Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville: A Lifelong Passion for Baseball

by Stephen Jay Gould, David Halberstam (Foreword)

"Scientific analysis intersects with flat-out fandom. [Gould] could write, he was funny, and he loved, loved baseball."― Booklist Science meets sport in this vibrant collection of baseball essays by the late evolutionary biologist.Among Stephen Jay Gould's many gifts was his ability to write eloquently about baseball, his great passion. Through the years, the renowned paleontologist published numerous essays on the sport; these have now been collected in a volume alive with the candor and insight that characterized all of Gould's writing. Here are his thoughts on the complexities of childhood streetball and the joys of opening day; tributes to Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth, and lesser-knowns such as deaf-mute centerfielder "Dummy" Hoy; and a frank admission of the contradictions inherent in being a lifelong Yankees fan with Red Sox season tickets. Gould also deftly applies the tools of evolutionary theory to the demise of the .400 hitter, the Abner Doubleday creation myth, and the improbability of Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak.

This book is a delight, an essential addition to Gould's remarkable legacy, and a fitting tribute to his love for the game.

Genres: Baseball, Sports, Nonfiction, Essays, Biography, Science, 20th Century

360 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Stephen Jay Gould was a prominent American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of his generation. Gould spent most of his career teaching at Harvard University and working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Most of Gould's empirical research was on land snails. Gould helped develop the theory of punctuated equilibrium, in which evolutionary stability is marked by instances of rapid change. He contributed to evolutionary developmental biology. In evolutionary theory, he opposed strict selectionism, sociobiology as applied to humans, and evolutionary psychology. He campaigned against creationism and proposed that science and religion should be considered two compatible, complementary fields, or "magisteria," whose authority does not overlap.

Many of Gould's essays were reprinted in collected volumes, such as Ever Since Darwin and The Panda's Thumb, while his popular treatises included books such as The Mismeasure of Man, Wonderful Life and Full House.
-Wikipedia

Reviews

[Tommy Carlson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mediocre Baseball

I used to feel bad about giving up on a book, but then I realized that life was too short to waste on mediocre books. Here's one I gave up on two-thirds of the way through.

Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville: A Lifelong Passion for Baseball

So, Stephen Jay Gould is an ace writer when it comes to science. Apparently, he also wrote several essays about baseball. This book is a collection of those essays, published after his death. (Or, y'know, posthumously.) Alas, it's not very good.

There are several problems with it. First off is the posthumously nature. Gould had no opportunity to make sure that the various essays melded in any way into a full book, and so they don't. It's not just that there's no flow. There's also an aching amount of repetition. We have to hear over and over about particulars of his boyhood. We have to read the same jokes and snarky comments repeatedly. As separate essays, this isn't a problem. But it sure gets boring when you jam all those essays together.

A second problem is his fawning over players. There are several times when he simply gushes about how great Mark McGwire is, without even a glance at the obvious role steroids played. And, no, I'm not looking with 20/20 hindsight. If you looked at McGwire during his heyday and didn't think of steroids, you're just oblivious. Unfortunately, Gould was oblivious. More amusing was his blind faith that Chuck Knoblauch would soon conquer his tragic case of the yips. (Not to suggest that what happened to Chuck was amusing. Make no mistake, Chuck was an ass, but he was also a damn fine ballplayer.)

The third problem is his wordiness. He takes far too long to explain simple concepts. The worst offender is his essay on why there will never be another .400 hitter. Want to know why? Here's why:

Baseball modifies the game itself to keep the average batting average at .260. As the sport continues to mature, average players get better while the very best hit a wall. This decreases the gap between the average and the very best. Because the game is continually modified to keep that average player at .260, even the very best players can no longer reach .400. In short, the game is graded on a curve and the improvement of average players blows the curve.

Now, that isn't a quote from the book. Oh, no. That's my quick paraphrase. The book contains a long essay to explain a fairly simple concept. Towards the end, there's some interesting statistics to back up the argument, but by then I was so bored I really didn't care.

Fourth is his overuse of religion. Jesus, the guy uses Christian religious examples all the goddamn time! It's not that I mind religious mentions, and, in fact, they often work great as baseball metaphors. But they're sprinkled everywhere, and the guy isn't even a Christian. It's not that he's making any fun of religion. He'sn't. (Double contraction of He is not.) It's just that his frequent use seems, I dunno, weird? Disrespectful in its assumption of the culture of others? Maybe it's just me. I wasn't offended. I just found it weird. It detracted from the content.

