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For Love of the Game | 
 enlarge | Author: Michael Shaara
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Category: Book
List Price: $6.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  33 reviews
Sales Rank: 289210
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Edition: 1st Ballantine Books Ed
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 176
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 6.9 x 4.2 x 0.5
ISBN: 0345408918
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780345408914
ASIN: 0345408918
Publication Date: September 7, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Serious sports novels often fall through the literary cracks simply because of the arena they play in. Michael Shaara earned his battle stripes--and a Pulitzer Prize--for The Killer Angels, a fictional resurrection of the Battle of Gettysburg, as serious a subject as a writer can confront. Yet, it's no more profound, in the end, than the personal dilemmas protagonist Billy Chapel faces in this, Shaara's final novel, found stashed in a desk after his death and published posthumously. A certain Hall of Famer, Chapel is a major-league anomaly, a contemporary throwback to another sporting era. He's pitched 17 stellar seasons for the same club, and his love of the game has remained paramount; neither money nor fame has been his motivation. But on the single day this story takes place, he finds himself in crisis. At the crossroads of his life, his career, and his future, he must make the hard choices that will define the direction of the rest of his life. It's the end of the season, his team's out of contention, there's a rumor he may have been traded, and the woman he can't fully acknowledge that he loves announces she's leaving him. It is, as he tells himself, "Time to grow up, Daydreamer." Still, he dreams, but he also acts. As Billy takes the mound for his final start of the year--and maybe forever--we enter his stream of consciousness, and rush with him over the sometimes treacherous rapids of what has preceded this moment, and what may come. Amazingly, though his mind seems to wander through time, his concentration is fierce. Pitch by pitch, inning by inning, he remains focused, honoring his job and his legacy as he pitches a masterpiece of mythic proportion, ultimately leaving the field more a man than when he took it. Using baseball to sound the depths of human experience, Shaara delivers a masterpiece, as well. --Jeff Silverman
Product Description
Billy Chapel is a baseball legend, a man who has devoted his life to the game he loves and plays so well. But because of his unsurpassed skill and innocent faith, he has been betrayed. Now it's the final game of the season, and Billy's got one last chance to prove who he is and what he can do, a chance to prove what really matters in this life. A taut, compelling story of one man's coming of age, FOR LOVE OF THE GAME is Michael Shaara's final novel, the classic finish to a brilliantly distinguished literary career.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 28 more reviews...
Classic Baseball Novel November 7, 2006
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
A simple, predictable, yet powerful story of an old-school pitcher, Shaara's novel is a classic baseball tale. Billy Chapel, a future Hall-of-Famer who has just learned of his trade after 17 years with the same club, decides to hang up his cleats rather than leave the team he loves. He is not interested in money (yes, this is an obvious work of fiction), and pitches primarily for his "love of the game."
Shaara provides a unique formula for story-telling, as he interweaves flashbacks of Billy's life into his final game on the mound. In it, Shaara shows the total concentration and focused mind of an all-time great pitcher as he progresses through his last effort as a ballplayer. Through flashbacks, we learn of Billy's past relationships with his parents and his girl, Carol. And during the game, Shaara provides simple, direct descriptions of the events, in an nearly non-emotional, detached tone. Indeed, Shaara allows us to delve into the mind of a pitcher as he pitches a perfect game (although he doesn't even realize this until the 8th inning). And, yet, the primary focus is not baseball, but his retrospect on his life and his place in the world.
Although this book may have been more polished if Shaara hadn't died suddenly, this is still a superb book and a classic "old-school" baseball tale. For baseball purists and baseball lovers alike, this should be on the short-list of any reading list. And even for non-baseball fans, this is still a compelling story.
 Nothing special here August 26, 2006
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I read this short novel because I greatly admired Shaara's Pulitzer Prize winning "Killer Angels," and because I'm a baseball fan. The novel feels more like an outline or first draft than a completed work about an aging pitcher. It's a bit shallow and predictable in its plot. The characters are what one expects in all too many sports novels and short stories. The feel or atmosphere just isn't quite there.
Any baseball fan will see flaws in the book right away, flaws that distract and damage the work. Shaara sets most of the novel in Yankee Stadium with the Hawks playing the Yankees. Why the author chose to have one real team against a fictional team is unclear. The Hawks apparently are from Atlanta, but an Atlanta team, Braves or Hawks, whichever, would not be playing the Yankees interleague on the next to last day of the season. Finally, when a visiting pitcher goes out to warm up before the game, he does so in the semi-hidden bull pen down the left field line in Yankee Stadium--not on the mound on the field.
This book was published posthumously and Mr. Shaara perhaps never had a chance to polish his prose--prose that was excellent in "Killer Angels." It's unfortunate.
