3 Nights in August (Book Review)

The writer Michael Chabon said that, "a baseball game is nothing but a great slow contraption for getting you to pay attention to the cadence of a summer day." I love baseball because of its rhythms. I love it because it's not just about what's going on on the field, it's about everything around it, too. The starts and stops and ebbs and flows and beats and pauses.

And now I've learned that I could never be a major league manager, because it would ruin the game for me.

Buzz Bissinger's 3 Nights in August: Strategy, Heartbreak, and Joy Inside the Mind of a Manager follows St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa through a three game series in August, 2003 against the Chicago Cubs. Both teams were battling the Houston Astros for both the division title and the wild card (the Cubs eventually won the division pennant), so the intensity level was ridiculously high. But one gets the feeling that the intensity level for a manager, or at least a manager like LaRussa, is always necessarily ridiculously high. Bissinger recounts nearly every out, and in many cases, every pitch of every out, relating the toll each singular moment takes on LaRussa's constitution and psyche. While it is entirely fascinating to see just what goes into (literally) every pitch in an at-bat, in a game, in a series, in a season, the result is a world that is ruthless and draining. I do not (I should say, I no longer) envy people like LaRussa. This is just too much stress for a guy like me.

That said, Bissinger has created an engaging narrative, using just the three-game series as the backdrop for his examination of LaRussa (and the baseball manager on a larger scale, ultimately), interspersing the minute detail of game action with flashbacks to earlier in the season, to previous seasons (even back to LaRussa's beginnings with the White Sox) to see how prior events, thoughts, and mistakes shape each and every move LaRussa makes. I'm a Cubs fan, and though it's no secret what happened in 2003 (not that I remembered this particular series, but I easily could have looked it up), I still found myself pulling for Moises Alou to get a clutch hit, or for Kerry Wood to shut down the Cards. This is a testament to the foresight of Bissinger and LaRussa's decision to focus the book on one series, rather than, say, LaRussa's entire history or his general philosophy. This move allowed them to set the narrative right in the middle of high drama, and then to maneuver in and out at their leisure.

I'm not impressed, though, with Bissinger's ability as a wordsmith. He tends to rely on the same devices (repeating repeating repeating the same word or phrase again and again to add urgency), or the same terms (if I read "crooked number" ever again, I must pop a blood vessel). Once, or twice, or three times seems reasonable. 10 or 15 or 20 times shows a lack of imagination. Or laziness. I'm not sure which is worse.

More than that, Bissinger is often far too pleased with himself with his turns of phrase. His style may please some people, but little bothers me more than a writer who is obviously far too self-indulgent:

"His forkball was a hitter's temptress, slow and sweet before the bottom went to hell."

"Morris retires the side in order in the sixth, the final pitch a sweet 12-to-6 curve that Sosa misses by so much, even the Arch smiles." (Get it? Cause they're in St. Louis! And the Arch maybe looks like it's frowning!)

Ugh. Take a step back, Buzz. You're not as clever as you think you are.

Even so, I could get past that. The narrative was interesting enough, the subject was more than interesting enough, and it was delightful to read about players with the knowledge of what lay in store for them over the next six years. And, yeah, Bissinger's writing is not as irritating as I'm making it out to be.

Quick read, innovative craftsmanship, mostly enjoyable. Stressful, but mostly enjoyable.