Late Innings – Roger Angell, 1982 ★★★★

Baseball in the Jacksonian Era

This collection of baseball essays by Roger Angell details baseball during one of its pivot periods, 1977 to 1981, an era where free agency and player strikes dominated sports headlines. It was an era personified by the player who also dominated headlines while leading the New York Yankees to three World Series appearances, Reggie Jackson.

Originally published in The New Yorker, these essays are hard to recommend over an earlier Angell collection, The Summer Game, where the baseball was purer and the business behind it less intrusive. Angell's ability to capture the excitement and pleasure of the game is more hampered here. Colorful personalities were still a big part of the game, especially with the Yankees, but their charm seems to elude him.

"I visited the Yankees after many games last summer, but I rarely stayed long, because it was the most joyless clubhouse I had ever been in," he writes. "In time, I became sorry for them all..."

You feel a bit sorry for Angell, too, as he had to cover them a lot. The postseason match-ups didn't change much; in 1977, 1978, and 1981, you had the Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers facing off (ironically, despite many subsequent strong seasons by both clubs, they have yet to meet in a World Series since); while 1980 featured the teams which had lost their respective league championships in 1977 and 1978, the Philadelphia Phillies and Kansas City Royals. Only 1979 showcased new blood, in the form of the disco-infused Pittsburgh Pirates and Baltimore Orioles.

The highlight of all these World Series came from Reggie Jackson in 1977, where he hit three home runs with three consecutive swings of the bat in a single game. Angell writes about Jackson from a distance, not enjoying the proximity of other sports writers like Tom Boswell or Dave Anderson, often to his benefit:

"...Reggie Jackson makes a frightening figure at bat. But he is not a great hitter. Perhaps he is not even a good one. A chronic overstrider and overswinger, he swings through a lot of pitches, and the unchecked flailing power of his immense cut causes his whole body to drop down a foot or more."

Three swings, three goners - Reggie Jackson connects in Game 6 of the 1977 World Series. Credit: AP Photos/Ray Stubblebine.

Other essays in this collection chronicle baseball in other ways, such as the struggle of women reporters to be admitted to major-league locker rooms, the uneasy retirement of pitching great Bob Gibson, and the story of a struggling semi-pro pitcher and his determined wife. An examination of hitting as seen through the perspectives of several major hitters of the day is probing if overlong. Long-form journalism was Angell's specialty, what made his baseball writing unique, but for some reason I noticed it more here than I did reading The Summer Game.

The best essay is also one of the shortest. "The Web Of The Game" introduces us to a game between Yale University and St. John's University as seen through the eyes of an old man. Fans of the New York Mets and Boston Red Sox who find the rest of this book bereft of a rooting interest may like it because the college pitchers are Ron Darling and Frank Viola, both later Mets, and the old man is, well, let's just say he could remember in 1981 the last time the Red Sox won a World Series. The way Angell springs his identity on you is too great to spoil here.

Late Innings has an overall feeling of resignation to it, as if Angell felt the sport moving away from the simple pleasure of old. Yet his reportage is still compelling and revealing, and his company still enjoyable. While not the first Angell book to recommend, Late Innings is still worthwhile.