Book catches 'Game'

For Love Of The Game

1991 Carroll & Graf Publishers

Two outs. Bottom of the ninth. Score's 1-0. Zeros across the board on the home team's half of the scoreboard. Pitcher's been in for eight and two thirds of the game. The other team's power taps the plate. A jet of clean, dry, brown dirt escapes from beneath. He glares up and the mound, but even he knows that the pitcher is looking through him. The movement begins, and the die is cast.

It is impossible to capture magic. It is impossible to hold a miracle. It is impossible to grasp perfection. But one must try. In "For Love Of The Game," Michael Shaara's final novel, he comes very close. The book follows follows Hall of Fame pitcher Billy Chapel through his final game in the majors.

Michael Shaara is the Pulitzer Prize winning author of "The Killer Angels," the grand-scale piece of historical fiction chronicling the individual participants in the battle of Gettysburg.

"For Love Of The Game" is by no means an epic. In its primary level, it spans a short amount of time: only a day or so. But because of this, Shaara is able to use his exceptional descriptive skill to give the reader a detailed and moving personification of the game. It is an ethereal experience. Shaara chooses to use a style that is almost a stream-of-consciousness tacit. He closely canvasses Chapel's thoughts as he winds through the small window of his life that is shown to the reader.

"For Love Of The Game" is a book about baseball. And when it comes to the game, Shaara is a devoted student. He didn't just engage in a bit of intensive research on pitching style prior to the novel to sound intelligent. It is obvious that he has some level intimate knowledge of the game. The title of the book applies to its main character, but it also applies to its author.

Shaara is an incredibly talented writer, and like most of the great ones, he is able to bring the reader one step closer to the human experience. And the novel is not just a book about baseball, though this may be its integral component. It traces deeper themes throughout. It is a poignant exploration of love and its maturation. It is a close look at innocence and growing up.

Shaara has made tangible a bit of magic, a feat to which few can aspire, and fewer still can attain.

- Joshua Pederson

04-21-98