved on a platter.
Despite the worst of intentions, Karlen was infected by the Saints and their ethos of fun and healing through the power of baseball. That philosophy had a positive effect on everyone, from owners Bill Murray (funny man actor and abdicated Hollywood superstar) and Mike Veeck (son of baseball legend Bill Veeck and banished from the major leagues because of his disastrous 1979 Disco Night promotion in Chicago) to onetime superstar Darryl Strawberry making a last ditch effort to return to major league glory, and on down through the no name guys who were fighting for their last chance to be professional ballplayers. It took hold of Karlen as well. He cancelled the hatchet job story, and instead wrote this book celebrating the fun and joy of baseball.
Karlen's writing is closer to utility infielder quality than superstar slugger, but a utility infielder having a very good game. It would have been hard to make an error with a story this rich. The drama includes the blackballed Darryl Strawberry working his way back to the major leagues and World Series glory. The first female to pitch in a professional men's league makes an appearance. There’s a legless second baseman, a blind radio color announcer, and two managers sumo wrestling on the diamond after being thrown out of the game. A pig brings balls to the umpires. Hovering in the bleachers is the ghost of the outrageous Bill Veeck, present through his ashes in a coffee can, reaching out from beyond the grave to continue his unique brand of whacky baseball fun.
Karlen didn't have to be a slugger to hit a home run on this story — he just had to swing the bat. Despite some sloppy editing his story scores.
Karlen began following the Saints on an assignment from Rolling Stone. Jan Wenner, Rolling Stone's publisher had a grudge against actor Bill Murray, one of the Saint's owners, and wanted a hatchet job article to run on him and his ball team. Karlen, who had worked for the magazine in the past and was no stranger to hatchet job journalism, was promised a handsome fee to deliver Murray and his team carved on a platter.
Despite the worst of intentions, Karlen was infected by the Saints and their ethos of fun and healing through the power of baseball. That philosophy had a positive effect on everyone, from owners Bill Murray (funny man actor and abdicated Hollywood superstar) and Mike Veeck (son of baseball legend Bill Veeck and banished from the major leagues because of his disastrous 1979 Disco Night promotion in Chicago) to onetime superstar Darryl Strawberry making a last ditch effort to return to major league glory, and on down through the no name guys who were fighting for their last chance to be professional ballplayers. It took hold of Karlen as well. He cancelled the hatchet job story, and instead wrote this book celebrating the fun and joy of baseball.
Karlen's writing is closer to utility infielder quality than superstar slugger, but a utility infielder having a very good game. It would have been hard to make an error with a story this rich. The drama includes the blackballed Darryl Strawberry working his way back to the major leagues and World Series glory. The first female to pitch in a professional men's league makes an appearance. There’s a legless second baseman, a blind radio color announcer, and two managers sumo wrestling on the diamond after being thrown out of the game. A pig brings balls to the umpires. Hovering in the bleachers is the ghost of the outrageous Bill Veeck, present through his ashes in a coffee can, reaching out from beyond the grave to continue his unique brand of whacky baseball fun.
Karlen didn't have to be a slugger to hit a home run on this story — he just had to swing the bat. Despite some sloppy editing his story scores.
November 8, 2023
I read this in 2014 and gave it five stars and I give it five stars again after just finishing Neal Karlen's great book about baseball, love, second chances, redemption, life and all else.
This really is a fantastic book. Karlen is assigned to cover the St. Paul Saints minor league baseball team to write a story trashing part owner Bill Murray for Rolling Stone. The Saints are in the Northern League, a six-team minor league division with teams in Fargo, Winnipeg, Duluth, Sioux Falls, St. Paul and Thunder Bay. It's the end of the line, the last chance for baseball players wanting to make it to the big leagues.
It's also a symbol for people like Karlen, who went through a divorce and hates baseball since he and his ex-wife connected through the game. His story, which he has mixed emotions about doing, could bring him back to the world of big time journalism.
There's also Darryl Strawberry, the great baseball player with the perfect swing who crashed due to drugs. The Northern League was his last chance to prove he was worthy of returning to the majors.
