Product Description

Pitchers are the heart of baseball, and John Feinstein tells the story of the game today through one season and two great pitchers working in the crucible of the New York media market. Tom Glavine and Mike Mussina have seen it all in the Major Leagues and both entered 2007 in search of individual milestones and one more shot at The World Series-Glavine with the Mets, Mussina five miles away with the Yankees. The two veterans experience very different seasons--one on a team dealing with the pressure to get to a World Series for the first time in seven years, the other with a team expected to be there every year. Taking the reader through contract negotiations, spring training, the ups of wins and losses, and the people in their lives-family, managers, pitching coaches, agents, catchers, other pitchers--John Feinstein provides a true insider's look at the pressure cooker of sports at the highest level.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9921 in Books
• Published on: 2008-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 544 pages

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.

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 )

"Strong on human drama-both players come across as noble, bloodied warriors...Feinstein captures [Mussina and Glavine] artfully." (Washington Post Book World Allen Barra )

"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 )

"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) )

About the Author

John Feinstein is the bestselling author of Let Me Tell You a Story, Caddy for Life, Open, The Punch, The Last Amateurs, The Majors, A Good Walk Spoiled, A Civil War, A Season on the Brink, Play Ball, Hard Courts, and two novels. He writes for Inside Sports, Golf, Tennis Magazine and Basketball America and commentates on NPR and CBS.

Customer Reviews

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!

Inside Pitch
What I love about John Feinstein is his ability to take the sports fan into a world we don't normally see. In "Living on the Black" he uses his journalistic credibility and his extraordinary story telling powers to create a "behind the scenes" story of two veteran pitchers, Mike Mussina and Tom Glavine. Each pitcher is struggling to eek one more season out of his "ancient" body. Mr. Feinstein approaches his story with the same pacing of the baseball season itself (this may put off some readers). His detailed approach gives us tremendous insight into the art of pitching. This book is a fine addition to your collection of Baseball Literature.

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.