Bunts; Curt Flood, Camden Yards, Pete Rose and Other Reflections on Baseball

New York: Scribner, 1998. First Printing. Hardcover. Very good/very good. 352 pages. Illus., index. Signed by the author. George Frederick Will (born May 4, 1941) is an American libertarian-conservative political commentator. He writes regular columns for The Washington Post and provides commentary for NBC News and MSNBC. In 1986, The Wall Street Journal called him "perhaps the most powerful journalist in America," in a league with Walter Lippmann (1889-1974). He won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1977. Will originally had left wing political views, but his views shifted toward conservatism during his studies at Oxford. He joined The Washington Post Writers Group in 1974, writing a syndicated biweekly column, which became widely circulated among newspapers across the country and continues today. Often combining factual reporting with conservative commentary, Will's columns are known for their erudite vocabulary, allusions to political philosophers, and frequent references to baseball. Will has also written two bestselling books on the game of baseball, three books on political philosophy, and has published eleven compilations of his columns for The Washington Post and Newsweek and of various book reviews and lectures. Prior to joining Fox News, Will was a news analyst for ABC News and was a founding member on the panel of ABC's This Week with David Brinkley in 1981. Will was a panelist on This Week until his departure from ABC News. On May 8, 2017, Will was announced as an MSNBC and NBC News political contributor, a position in which he provides regular political input on shows such as Today, Morning Joe, and The 11th Hour. A collection of 70 essays on baseball. Topics covered include Ted Williams, Tony Gwynn, Joe DiMaggio, the Florida Marlins, and the art of baseball broadcasting. In this New York Times bestseller, Pulitzer Prize-winning author George F. Will returns to baseball with more than seventy finely honed pieces about the sometimes recondite, sometimes frustrating, yet always passionately felt national pastime. Here are Will's eulogy for the late Curt Flood ("Dred Scott in Spikes"), Will on Ted Williams ("When Ted Williams retired in 1960, a sportswriter said that Boston knew how Britain felt when it lost India. Indeed, Britain felt diminished, but also a bit relieved"), and Will on his own baseball career ("I was a very late draft choice of the Mittendorf Funeral Home Panthers. Our color was black"). Here are subjects ranging from the author's 1977 purchase of a single share of stock in the Chicago Cubs to the memorable 1998 season, which is discussed in an all-new essay. For fans of Men at Work and Will's other baseball writings, this book is as pleasurable as a well-executed bunt.