So, there's baseball in here, but there's also redemptive chances. Mike Veeck, the former Chicago White Sox promoter who did orchestrated the disaster-filled Disco Demolition Night in 1979 and was banished, is trying to prove he is worthy as well. There are other characters, too. A nun who does massages and talks like Lawrence Welk, a legless outfielder, a woman pitcher, a blind announcer and a pig who brings balls onto the field.
Karlen discovers that fun, the return to what baseball was supposed to be about. Across the river in Minneapolis, the Twins symbolize the corporate business end of the sport while St. Paul just has fun.
Karlen spends two seasons with the team and debates about doing his story designed to slam Murray, since Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner hates Murray. His decision whether to write the piece is part of his growth and return to life via baseball.
Sounds deep, but it is. Karlen takes the reader on a great journey with baseball and life. I grew up in northern Minnesota and have been to Fargo and Duluth and Thunder Bay often. It makes me want to return to watch a game up there.
This really is a fantastic book. Karlen is assigned to cover the St. Paul Saints minor league baseball team to write a story trashing part owner Bill Murray for Rolling Stone. The Saints are in the Northern League, a six-team minor league division with teams in Fargo, Winnipeg, Duluth, Sioux Falls, St. Paul and Thunder Bay. It's the end of the line, the last chance for baseball players wanting to make it to the big leagues.
It's also a symbol for people like Karlen, who went through a divorce and hates baseball since he and his ex-wife connected through the game. His story, which he has mixed emotions about doing, could bring him back to the world of big time journalism.
There's also Darryl Strawberry, the great baseball player with the perfect swing who crashed due to drugs. The Northern League was his last chance to prove he was worthy of returning to the majors.
So, there's baseball in here, but there's also redemptive chances. Mike Veeck, the former Chicago White Sox promoter who did orchestrated the disaster-filled Disco Demolition Night in 1979 and was banished, is trying to prove he is worthy as well. There are other characters, too. A nun who does massages and talks like Lawrence Welk, a legless outfielder, a woman pitcher, a blind announcer and a pig who brings balls onto the field.
Karlen discovers that fun, the return to what baseball was supposed to be about. Across the river in Minneapolis, the Twins symbolize the corporate business end of the sport while St. Paul just has fun.
Karlen spends two seasons with the team and debates about doing his story designed to slam Murray, since Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner hates Murray. His decision whether to write the piece is part of his growth and return to life via baseball.
Sounds deep, but it is. Karlen takes the reader on a great journey with baseball and life. I grew up in northern Minnesota and have been to Fargo and Duluth and Thunder Bay often. It makes me want to return to watch a game up there.
March 15, 2019
A guy is hired by Jann Wenner to do a 'hit piece' on Bill Murray and/or Darryl Strawberry for Rolling Stone. But he gets to St. Paul and hangs around Mike Veeck and the Saints and realizes he just can't do that because his conscience and whatever. This is something he reminds the reader of many times. But in between illustrations of his journalistic integrity there is some great storied about baseball. Personally I'm in the mindset currently that baseball is a fucking boring sport. But Karlen got me rethinking my position. There's something earthy, passionate and honest about the game that comes through in his prose. Kudos to that. His descriptions of Twig Terwilliger's fifty years in uniform, hitting fungoes and loving the game, kinda struck a chord. It's melange of different personalities and (mostly) low-stakes storylines about mediocre players trying to get out of the bush leagues, former stars hoping for a return to the aforementioned bigs and anecdotal musings on bit players like Sister Roz the massaging nun, Tobias the ball carrying pig, Monica the hot woman baseball fan who won't fuck the author, Jill the alky bartender who gets a nose job, Ila the first woman pitcher on a men's pro team (her story I found particularly endearing) Don the Blind announcer who can really describe the texture of grass and the odd bit about Straw and the semi-present Bill Murray. Mike Veeck, the owner and visionary behind the Saint is paralleled to his legendary father Bill to the point of incessancy. Evidently Bill Veeck was superhuman in his baseballness. Even though the book was a somewhat repetitive mishmash of narrative threads, I found myself developing a slight chub for the game again and maybe even a more substantial chub for my home state of Minnesota, its second-tier capital and that city's minor league team. Catch me at a Saints game this summer, frickers.
