Product Description

Pitchers are at the heart of baseball. Each has the potential to make his team a winner or, very quickly, a loser. The pressure is huge. In the end, only those with both the arm and the heart and the ability to manage extraordinary stress will emerge as champions.

John Feinstein looks into this complex side of the game through the events of one nerve-racking season and through the eyes of two great pitchers trying to perform at the highest possible level in the twilight of their careers in the biggest media fishbowl in America. Tom Glavine and Mike Mussina have seen it all in the Major Leagues, remarkable highs and heartbreaking lows. Both entered the 2007 season in search of individual milestones and one more shot at the World Series--Glavine with the Mets, Mussina a few miles and one borough away with the Yankees. Despite their proximity, they experienced very different seasons--one pitching for a team dealing with the pressure of trying to qualify for the World Series for the first time in seven years; the other with a legendary team, expected to be there every year.

Feinstein captures the rollercoaster that was the 2007 season for both teams through the experiences of two pitchers at the center of it all. John Feinstein provides a true insider's look into the most intensely watched and scrutinized position in sports-Major League starting pitcher.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #271052 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 1.55" h x 5.50" w x 8.30" l, 1.16 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 560 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780316113922
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From The Washington Post

The title of John Feinstein's Living on the Black refers to the area on the outer edges of the strike zone where veteran pitchers whose fast ones have slowed to under 90 mph must consistently place the ball. The term also reflects the precarious situation that the New York Yankees' right-hander Mike Mussina and former New York Mets left-hander Tom Glavine were in at the start of the 2007 season.

Mussina and Glavine, then 38 and 41 respectively, were struggling to hold on to their jobs and keep batters off balance with a guile accumulated during a total of 36 years in the majors. Both men made it, but just barely; their personal milestones -- Glavine passed the 300 mark in total victories, and Mussina reached number 250 -- were overshadowed by their teams' dismal finishes.

The Yankees did their usual postseason fold while the Mets, leading their division by seven games with 17 left to play, crashed and burned in one of the greatest collapses in baseball history. Glavine took the season-ending loss, failing to last through the first inning. One of the game's most articulate players, he was philosophical when asked if he was devastated. "To me, devastating is finding out that a neighbor's eight-year-old is going to lose a leg to cancer." Less philosophical Mets fans were, well, devastated.

A columnist for The Washington Post and author of 22 previous books, John Feinstein must have known that as a writer he was living on the black himself by picking two aging pitchers for his subject. The resulting book is strong on human drama -- both players come across as noble, bloodied warriors -- but extremely short on baseball drama. Like Mussina and Glavine over the last couple of seasons, Living on the Black starts out strong and begins to run out of steam about halfway through. Yankee and Mets fans know how it all comes out, and baseball fans who don't like these two teams may not care.

Feinstein tries to pump up the narrative by reminding us that "they are two of the best pitchers of all time. And they aren't quite done yet." That's debatable, but even if it were true, it's been so long since either pitcher was at his peak that many may have forgotten. That Feinstein captures them artfully in their decline only serves to make their story painful to read. Living on the Black has a hard time living up to its subtitle: for Mussina and Glavine as well as for Yankees and Mets fans, the season was really one to forget.

Copyright 2008, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Emulating the format of the Kunhardts’ Lincoln: An Illustrated Biography (1992), this volume, with nearly 1,000 illustrations, depicts the 60 years of commemoration following Lincoln’s death in 1865. As explained by historian David Herbert Donald (Lincoln, 1995), little information that is now second nature in Lincoln biographies was publicly known in 1865; consequently, this fascinating work can be appreciated for its presentation of the revelations about Lincoln’s life. Pivotal to these pioneering efforts was the research and biographies by Lincoln’s law partner, William Herndon, and by his secretaries, John Nicolay and John Hay, who aspired to write definitive portraits. Their publishing efforts, and those of other Lincoln associates, interweave with the Kunhardts’ accounts of other forms assumed by Lincoln celebration, encompassing collections of artifacts, commissions of statues and monuments, birthday observances (culminating in the 1909 centennial), and, most important historically, the fate of his political legacy of preserving the Union and ending slavery. The last, with the failure of Reconstruction to achieve legal equality for blacks, supplies a dampening contrast to the otherwise exalting trajectory taken by Lincoln’s memorializers, the authors making a pointed comparison between a 1908 anti-black riot in Lincoln’s hometown and Springfieldians’ staging of a whites-only centennial banquet scant months later. An engrossing invitation to scrutinize its every page and image, the Kunhardts’ work is sure to be one of the most popular books in the bicentennial effusion of Lincoln volumes. --Gilbert Taylor