The one time it really worked was in talking about Cooperstown, the Hall of Fame Museum, and the hybrid of cultural and historical artifacts. Admittedly, this one was a good essay.

Fifth, book reviews! Apparently, the last third of the book is just his reviews of other baseball books. I read the first one. It's not great; it's not horrible. It's, frankly, about on par with my book reviews. But mine are free. This was the point at which I decided to read something else.

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love Stephen Jay Gould, and I love baseball. But this haphazard collection of baseball-related clippings from the last two decades didn't do it for me. Gould is a thoughtful and brilliant man, a big fan of the game, and a good writer. But this volume is unsatisfying. I can identify three primary for it.

First and foremost, it's just not his area of expertise. In his lifetime, Gould forgot more about hen's teeth and horse toes than I'll ever know, but baseball is comparatively just a diversion for him. He's obviously a fan, but he's no Roger Angell or John Updike or Roger Kahn or John Feinstein. I'd recommend The Flamingo's Smile or Bully for Brontosaurus, or any of Gould's other essays in natural history in a heartbeat. Just not this.

Second, it's mostly a lot of dated musings about the Yankees and Red Sox, which means it doesn't exactly unearth the untapped material of the baseball world. Where he deviates from this pattern, it's a lot of hero-worshipping of Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds. And it's not the insightful stuff a beat writer could tell you. It's the sort of material a smart person might come up with after watching a lot of ball games on television, nothing more.

Third, there is nothing to tie these essays together (not even an essay by Gould, since the volume was published posthumously). Basically, if Gould wrote the piece sometime during his lifetime of being published, and if it mentions baseball, it made the cut. An entire third of the book is reprinted book review essays, one after another.

I have to emphasize again that I love the man, and even in this flawed book there are some wonderful nuggets. But there is an endless list of better baseball-related (or Gould-written) books out there that are better choices.

[Jasen · Rating 3 out of 5]

“A man, may not take a close pitch with so much on the line. Context matters. Truth is a circumstance, not a spot.” P.48

“The finale was to typical – an early Sox, lead, eroded near the end; elite, Sox, surge, almost, but not quite enough. Ethan cried when it was all over – and this was only his first time. I tried to console him, but ended up joining him. It’s a puzzle, isn’t it? I don’t know why grown men care of so deeply about something that neither kills, nor starves, nor maims, nor even scratches in our world of woe. I don’t know why we care so much, but I’m mighty glad that we do.” P.53

“Innocence may be precious, but truth is better.” P.139

“We believe in “hot hands” because we must impart meaning to a pattern - and we like meanings to tell stories about heroism, valor, and excellence. We believe that long streaks and slopes must have directed causes internal to the sequence itself, and we have no feel for the frequency and length of sequences and random data.” P.182

“... we are powerfully drawn to the subject of beginnings. We yearn to know about origins, and we are readily construct myths when we do not have data (or we suppress data in favor of legend, with a truth strikes access to commonplace). The hankering after an origin myth has always been especially strong for the closest subject of all – the human race. But when we extend the same psychic need to our accomplishments and institutions – and we have devised origin myth stories for the beginning of hunting, of language, of art, of kindness, of war, of boxing, bowties, and brassieres.” P.193

“The silliest and most tender niches of baseball riding, tries to rest, profundity from the spectacle of grown men, hitting the ball with a stick by suggesting linkages between the sport and deep issues of morality, parenthood, history, lost innocence, gentleness, and so on, seemingly ad infinitum. (The effort reeks of silliness, because baseball is profound all by itself, and needs no excuses; people who don’t know this or not fans and are therefore unreachable anyway.) P.194

“Scientists often lament that so few people understand Darwin and the principles of biological evolution. The problem goes deeper. Too few people are comfortable with evolutionarily modes of explanation in any form. I do not know why we tend to think so fuzzily in this area, but one reason must reside in our social and psychic attraction to creation, myths and preference to evolutionaries stories – for creation myths, as noted before, identify, heroes and sacred places, while evolutionary stories provide no palpable, particular thing as a symbol for reference, worship, or patriotism. Still, we must remember – and an intellectual‘s most persistent and nagging responsibility lies in making this simple point over and over again, however, noxious and bothersome we render ourselves thereby – that truth and desire, fact and comfort, have no necessary, or even preferred, correlation (so rejoice when they do coincide).” P.203