Mitz
Mitz
October 6, 2023
Love the "Slouching Toward Fargo" title and the cover of my paperback, which features a glorious pig in a Saints baseball cap. The subject of minor league baseball is terrific and the author makes it come alive. The Epilogue is great - letting readers know what happens to the characters later.
BUT - the book contains SO MANY PROBLEMS that should have been corrected - really surprising. I started flagging pages but stopped when it got to be too much...just made my eyes hurt. For example (2 problems in 1 sentence):
"He [Roger Maris] was a Fargo boy born and bred until the day he died...and those New York writers...should, as one Fargoite put it...."
Maris was NOT a "Fargo boy born" - he was born in Hibbing, the hometown also of Bob Dylan (who was born in Duluth). A citizen of Fargo is NOT a "Fargoite," but a "Fargoan." And so on.
Another issue was the constant repetition. The book reads more like a series of articles that overlap than a cohesive series of chapters. He constantly reminds the reader that St. Paul is an underdog compared to Minneapolis. That he has an adolescent crush on The Most Beloved Woman in the Northern League (super irritating nickname). That he can't decide whether or not to slam co-owner Bill Murray for ROLLING STONE (while giving us examples of how Murray could be slammed...which, actually, IS slamming him). On and on.
So...I give the book a "3" as it stands. It would be a "4" if the editorial mistakes were corrected. It would be a "5" (and much shorter/more interesting) if the repetition were removed.
BUT - the book contains SO MANY PROBLEMS that should have been corrected - really surprising. I started flagging pages but stopped when it got to be too much...just made my eyes hurt. For example (2 problems in 1 sentence):
"He [Roger Maris] was a Fargo boy born and bred until the day he died...and those New York writers...should, as one Fargoite put it...."
Maris was NOT a "Fargo boy born" - he was born in Hibbing, the hometown also of Bob Dylan (who was born in Duluth). A citizen of Fargo is NOT a "Fargoite," but a "Fargoan." And so on.
Another issue was the constant repetition. The book reads more like a series of articles that overlap than a cohesive series of chapters. He constantly reminds the reader that St. Paul is an underdog compared to Minneapolis. That he has an adolescent crush on The Most Beloved Woman in the Northern League (super irritating nickname). That he can't decide whether or not to slam co-owner Bill Murray for ROLLING STONE (while giving us examples of how Murray could be slammed...which, actually, IS slamming him). On and on.
So...I give the book a "3" as it stands. It would be a "4" if the editorial mistakes were corrected. It would be a "5" (and much shorter/more interesting) if the repetition were removed.
June 22, 2025
A delightful journey through two seasons in independent minor league baseball. Fun in baseball: even rarer now than it was in 1999 when the book was published.
A rehab stop for Daryl Strawberry, the waiting room for JD Drew, and an assortment of has-beens, never-wases, renegades, and weirdos, the team this book profiles is a slice of life from an America that the author fears is fading in the late 90s and is now nearly forgotten in 2025.
It’s almost charming to read Karlen’s invectives on how corporate and sanitized the major leagues had become given what they look like today. It’s downright depressing to look at where the minor leagues are.
Independent baseball is down to a few summer or collegiate leagues. Major League Baseball has retooled the affiliated minor leagues so as to nearly make them unrecognizable. College baseball is so flush with tax-sheltered donations and NIL contributions that university teams now often live better and travel better than the minor league teams hoping to employ these guys after graduation.
The Saints themselves eventually sold out to Diamond Sports Group, the behemoth buying up minor league teams all over America, and are now the AAA affiliate of the Minnesota Twins. Nothing gold can stay.
But for those of us that loved the game (and hope to again) this book is an exploration of what owner and operator Mike Veeck knew when he plastered it on the stadium wall in St Paul and is still true today: “Fun is good.” This book was fun. I’d read it again.
