Wednesday, February 23, 2011


Squeeze Play by Jane Leavy

In ten words or less: Woman sportswriter covers an expansion baseball team's first season.

Review: Before Jane Leavy wrote the excellent biographies of Sandy Koufax and Mickey Mantle, she wrote this novel loosely based on her experiences as a sportswriter.
In this novel, A.B. Berkowtiz is a woman reporter assigned to cover the first year of a new expansion baseball team in Washington, D.C. No one wants her in the locker room. The team owner is a televangelist who believe that a woman's place is not reporting on the team. The manager, the players, the wives, even the other sportswriters, are all giving her the silent treatment.
The Nationals are on a record-setting pace to achieve the worst record ever in baseball history, and A.B. Berkowitz is along for the ride.

Why bother? The language is raunchy, the naked ballplayers drink, pray, and have sex, and A.B. wonders if being a sportswriter is all it's cracked up to be. The baseball answer to Dan Jenkin's football novels.

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