“Thank God that the human mind can embrace contradiction by acknowledging reality in the head, yet respectfully, allowing an imposter to stand in for a symbol in the heart. (In a funny and recursive sense, moreever, once frauds achieve sufficient fame, they become legitimate objects of history in their own, right!) P.213

“When evolution, grafted, consciousness in human form upon this organ in a single species, the old inherent search for patterns, developed into a propensity for organizing these patterns as stories, and then for explaining the surrounding world, in terms of narratives expressed in these tales. For universal reasons that probably transcend the cultural peculiars of individual groups, humans tend to construct their stories along a limited number of themes and pathways, favored because they grant both useful sense and satisfying, satisfying meaning to the confusion (and often to the tragedy of life) of life in our complex surrounding world.
Stories, in other words, only “go” in a limited number of strongly preferred ways, with the two deepest requirements invoking, first, a theme of directionality (linked events, proceeding in an ordered sequence for definable reasons, and not as aimless wandering- back, fourth, and sideways – to nowhere); and second, a sense of motivation, or definite reasons, propelling the sequence (whether we judge the outcomes good or bad). These motivations will be rooted directly and human purposes, for stories involving our own species. But tales about non-conscious creatures or in animate objects must also provide a surrogate for valor (or dishonorable intent for dystopian tales) -as in the virtue of evolution, are principles that dictate the increasing general complexity of life, or the lamentable inexorability of thermodynamics in guaranteeing the eventual burnout and explosion of the sun.” P.221

“We have made the world of these gargantuan salaries, and they have sown the wind...shall reap the whirlwind. We want our television programs; we watch the advertisement and buy the products. We turn the people we admire into objects called “celebrities”; we think we are going to pieces of them, and can deny them the most elementary right of privacy. Sure it’s nasty to charge a kid $15 for an autograph; but when you know that every proprietor in town is hiring kids to get free signatures, a large number of cards for later reseal had a Normas profit, do you not feel used in exploited? We are paying out of the money that goes to the salaries. What are the players supposed to do? Dig a hole and bury the cash? Give it to the owners?” P.286

“Change is neutral as a general phenomenon, and can only be assessed case by case. We sit in our unsatisfactory present, surrounded by two mythologies, that exalt their respective and conflicting ends – better futures by the fancy of progress, and rosier pasts by the fable of golden good old days. Sports fans are particularly subject to the dangers of nostalgia and a falsely glorified past.” P.301-302

“Baseball. It’s not just an occasional three hours at the ball park. Baseball, three with many months in 162 games, he’s going to the corner store every morning, buying the paper and a cup of coffee, exchange in a few words with Tom the proprietor about last night’s game, and then spending 10 minutes at home with the box scores. Baseball is the solace of long summer drives, when a game on the radio beats a Beethoven symphony. These are not romantic images, but daily summer realities are millions of Americans.” P.307

“... where we will allow, standardization, and where we must preserve the key notions of distinctive locality, end of neighborhood. We need domains of standardization, and realms of regionalism, each, and it’s appropriate place, and LinkedIn mutual respect and recognition. I accept an even want to McDonald’s at the highway interchange – drive-thru and all – but not in my little neighborhood of ethnic restaurants, and not next to the corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota.” P.309

“Assessing importance is so much a matter of scale. Cobb sowed misery during his living moment to do a small circle of people in his direct orbit. But moments and orbits recede as the generations roll, while unparalleled excellence emerges and hold fast. The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs looked terrible to any particular Tyrannosaurus witnessing the impact, but worked out wonderfully well for surviving mammals millions of years later. Who knows or cares anymore about the foibles of Aeschylus or Sophocles, but I trust we shall watch, Agamemnon and Oedipus Rex as long as humanity persists.”’ P.342

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though known primarily for his work in various fields of science, Stephen Jay Gould's first love was baseball. In this collection of essays and reviews, wanders through his affection, examining the myths and legends alongside their well-documented statistics. He does not shy away from hard facts, nor allow himself to become mired in a rose-tinted lore recital. Rather, he applies his keen and scientific mind to a discussion of life, love, and baseball, and all the ways they are connected. All in all, it would seem this collection is a firm stance in support of Baseball as the American Pastime.