A rehab stop for Daryl Strawberry, the waiting room for JD Drew, and an assortment of has-beens, never-wases, renegades, and weirdos, the team this book profiles is a slice of life from an America that the author fears is fading in the late 90s and is now nearly forgotten in 2025.
It’s almost charming to read Karlen’s invectives on how corporate and sanitized the major leagues had become given what they look like today. It’s downright depressing to look at where the minor leagues are.
Independent baseball is down to a few summer or collegiate leagues. Major League Baseball has retooled the affiliated minor leagues so as to nearly make them unrecognizable. College baseball is so flush with tax-sheltered donations and NIL contributions that university teams now often live better and travel better than the minor league teams hoping to employ these guys after graduation.
The Saints themselves eventually sold out to Diamond Sports Group, the behemoth buying up minor league teams all over America, and are now the AAA affiliate of the Minnesota Twins. Nothing gold can stay.
But for those of us that loved the game (and hope to again) this book is an exploration of what owner and operator Mike Veeck knew when he plastered it on the stadium wall in St Paul and is still true today: “Fun is good.” This book was fun. I’d read it again.
October 25, 2020
1999 CASEY Award Winner
Briefly: Fun is good
Up front, it’s important to note that Slouching Toward Fargo isn’t truly the story of the Saint Paul Saints, but rather the first-person narrative of a Saints fan masquerading as a journalist who, through witnessing the Saints’ approach to baseball and aided by his access to the team and front office, comes to learn the power behind the “Fun is good” motto of the team. Upon reflection, however, that’s really the most appropriate way to tell the story of two Saints seasons, as the Saints’ approach to baseball is fan-centric rather than team-centric. And Karlen is a strong writer to serve as main character for the narrative, capable of excellent turns of phrase. The book does suffer slightly from a feeling it was written as a series of articles, then strung together—driven mostly by repeated anecdotes or framing quotes that appear on more than one occasion. That’s mostly a minor quibble, however.
The fifteenth anniversary edition still feels surprisingly fresh today, though perhaps would have benefited from a new afterward updating its “Where are they now?” epilogue to bring more current. Absent that, however, Slouching Toward Fargo continues to stand as an effective window into the appeal of bush league baseball—for players and personnel, yes, but first and foremost for the communities that support the teams.
Briefly: Fun is good
Up front, it’s important to note that Slouching Toward Fargo isn’t truly the story of the Saint Paul Saints, but rather the first-person narrative of a Saints fan masquerading as a journalist who, through witnessing the Saints’ approach to baseball and aided by his access to the team and front office, comes to learn the power behind the “Fun is good” motto of the team. Upon reflection, however, that’s really the most appropriate way to tell the story of two Saints seasons, as the Saints’ approach to baseball is fan-centric rather than team-centric. And Karlen is a strong writer to serve as main character for the narrative, capable of excellent turns of phrase. The book does suffer slightly from a feeling it was written as a series of articles, then strung together—driven mostly by repeated anecdotes or framing quotes that appear on more than one occasion. That’s mostly a minor quibble, however.
The fifteenth anniversary edition still feels surprisingly fresh today, though perhaps would have benefited from a new afterward updating its “Where are they now?” epilogue to bring more current. Absent that, however, Slouching Toward Fargo continues to stand as an effective window into the appeal of bush league baseball—for players and personnel, yes, but first and foremost for the communities that support the teams.
September 12, 2024
This is the story of a free-lance writer hired by Rolling Stone to do a hatchet job on Bill Murray and his weird, Independent League baseball team, the St. Paul Saints. In the shadow of the Minnesota Twins and right down the road from Hazelden, a famous drug and alcohol rehab clinic, we meet co-owners Bill Murray and Mike Veeck (son of former White Sox owner Bill Veeck), a rehabilitated Darryl Strawberry, former Minnesota Twins star pitcher Jack Morris, Ila Borders (the first female to pitch in minor league baseball), a blind announcer, a nun who gives massages during the game, and Tovias the pig--the Saints' ball boy. Neal Karlen has written not only a chronicle of baseball life in the minor leagues, but really an allegory of his own redemption through baseball. From Bill murray, Mike Veeck, the Saints' players and fans, and everyone associated with the organization, Karlen recaptures the innocence of baseball and relearns that, just as the slogan on the Saints' stadium wall says, Fun is Good.
