The Roger Angell Baseball Collection: The Summer Game, Five Seasons, and Season Ticket

by Roger Angell

From “the clear-eyed poet laureate of baseball”—a definitive collection of three nonfiction classics chronicling MLB into the modern age (New York Post). In these three classic volumes, legendary New Yorker sportswriter Roger Angell chronicles the triumphs, travails, heroes, and history of America’s favorite pastime.   In The Summer Game, Angell covers ten seasons in the major leagues from the 1960s to the early 1970s. With his signature panache, Angell captures the flavor of the game and the spirit of legends such as Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson, and Willie Mays.   In Five Seasons, Angell covers the mid-1970s, which he calls “the most important half-decade in the history of the game.” From the accomplishments of Nolan Ryan and Hank Aaron to the rising influence of network television, Angell offers a fresh perspective on this transformative period.   And in Season Ticket, Angell recounts the larger-than-life narratives of baseball in the mid-1980s. Diving into subjects including the notorious 1986 World Series and the Curse of the Bambino, Sparky Anderson’s Detroit Tigers, and performance-enhancing drug use, Angell offers insights that are crucial to understanding the game as we know it today.  

Genres: Baseball, Sports, Nonfiction, History

1303 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 18, 2013

About the author

Roger Angell (b. 1920) is a celebrated New Yorker writer and editor. First published in the magazine in 1944, he became a fiction editor and regular contributor in 1956; and remains as a senior editor and staff writer. In addition to seven classic books on baseball, which include The Summer Game (1972), Five Seasons (1977), and Season Ticket (1988), he has written works of fiction, humor, and a memoir, Let Me Finish (2006).

Reviews

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Roger Angell, like his step-father E.B.White, is a superb prose stylist. In my opinion, the best baseball writer of the past half century.

The Baseball Collection is three of his books covering a span of about 25 years -- 1962 to 1987. I remember reading a number of the later pieces in the New Yorker. It was a pleasure to go back to the earlier pieces, though, and he covers baseball in the 1960s and 1970s with a fine gloss, a keen eye, and a prose style that brings out the inner workings and the magic of the game.

If I were to recommend one writer on the modern era of baseball, with a fan's sense of appreciation, it would be Angell. What is also nice is the pieces contained in the book can be read independently of each other, so if you choose a chapter, you can do what I like to do -- bounce around with the pieces to your enjoyment.

[Leonard · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed it as that is the time that I really started following MLB. I picked my favorite team the Orioles. His stats from the decades he covers in this book(s) were interesting to me. The names of the players he mentions really brought back a good time for me. His ending chapter about the Hall of Fame was really informative. I have been fortunate enough to have visited the HOF and the Doubleday field. A real Lifelister for any true baseball fan. A very good read!!

[Paul Richardson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A true love of baseball

Angell's writing gives the reader a good feel of what it was like to live through and experience baseball seasons of the 60s, 70s, and 80s as they happened. Much of the book reads as leisurely as the spring training afternoons Angell loves.

[Ron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pure gold, start to finish.

[Carroll Wills · Rating 5 out of 5]

In my view, Roger Angell was the most prolific, literate and passionate baseball writer of them all. All of the lyricism and humanity that we associate with the dreamy prose about our National Pastime is there, beautifully written and, at times, wonderfully intimate.

This collection tells stories across decades of baseball history, and the way Angell delivers them leaves no doubt about his love of the game. Stories that can be read and re-read over and over, of characters great and small. Stories that remind us of how timeless the game is, and how beautiful it is. If you love baseball, you can't help but love this book.