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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Diamond in the Rough, June 17, 2005
`Slouching Toward Fargo' could well turn the phrase "bush league" from a term of derision into a complement. Free lance writer Neal Karlen spent two years following the Saint Paul Saints, a team on the bottom rung of the bush leagues, and discovered a place where baseball is still fun; a place far enough away from the big corporate business that the major leagues have become that players and fans still remember what the game is all about. 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 started following the Saints on an assignment from Rolling Stone. Jan Wenner, Rolling Stone's publisher and founding editor 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, 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 magnificently working his way back to the major leagues and World Series glory, the first female to pitch in a professional men's league, a legless second baseman, a blind radio color anouncer, two managers sumo wrestling on the diamond after being thrown out of the game by the umpires, a pig who brings balls to the umpires, and the ghost of the outrageous Bill Veeck, present through his ashes in a coffee can and 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, and despite some sloppy editting, his story scores.
If you love the game of baseball, then this book is a must read. If you once loved the game, but have lost your passion for it and become cynical because of the corporate farce that the major leagues have become, then read this book to remember why you fell in love in the first place.
Theo Logos
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
A Book As Wild, Wacky And Wonderful As The Team It Covers, August 25, 2003
This is one of the funniest books I've read in a long time. Neal Karlen was a writer for Rolling Stone, sent to St. Paul, Minnesota to "get the dirt" on Bill Murray, iconoclastic actor and part owner of the St. Paul Saints. The Saints are a minor league baseball team, part of the independent Northern League, and operated by Mike Veeck, son of the legendary Hall of Famer Bill Veeck. (Casual baseball fans will most likely recall the senior Veeck for having sent midget Eddie Gaedel up to bat as a pinch hitter. It was only one of many colorful stunts by the games' most creative promoter ever).Karlen sticks around for a couple of years; the story for Rolling Stone never materializes, but along the way this book emerges, as much about Karlen's crisis of spirit as it is about the Saints and the zany cast of characters surrounding them. But along the way we meet many of those who have given the Saints and the Northern League their unique cachet: on the field performers like former Mets slugger Darryl Strawberry, who temporarily redeems his life and career during a two-month stay with the Saints; former pitching star Jack Morris, seeking one more taste of glory, but on his terms only; Ila Borders, the first female to play in a professional game; and Wayne "Twig" Terwillliger, player and coach for 50 seasons and quiet representative of so much that's right with the game. There are also wonderful portraits of Sister Rosalind. the nun who offers massages at games; a blind radio announcer convinced he's on his way to the big leagues; an employee of one of the Saints' rivals who earns the title "Most Beloved Woman in the Northern League" and others who find solace, healing and a chance to keep dreaming dreams in this strange, wacky, wonderful firmamenent. I really hated to come to the end of this one. The empty feeling was almost as bad as the night the World Series ends.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Great story, terrible book, August 27, 1999
The author took a terrific story and butchered it by letting his petty bitterness take over. His personal vendettas and biases are too obvious. The players are interesting, but don't buy this book expecting a baseball book. It is the story of a lost middle-aged man and his partial recovery. It is written like a long magazine article (which is what it started as) and that is where it should have been published.
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Swing-and-a-miss, July 14, 1999
Was this book entertaining? Yes. Was it a good book? No. Karlen's account of two years of notes on the Northern League seems like it was written in pieces over those two years and patched together, disregarding what was already covered numerous times before. I am a baseball fan of the highest order and feel the Northern League story is a great one. But, this account falls short. Although it has it's moments, I cannot recommend buying this book, if someone you know owns it, borrow it, you'll surely give it back.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Like its subjects, the book is addled but well-meaning, April 27, 2000
This book has some incredibly intriguing subject matter, from the redemption of Darryl Strawberry in 1996 to a nun who gives backrubs and advice in the stands, and many other enjoyable and colorful characters besides. But the author spends so much time hand-wringing about his own angst (over whether he, as a journalist, will write a "hatchet" piece for Rolling Stone), that he rarely focuses on the actual game. Perhaps that's because he himself was so distracted by his angst that it was all he could really write about. By halfway through the book, I was wishing to hear less about Neal Karlen and more about the game itself. The scenes that take place on the field are few, despite the annoying sense that Karlen gives that a drama is being played out there... we're only seeing glimpses of it. Karlen also repeats himself often--as if he intended different chapters to stand alone as articles?--causing him to tell the same stories and trivial facts repeatedly, and yet often seemingly skip the meat of the story. His editors should have done a more careful job. It's a shame Karlen gets in the way of his own story--maybe Rolling Stone ruined him as a writer. Nonetheless, I still recommend this book because its subjects are so unique and so worth hearing about! What a wild tale! Every baseball fan should know of some of the unique characters and history associated with the Saints.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Hilarious - Couldn't Put It Down!, December 23, 2002
By A Customer
I picked this up at my boyfriend's house, read the first few pages, and stayed home on the sofa for an entire weekend because I couldn't put this book down. I'm not a baseball fan, and not from the Midwest, but Karlen's hilarious and equally moving tale of his two years following around this team of wanna-bes, has-beens, and dreamers (some who "made it," some who didn't) had me chortling out loud and even getting teary-eyed at times. This is really a book about Karlen's own search not just for material for his Rolling Stone article (how this book began), but for his own soul as well. Karlen's writing is always entertaining, leaving you wanting more. I'm buying a bunch of these as late Christmas presents -- it's the best gift I can think of. Uplifting, thought-provoking, and one of the funniest books I've read in a long time. You'll never find characters like this in fiction -- what's amazing is they're all real. It should be a movie.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Hysterical, even if you're not a baseball or Bill Murray fan, January 5, 2002
By A Customer
I love baseball and minor league baseball especially, and I love Bill Murray, who is one of the owners of the wacky team the St. Paul Saints this book is about. So when I heard this book when the Casey award for best baseball book of the year I got it. This team is nuts, but there's a point to all the nuttiness. They have a pig that delivers balls to the umpires! It was kind of amazing to read about the 3 foot tall second basemen with no legs, and really sad about Darryl Strawberry, especially when you know what happened to him. And all the women in the story seemed to fit in too. The writer kind of bugged me for the first 50 pages, but when I figured out he was looking for something in his own life as much as the players, I thought he was pretty cool and brave to be so upfront about his life. I'd rather see a game then read about it usually, but this really isn't even about baseball in a ton of ways. I gave it to some friends who don't even like baseball and they really liked it too.
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Even the legless get an AB, May 12, 2000
This book is an excellent exposure of a relatively unknown sector of baseball: independant leagues. Full of misfits and has-beens, the story of a team that gives ball players their last chance to make it to the big leagues, to play the dream, is excellently told, as well as the personal experiences of Neal Karlen.
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2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
I thought books had editors, December 27, 1999
By A Customer
This book certainly had all the elements necessary to make it a fun read...but it falls far short on delivering on that potential. I can excuse the self-centered tone of the author that interfered with the telling of what could have been a story about the fun and struggles of bush league ball. Its possible he wasn't really writing about baseball, but just about himself. What I can't accept is the same ancedotes repeated throughout the entire book. You read a passage...several pages later you read the same thing..and that passage shows up again several chapters further. It appears the book was written in starts-and-stops and no one bothered to look back at what was already written.
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2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
I couldn't finish it, October 15, 1999
By A Customer
I could not finish this could-have-been-semi-amusing book. Neal Karlen seems to lose all objectivity falling in love with this team and cast of characters. Even down to the pictures of the player's baseball cards -- which have the same tear and creases -- hardly authentic.
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