December 21, 2021
Minor League baseball is not like major league baseball or any other kind of baseball. It is nothing but fun. This book chronicles two years in the life of the St. Paul, Minnesota Saints. It's full of wonderful vignettes and stories and unforgettable characters. If you've never been to a minor league baseball game, go to one. I promise you'll have fun and cheap fun.
July 1, 2019
Having been a Saints fan since my teenage years in the '90s, this book was a major nostalgia hit for me. Besides that, it was hugely fun! My only complaint is that the coverage of the two seasons is quite lopsided, with the '96 season taking up the majority of the book.
October 19, 2022
A good overall experience.
It was a good hearted book written by an author truly in love with his subject. As a devoted fan of minor league baseball, I clearly identified with him.
It was a good hearted book written by an author truly in love with his subject. As a devoted fan of minor league baseball, I clearly identified with him.
June 8, 2018
A good read about what is missing in major league baseball: fun and love of the game.
October 26, 2019
As an adopted Fargoan, this is a very pleasant and often funny look at America's pastime outside of "organized baseball". Much of what is said remains true even 20 years after the author's story.
November 2, 2021
A great book for anyone who loves baseball.
July 12, 2025
As a former Northern League team employee, this book is a must-read and so accurate it's not even funny!
July 10, 2014
If you followed the St. Paul Saints of the Northern League in 1996 and 1997, you probably remember that your team included several memorable characters. The team leader was a convicted felon with Hall of Fame credentials. His name was Darryl Strawberry. One of the other outfielders under consideration in spring training had no legs.
The pitching ace was Jack Morris, a former major league all-star trying to launch a comeback whose personal charm was akin to a rabid Rottweiler. Another pitcher was a converted outfielder who threw a no-hitter in his first start on the mound. Of course, you remember Ila Borders, the first female to play in an all-male professional baseball league. The closer was so handsome that he could use the world’s worst pick-up lines in country bars around the Midwest and leave within minutes with the most beautiful girl in the place.
The St. Paul Saints were also surrounded by quirky individuals off the field. One of the team’s owners was Mike Veeck. The worst promotion in major league history, Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park in Chicago, was Mike’s brainchild, although his father, 20th century baseball imagineer Bill Veeck, took responsibility for the fiasco. The St. Paul Saints ownership also included arguably the finest comedic actor of our time, Bill Murray, who liked to show up at game time, sometimes selling beer in the stands or coaching first base or tossing out the first pitch by throwing it high over the press box and out of the stadium. The third base coach was Wayne Terwilliger, one of only three men to spend fifty years in uniform.
In the stands you could get a massage during the game. The masseuse was a nun. And one of the radio announcers during the 1997 season was blind.
I don’t know when I’ve had as much fun reading a baseball book as I did with Neal Karlen’s Slouching Toward Fargo, a wildly entertaining account of two seasons with the St. Paul Saints, a very successful independent league team. The Saints motto—Fun Is Good—definitely carries over to Slouching Toward Fargo.
Why did I enjoy it so much? The characters are so fascinating that you could probably make a pretty good book out of any one of them. But they were all in St. Paul at the same time, and Neal Karlen had access to them.
Because my favorite major league team—the Chicago Cubs—is woeful, again, this year, I’ve been paying attention to the Frontier League, another independent league. It’s a competitive circuit with its own quirks (seven-inning games for double-headers, one team that plays all of its games on the road, etc.). Everything I like about independent leagues is on full display in Slouching Toward Fargo.
A bonus for me was two of my favorite former Cubs—Hector Villanueva and Dwight Smith—make cameos appearances as they played for the Saints during these seasons. (Villanueva was tagged with the honor of having the biggest butt in the Northern League.)