Review
"An absorbing read. Feinstein takes a pair of opinionated veterans and picks their brains all season about the art of pitching, also relying on the thoughts of teammates, coaches, managers and families to present well-rounded, intimate portraits....What makes the book so engaging is that each pitcher faced adversity during the season, creating unexpected drama that helped give an edge to Feinstein's narrative....Another excellent story, told by one of sports' best storytellers."  (Tampa Tribune Bob D'Angelo )

PRAISE FOR AMERICA'S FAVORITE SPORTSWRITER:

"Feinstein is the most successful sportswriter in America....He has the girt of re-creating events known to us all while infusing them with excitement, even suspense." (Wall Street Journal Jay Nordlinger )

"As always, Feinstein guides readers into a world with which fans have only surface familiarity, revealing in the process multiple substrata of nuance and meaning. Baseball fans who read this wonderful book will come away with a deeper understanding of the game in addition to having encountered a pair of fascinating men who just happen to play a game for a living." (Booklist (starred review) )

PRAISE FOR LIVINGON THE BLACK:

"Feinstein achieves a double play fans should savor for its scrupulous look at what life is like for the 21st-century major leaguer." (Christian Science Monitor Erik Spanberg )

"When Feinstein gets [Glavine and Mussina] talking about the art of pitching, the book comes alive." (New York Daily News David Hinckley )

"One of the best sportswriters alive." (USA Today Larry King )

Customer Reviews

Not for the Casual Fan
Sports writers tend to specialize in one sport or another, but John Feinstein writes about different sports, and does every one equally well. However, his latest book, Living on the Black: Two Pitchers, Two Teams, One Season to Remember, is definitely for readers who are more than just casual baseball fans. It's for those readers who are passionate enough to want to read about the 2007 season, following each pitch made by Tom Glavine and Mike Mussina. I'm one of those baseball fanatics.

When Feinstein picked Tom Glavine of the New York Mets and Mike Mussina of the New York Yankees, he selected two experienced pitchers who were very different. He knew if one was injured during the year, he still had another pitcher to follow. Glavine, a lefty, who never went to college, is a future Hall of Famer who spent his career in the National League. Mike Mussina, a righty, went to Stanford, and pitches in the American League. By selecting these two men, Feinstein could also examine the culture of the two New York baseball teams.

Feinstein sets the scene for his book by telling about the careers for these two masterful pitchers. Since Glavine and Mussina both cooperated with the author, it makes for a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the lives and careers of the two players. And, then 2007 proved to be an interesting year. Tom Glavine went for his 300th win, and the Mets went down to the wire in their Division. Mike Mussina struggled to find his pitches after spending time on the Disabled List, and the Yankees' woes jeopardized Joe Torre's career. Feinstein's writing is so good that even those of us who remember how 2007 turned out are left hanging on every pitch.

John Feinstein's Living on the Black: Two Pitchers, Two Teams, One Season to Remember is one book for baseball fans to savor, and remember.

Good Book But A Little Too Detailed
John Feinstein is a very good sports author. I love most of his books. I thought this was an interesting concept for a book. I enjoy both pitchers, Mike Mussina and Tom Glavine, that he chose to follow. Mr. Feinstein showed a different side of both pitchers. He had a great season to follow with the New York Mets collapse and the New York Yankees fighting to make the playoffs. I really enjoyed Mike Mussina's breaking down of what a pitcher truly is and what they do.

Now the bad, I hated that Mr. Feinstein went through game by game giving the highlights that someone could have gotten from the boxscores. He left me asking questions as I read about what the two pitchers thought or how it effected them that I wish he would have answered. The first part of the book where Mr. Feinstein goes through each of their careers to date was fascinating. However he couldn't sustain that pace and the critical analysis after he started with the 2007 season. I really did enjoy this book but wish he would have had a better editor that would have made the book flow a little tighter.

Decent book but could have been better
As someone who has read John Fienstein's books for more than ten years now I can say that I have seen some of his books that are good to great and some that are poor to lousy. This one sadly rates in the second category. Overall it is a weak and overwrought story and essentially a 500 page plus book that could be half that length with a good editor.

The book also contains a number of errors that a good editor would have caught along with the long winded phrases. Plus the fact that he dwells so long on the prep of two pitchers when focusing on either Glavine and the Mets or Mussina and the Yankees would have sufficed. Basically this book is too much information and too little strength. I hope his next work is better!