I cannot think of a better way to explain this book but this:
It's a love letter. Well, a collection of love letters. Love letters written by a keenly aware but still wholly enamored soul. Love letters that brook no patience with images unsullied by reality, but no less infatuated with the recipient. Love letters that recall all of the times, good and bad, faithful and not. Readers will find themselves reading philosophical discussions on the nature of humans and their penchant for story-telling, their need for myths and origin stories, and seeing how this is reflected in our relationship with baseball. They will find themselves carried back into the past and seeing a young Gould imagining himself into the games while playing humble mimics such as stoopball and handball. They'll hear about the great and mighty pillars of a historic sport, and they'll learn about those lost in the shadows of such mighty men. They will be introduced to the way generations of immigrants and their children took the sport to their very soul and made it their bridge to a new home. And sometimes they'll be hit upside the head with a graph or two within a fairly intense discussion as to why the sport changing for the better means it is changing for the average.
It's a fascinating thing to read, a love letter, especially a thoughtful series extended over and examining a lifetime of the love and the object of desire.

[Stephen · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's clear that Stephen Jay Gould has a supreme love of baseball, which is why I picked this book up in the first place. The trouble is, this is a posthumous collection of articles published in the Times or various other publications. Small snippets that briefly touch on the topic du jour from when they were written.

The problem here is that many of these articles no longer possess the intensity or passion they once did when the subject was fresh. And worse, some of them lack all credibility and credence due to events that have happened since they were written. An example: Gould (who, I should note, is a brilliant paleontologist by profession--someone I admire for what he's done in his field) writes a brief piece singing the praises of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa as they chased the home run record.

Now, I remember watching every Cards or Cubbies game I could find that summer, trying to get a glimpse at history. Hell, in the late months, when McGwire was inching ever closer to the record, television stations would break into a program so you could watch his at bats. It was stunning! And even though I hate the Cardinals, I cheered loud when I saw that final home run clear the outfield wall.

Today, though, I get a little nauseous at the thought of that race because of all the scandal that now surrounds it. Steroids and corked bats and congressional hearings have long since wiped away that nostalgia, and Gould's article, as a result, now feels laughable and without merit.

I can't really hold this against Gould. After all, as I just admitted that I shared his same feelings during many of the events he describes. But that was a long time ago, and that kind of jubilant fan sentiment feels naive.

[Norman Metzger · Rating 4 out of 5]

True, a Harvard academic but his saving grace is that he played stickball, punchball, and off the stoop in the Bronx (games I was a champ at!), Gould was a paleontologist (major player in the punctuated equilibrium interpretation of evolution)who died much, much too soon. The writing and hence the book is wonderful and even if you're not a baseball nut if only to get a perspective on a national passion that among other things is infused by statistics that Gould happily dissects, interprets and adds to. He is witty, incisive ("rooting is generational, and you enter the category of older when you take your child to a game"). He is an unforgiving critic of the current structure of post-season play that he laments takes us into November, the designated hitter in the American League (amen!), and was a sharp and at times brutal critic of baseball writings. "The hagiography of play on the diamond has turned into gossip about life off the field. Hardly an improvement."

[Dick Hamilton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a huge fan of Mr. Gould and have read at least ten of his other books, but this one does not rank among his best. This is a collection of his writings on baseball and while about one-half of the book, consisting of his more science focused pieces (including items from Natural History) and his excellent book reviews, are quite good, the other portion is somewhat lacking. Still, this is Stephen Jay Gould and his insights are well worth some time.

[Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably a book that only appeals to fans of both Gould and baseball, but I am one and I enjoyed the look into his early life and his love of the game. I skipped the last section which is reviews of baseball books that I have no intention of reading.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Baseball book!

[Charles Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

All the legends come trotting out at the All-Star break and maybe once in a while a fable gets slightly altered to be closer to the truth. Which would we rather believe?

I don’t recall reading Gould in the recent past but I recall when watching him on Ken Burns’ “Baseball” along with fellow New Yorker/historian Doris Kearns Goodwin talk about being kids in NYC and watching the Yankees or the Dodgers or the Giants win, lose, but never draw, and the best of it all was the fun. When I was younger I got to go once in a while to the games at the first Busch Stadium in the summers after the great Cardinal season of 1964.

Gould is better at explaining the reasons for why there will probably never be a four-hundred hitter than Stephen Hawking is at explaining “spins.” I thought I know a lot of astronomy but now I’m not so sure. I know I enjoy baseball but now I understand baseball even better.