But Slouching Toward Fargo isn’t just about fun. The players are trying to live their dreams, although those dreams have various shapes. Mike Veeck is trying to regain major league credibility after the disco demolition debacle from years earlier. Bill Murray is search for a place where he can find peace. Author Neal Karlen frames the book as a Rolling Stone assignment originally designed to be a hatchet piece on Murray that evolves into something more meaningful in his life as a writer.
I don’t know how I missed Slouching Toward Fargo when it was originally published in 1999, but I’m glad that Summer Game Books has brought it back in a new edition with a fresh foreword by Mike Veeck.
Slouching Toward Fargo is the book you need when you start to miss what you liked about baseball in the first place.
Cross-posted on What's Not Wrong?
The pitching ace was Jack Morris, a former major league all-star trying to launch a comeback whose personal charm was akin to a rabid Rottweiler. Another pitcher was a converted outfielder who threw a no-hitter in his first start on the mound. Of course, you remember Ila Borders, the first female to play in an all-male professional baseball league. The closer was so handsome that he could use the world’s worst pick-up lines in country bars around the Midwest and leave within minutes with the most beautiful girl in the place.
The St. Paul Saints were also surrounded by quirky individuals off the field. One of the team’s owners was Mike Veeck. The worst promotion in major league history, Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park in Chicago, was Mike’s brainchild, although his father, 20th century baseball imagineer Bill Veeck, took responsibility for the fiasco. The St. Paul Saints ownership also included arguably the finest comedic actor of our time, Bill Murray, who liked to show up at game time, sometimes selling beer in the stands or coaching first base or tossing out the first pitch by throwing it high over the press box and out of the stadium. The third base coach was Wayne Terwilliger, one of only three men to spend fifty years in uniform.
In the stands you could get a massage during the game. The masseuse was a nun. And one of the radio announcers during the 1997 season was blind.
I don’t know when I’ve had as much fun reading a baseball book as I did with Neal Karlen’s Slouching Toward Fargo, a wildly entertaining account of two seasons with the St. Paul Saints, a very successful independent league team. The Saints motto—Fun Is Good—definitely carries over to Slouching Toward Fargo.
Why did I enjoy it so much? The characters are so fascinating that you could probably make a pretty good book out of any one of them. But they were all in St. Paul at the same time, and Neal Karlen had access to them.
Because my favorite major league team—the Chicago Cubs—is woeful, again, this year, I’ve been paying attention to the Frontier League, another independent league. It’s a competitive circuit with its own quirks (seven-inning games for double-headers, one team that plays all of its games on the road, etc.). Everything I like about independent leagues is on full display in Slouching Toward Fargo.
A bonus for me was two of my favorite former Cubs—Hector Villanueva and Dwight Smith—make cameos appearances as they played for the Saints during these seasons. (Villanueva was tagged with the honor of having the biggest butt in the Northern League.)
But Slouching Toward Fargo isn’t just about fun. The players are trying to live their dreams, although those dreams have various shapes. Mike Veeck is trying to regain major league credibility after the disco demolition debacle from years earlier. Bill Murray is search for a place where he can find peace. Author Neal Karlen frames the book as a Rolling Stone assignment originally designed to be a hatchet piece on Murray that evolves into something more meaningful in his life as a writer.
I don’t know how I missed Slouching Toward Fargo when it was originally published in 1999, but I’m glad that Summer Game Books has brought it back in a new edition with a fresh foreword by Mike Veeck.
Slouching Toward Fargo is the book you need when you start to miss what you liked about baseball in the first place.
Cross-posted on What's Not Wrong?