There are glimmers of interest in the book, but not enough to recommend it to baseball fans or fans of the author's other book.
 Short, surprisingly moving tale October 6, 2005
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Heard FOR LOVE OF THE GAME by Michael Sahara,
a posthumously published baseball novel by the Pulitzer Prize
winning author of THE KILLING ANGELS . . . you might have
to dig some to find it, but your search will be worth the
effort.
This is a short, surprisingly moving tale of an aging baseball
superstar who is pitching the last game of the season . . . through
a series of flashbacks, you learn about his career and the
one woman he loves (but who is leaving him).
The writing is compelling, and it makes you feel that you
really get to know the guy . . . plus, it has you rooting for
his every pitch and caring about what happens to him.
There's a great ending, too.
 THE MOVIE IS BETTER WAY BETTER October 5, 2005
0 out of 29 found this review helpful
IAM THE SAME KID THAT REVIEWED GODS AND GENERALS I SAW THE MOVIES GETTYSBURG AND GODS AND GENERALS SO I EXPECTED THIS BOOK TO BE EXCITING NOT A PIECE OF TRASH I EXPECTED IT TO PROFILE COMMON SOLIDERS LIKE IN THE MOVIES GETTYSBURG,GODS AND GENERALS,AND IN THE BOOKS THE MOVIES ARE BASED ON FOCUS ATTENION ON ORDINARY SOLIDERS THIS JUST FOCUSES ON THE KEY PLAYERS I NOT SAYING THE ENTIRE BOOK SHOULD HAVE BEEN DETICATED TO THE COMMON SOLIDERS LORD KNOWS WE HAVE ENOUGH BOOKS LIKE THAT I`M JUST SAYING IT WOULD BE NICE IF A LITTLE ATTENION WAS GIVEN TO THEM YOU KNOW. THIS BOOK SHOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN WRITTEN IN THE FIRST PLACE
 Killer Curveballs. God, Generals, and Strikeouts. September 18, 2005
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Michael Shaara worked on this book before he died. It is obvious that he never quite finished it, because it is little more than a short story, and it lacks a second act. It is a clever literary mechanism, constructing, evaluating, and analyzing one's life within a baseball game, but I am sure Michael would have liked to work on it some more. Eventually it was found by son Jeff, who has at this point has surpassed his father's literary output. Jeff had the manuscript published, apparently without any modifications, and it later served as the basis for the Kevin Costner-Kelly Preston film of the same name.
No one is a bigger fan of the Shaaras' work than I, but this is not the best of the lot. The ending of the book is a bit hokey and not too well-explained. The screenwriters for the film understood this and changed the ending, and added many characters and plot lines. Actually it is not a bad film, despite the uneven performance of Miss Preston, and Kevin Costner being way too old, even for an aging ball player, and not athletic or fit enough.
Billy Chapel is an old school ballplayer, 17 years pitching for the same team (never identified in the book, the Detroit Tigers in the film). He is a superstar, heading for the Hall of Fame, when he finds out very late in the season, that he is to be traded. He is to pitch that day against the hated Yankees, and even though his team has been long eliminated from contention, Chapel plans to give his best performance on what could be his last day.
Complicating all this baseball business is his strange relationship with Jane, an aspiring editor, who told him that morning they are through, since he does not really need her, in her view. Chapel's relationship with this woman has lasted for years, but been very non-committal and unstructured.
Of course, Chapel pitches well on this day at Yankee Stadium, he is clearly in the zone. Inning by inning, we learn the backstory, how his father taught him the game, the early deaths of his parents, how the business end of baseball changed in nearly two decades, and his relationship with the former team owner. His relationship with Jane is explained from the first meeting, including their rules of engagement.
After the game, Chapel has another discussion with Jane. That is about it for the book. The movie is considerably fleshed out with additional characters like Vince Scully (he is nearly a co-star as he broadcasts the game for Fox), Steve "Psycho" Lyons (who is as forgettable as an announcer as he was as a player), Jane's daughter and her father, the team trainer, the old and new owners, and a rookie Yankee player who is the son of a former Chapel teammate. To make it even more interesting the film adds a sub-plot with Chapel suffering an injury, Jane playing a key role in preventing it from becoming life-threatening, Chapel treating her badly, and Chapel eventually returning to form.
The book has some issues that will bother baseball fans, like Chapel batting in an AL park where the DH would be in effect, and a line-up with an inconsistent order. None of that really matters, and is all throughly fixed in the film. Actual MLB umpires appear as do former players, though not of any note.
Just for fun, the film includes a Jose Canseco-type player, who fields fly balls off his head. Fortunately there is no appearance by steroids or Madonna (speaking of aging stars from Detroit).
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