Gould combines a lesson from the legend of the Alamo to the dramatic Billy Buckner’s boot of a simple grounder in the 1986 World Series against the Mets. Hear him out, Gould makes a great case to understand that history-bites are real trouble for appreciating simple, painless truths. Hidden in plain sight, as many facts of the world are, is Travis’s letter suggesting negotiation with Santa Ana. Negotiate? “But, what if,” Gould asks. What if Santa Ana had taken Travis up on his offer? There would be no “Remember the Alamo”? Maybe no Texas? Which history would we prefer, negotiated temporary peace or a righteous, glorious slaughter?

Same lesson, what if Buckner hadn’t booted that ball? Billy B. was playing defense despite the Red Sox knowing it was a bad idea, because the Red Sox figured they had this one in the bag and Buckner deserved to be on the field. Except, of course, Mets first had to tie the game, which they did without any fault of Buckner’s, and then the boot let them stay on the field and win the sixth game in the bottom of the ninth to stay alive. That’s not what it appears in the myth-bite.

Gould also disputes the Abner Doubleday-Cooperstown Hall of Fame baseball creation story. No where is there anything, he says, to suggest that Doubleday invented baseball. The earlier game was English, apparently, but in retrospect the clubs sanctioned this Civil War hero with this honor. We would rather have the false myth than the ugly truth anytime. As to Cooperstown, New York, fifty miles from the nearest municipality capable of holding all the people who show up for the Hall of Fame game, it is nice that it was James Fenimore Cooper’s hometown but since baseball evolved from other games no place qualifies as the origin of the sport we know and love today. Cooperstown is as good as any, I suppose, and Fenimore Cooper was the master at creating myth, anyway.

Baseball has over 100 years of statistics and is essentially an unchanged game: three strikes; nine players; a diamond; first-to-third, left, center, and right; get home safe and score a run. Pretty simple. What does get changed are minute adjustments like the height of the pitching mound. What makes the game “America’s pastime” is not some cranky idea that baseball imitates life or life imitates baseball but several thousand of games across the country garnering mountains of statistics which intrigue us. We want to make connections to events, we want to know why things happen, and this sport provides all kinds of cute variables to make us pay attention. What Gould argues a lot is that the players have gotten so much better. He reasons that we will not likely ever see a four-hundred hitter again if only because pitching and defense has improved to stop the hitter.

My early baseball hero was Mickey Mantle before I became a Cardinals fan. As we’ve learned in years past, Mantle had his share of tragedies. It doesn’t make him less of ballplayer but certainly means he’s more like you and me with some talent. Gould makes the game not less as an organized behemoth but more admirable as a game played by real people.
###

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published at the end of his life, Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville is a collection of essays by renowned anthropologist, Stephen Jay Gould. The essays are grouped thematically and offer something for every kind of baseball fan. Love history? He extolls on monumental moments in the past seven decades of baseball. Love memoir? He reflects on his childhood growing up as a Yankees fan in New York City during the golden age of late 40's and 50's baseball and the varied games of stickball played on the streets of his neighborhood. Love sabermetrics? He applies his scientific prowess to explaining why Lou Gehrig's 56-game hitting streak is such a statistical anomaly that it will never be matched again, or why we'll never again have a .400 season batting average. Love books about baseball? He's read and reviews a host of them for you.

Since this is a book of essays, there's little coherence to the whole. A die-hard baseball fan will likely not care. For the less committed fan, it'll probably be an enjoyable "snack" book – read bits here-and-there as suits your tastes.

[Kurtbg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Paleontologist essayist extraordinaire devotes a time to one of his life's passion, baseball.
As most post-war children, especially in New York, baseball was an integral and mythic part of life. The Yankees - DiMaggio, Williams and Mantle were modern day heroes. Ruth, Gehrig and Cobb were gods.

This book will resonate the most with those who followed baseball isn't the 40's and 50's. Some essays touch on more recent baseball events (up to the nineties), but mainly hovers in the era that excited and captivated Gould as a young boy. Much to his credit, that enthusiasm shines through - and who else can include lines of famous poets to illustrate and magnify a point and feeling for such a sport.

The younger one gets, the more distant the meanings become. I mainly watched baseball in the late seventies and eighties, but never idolized. I had favorites, but then I also never wrapped my personal identity or group identity around a sports team. I did recognize ability and wasn't so color blind as the so-called "greatest generation" and even the boomers.