February 4, 2016
This is the best baseball-themed book I've read in awhile. It reminds me quite a bit of Positively Fifth Street, the first-person poker tale by James McManus, which I really enjoyed a few years ago. The writer is a journalist for a magazine (Rolling Stone), assigned to a western (St. Paul) outpost to write a story about an obscure element of popular culture (Northern League baseball). While researching an editor-sought hit piece on team co-owner Bill Murray, the author inserts himself into the tale and finds himself pulled in multiple directions by compelling stories. In this case, Karlen is drawn to the attempted comebacks of Jack Morris and Daryl Strawberry, the unique narratives provided by assorted (and sometimes colorful) minor league players and staffers, and the redemption of Mike Veeck. Oh, he also has a crush in a young woman in an opposing team's front office who has grand baseball ambitions. The manager of the St. Paul Saints was Marty Scott, who was a good player on the Tulsa Drillers teams of the late 1970s. I must have watched him play....
July 24, 2007
A wannabe gonzo journalist is assigned by Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner to write a hatchet piece on Bill Murray, so he travels to St. Paul, the home of Murray's independent minor league baseball team. Our hero falls in love with the team, of course, which is co-owned by Mike "Son of Bill" Veeck who was the genius behind Disco Demolition night at Comiskey Park -- a publicity stunt that destroyed the field and resulted in one of the few forfeits in baseball history. In right field is Darryl Strawberry, fresh off the coke train; the ballboy is a pig, not a human; the Ramones blare through the stadium speakers between innings; and the twenty year-old kids playing last-chance ball fill up their time with cheap beer and floozies from Winnipeg.
It's pretty hilarious, but the book needed editing before it went to press: a lot of time is wasted rehashing the story, and some of it is just bad writing.
It's pretty hilarious, but the book needed editing before it went to press: a lot of time is wasted rehashing the story, and some of it is just bad writing.
May 16, 2007
This is the hilarious account of the two years Neal Karlden spent with the St. Paul Saints, a minor-league team in St. Paul, MN co-owned by Bill Murray (yes, that Bill Murray) and Mike Veeck, son of former Chicago White Sox owner Bill Veeck. The book follows the team during the time that Darryl Strawberry played for them (mandated baseball rehabilitation after his third time through drug rehab) and it draws loose connections between the outsider status of Mike Veeck, Bill Murray's abdication from the Hollywood limelight and the last-chance efforts of Darryl Strawberry, a superstar in a small league resentful of superstars, to get himself back into the game. A strange book but still a great read, if only for some of the unbelievable St. Paul Saints promotions Bill Murray and Mike Veeck come up with based around their mantra: "Fun is Good."
July 14, 2008
This one yelled at me at McKay's the other day. It's my truck book--the one I'm keeping in my truck to read during lunch or traffic jams. It's pretty episodic so far, so it'll lend itself to being read over an extended amount of time...
June 6, 2008
A fun glimpse at a season of minor league baseball. Karlen gives us an in-depth look at the lives of the St. Paul Saints baseball team, including several big names such as Daryl Strawberry, Jack Morris, and J.D. Drew.
May 17, 2009
When a baseball season returns, go back to, "Slouching Toward Fargo…" This is a tickling, delightful book. Incidentally, it also has historical merit. It probably is the best thing written about minor league baseball.
August 17, 2009
A great topic (minor league baseball and the personalities they attract) but I found the author's voice and continual insertion into the storytelling a bit off-putting. If this was a history rather than a memoir, it would be much more entertaining.
July 31, 2011
Great read about St. Paul Saints' baseball with detours along the way to the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, and even Grand Forks following the 97 flood with a great cast of characters including Bill Murray, Eleanore Mondale and many, many more.
November 26, 2014
This is a fun read. There is a good amount of humor and does a fairly good job representing Northern League Baseball. I enjoyed reading about Bill Murray, but mostly enjoyed reading about people and places that I actually know!
November 23, 2017
A fun book of players and owners trying one last chance to make it to the Major Leagues. I learned a lot of how Independent Leagues operate, the rivalries, the promotions and the long hours during the season people put in. A fun read.
June 20, 2009
I bought this off the bargain shelf at Borders and gave it to Lirette for his birthday one year, but I read it first; I don't remember much about it, but I do remember loving it.
July 15, 2009
Saint Paul Saints was and is more of a movement than a sports team. This the story of the minor league team that thrived just down the road from a major league stadium.
June 6, 2009
best baseball book ever!
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