The Best Seat in Baseball, but You Have to Stand!: The Game As Umpires See It (Writing Baseball)

Rating:
Summary: Mediocre
Review: For this genre, the book is mediocre. If anything, I would say that the writing style is wrong. It may be "creative writing" but it reads more like a novel than non-fiction. Now, non-fiction does not mean it has to be boring! Certainly, some of the stories are interesting, but it often became a chore to read. Not a bad book, but certainly not the best it could be.

Rating:
Summary: Mediocre
Review: For this genre, the book is mediocre. If anything, I would say that the writing style is wrong. It may be "creative writing" but it reads more like a novel than non-fiction. Now, non-fiction does not mean it has to be boring! Certainly, some of the stories are interesting, but it often became a chore to read. Not a bad book, but certainly not the best it could be.

Rating:
Summary: A major disappointment
Review: The first thing you should know about this book is it's based on the 1975 season, which means that none of the umpires or players mentioned are contemporary.

Beyond that, this is poorly done and unethically done at that. Late in the book, the author admits that he pretended to be sleeping in order to eavesdrop on the conversation between two umpires in a hotel room. He says he threw away drinks and pretended to be drunk so they'd talk openly in front of him.

If the ethics don't bother you, consider this: how accurate are the conversations he quotes, considering he had no tape recorder and reconstructed them after the fact? Could you relate word-for-word a conversation you had with a co-worker this morning?

Baseball umpires could be the subject for a great book. This isn't it.

Rating:
Summary: A brutally honest, yet very engrossing read.
Review: Very few people know what the rigours and stresses of a pro sport official are as well as the personal setbacks and of course the professional flaws. This book has all of the above, excellently written and clearly shows what being a major sports league's messenger (since umpires just enforce the rules) is really like. Just as now, the dealings with overpaid, spoiled players, coaches and managers are well described. One of the best books I've ever read.