[Brian Carless · Rating 4 out of 5]

This fantastic book is going to stay on my currently reading shelf for a long time. The book is a group of previously published essays on the subject of baseball. They vary greatly in length and purpose. Some are as brief as newspaper columns while others are longer review essays while others still use baseball to illustrate scientific problems for Gould. The book is easily picked up at any point and read. It also stands up well to a long continuous read. I is really just a joy to Gould more relaxed, and more insightful than every on topics that are much closer to home. While not being held to the stricter accounting of even popular scientific writing Gould can stretch his metaphors even further than he normally might giving us a read full of warmth and insight to more than just the baseball fan.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is collection of essays Gould wrote over the years on the subject of baseball. Gould clearly loved the sport. He was born in NYC in the 40s when NY teams ruled the sport and when baseball ruled the sports world. Gould applies his intellect and analytical skills to the game and writes some really wonderful essays. His essay about DiMaggio's unbeatable streak is scientifically enlightening as it betrays Gould's admitted idol worship the Yankee Clipper. Gould's essay about the origin of baseball is a great explanation of the ongoing debate between creationists and evolutionists. The last section of the book is a collection of reviews of baseball books and movies by Gould. This is relatively weak. But the rest of the book is really very good.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes, that Stephen Jay Gould. This book is a collection of the many essays about baseball he wrote during his life, some of which are pure baseball and some of which use the game as a metaphor for his rationalist view of the world, which I admire. All of them are good. Gould was a strange fan, though -- born and raised a Yankees fan, he became a Red Sox sympathizer after he became a professor at Harvard. That justifiably arouses one's suspicions about the strength of the man's convictions, but this book is still good.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gould's recollections of his personal history with baseball and his passion for the Yankees got a teeny bit repetitive (okay, maybe this is just because I am a rabid Yankee-hater), but overall, I enjoyed this quite a lot. The statistical analyses were a little over my head at times, but interesting, particularly Gould's well-known theory of why there are no more .400 hitters. I also liked the critical pieces that make up the last section of the book, as I am always looking for book recommendations.

[Mollie *scoutrmom* · Rating 5 out of 5]

This looked interesting so I clicked on "find on Amazon" because my son's birthday is coming up; I sent him a copy. I've read half of Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes by Stephen Jay Gould and loved it, so I figured this was a good bet.

[Reenie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was one of those books which only a stubborn and possibly pathological determination not to leave things half-read forces me to finish. Pompous, frequently overly misty-eyed and sentimental, and at times just plain stupid. Some of it is quite good - the analysis of why no one hits .400 any more was interesting, but overall... yeah, there are so many better things to read on baseball. Don't bother with this.

[Jeremy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Stephen Jay Gould clearly loves baseball, but this is an unfortunate mishmash of essays. The essays are roughly organized by topic, but little care was taken to ensure that the essays weren't repetitive. I learned a few interesting things (e.g., a little bit more about the history of baseball and why hitters don't hit .400 anymore), but the book fell pretty far short of my hopes. It might have been better to read one essay at a time, weeks apart.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book for Zach, who's a baseball fan, and started reading it one day when I didn't have any library books available. I don't love baseball, but I found the essays about Gould's childhood especially endearing. This is a great book for lovers of baseball. It's really just a collection of essays, so there's no need to read it all in one sitting.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a posthumously published book of baseball essays by biologist Stephen Jay Gould. It's a fun read; Gould clearly loves baseball. The essays range in topic quite widely, from recent games to historical players.

[Kevin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some of the inconsistencies I noted earlier still apply. This was a pretty good collection, but because it was a collection, it felt somewhat disjointed. Gould is at his best when recounting games or events from his childhood.

[Daniel Ford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! Highly recommend! Did you know the last pitch Don Larsen threw in his World Series perfect game in 1956 against the Dodgers was 2" outside the strike zone? Thanks to Gould, now you do! Get the book and read about it and much more!

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few really good essays & a few that were just okay.

[Scott "Bjorn" Cummings · Rating 2 out of 5]

What are my favorite talking Hansing Kenberg decorate was Steven to

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Baseball geekery at its best.

[Jim · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not sure what the infatuation with the author is. Very dated material, doesn't acknowledge the use of PED's in some of his essays. Didn't finish the book, and didn't want to.

[Victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful! Gould combines his two great lives and the effect is pure joy.

[Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

An erudite scientist expounds on his experiences with baseball and brings his analytical brain to what makes it the "American sport".

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Flowery prose, especially for a scientist. Interesting memories of WW2-era ballplayers, good book and film reviews, and some good insights into the nature of memory.