Squeeze Play: A Witty and Heartbreaking Novel About a Female Sportswriter Covering Baseball's Worst Team

by Jane Leavy

Inspired by the author's career as a sportswriter for the Washington Post, Squeeze Play tells the story of female reporter A. B. Berkowitz, who is assigned to cover the men of the Washington Senators -- the worst team in major league baseball. Life in the locker room shows her not just the players'…um…assets but also their all-too-human frailties. Love for the game and love for the newspaper business are the stars in this hilarious and heartbreaking novel that "will have you singing a rousing chorus of 'Take Me Out to the Locker Room'"(People).

Genres: Baseball, Fiction, Sports, Humor

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Jane Leavy is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Last Boy, Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy and the comic novel Squeeze Play, which Entertainment Weekly called “the best novel ever written about baseball.” Her latest book is The Big Fella. She was a staff writer at The Washington Post from 1979 to1988, first in the sports section, then writing for the style section. She covered baseball, tennis, and the Olympics for the paper. She wrote features for the style section about sports, politics, and pop culture, including, most memorably, a profile of Mugsy Bogues, the 5’3″ guard for the Washington Wizards, which was longer than he is tall.

Before joining the The Washington Post, she was a staff writer at womenSports and Self magazines. She has written for many publications, including The New York Times, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, The Village Voice, and The New York Daily News. Leavys work has been anthologized in many collections, including Best Sportswriting, Coach: 25 Writers Reflect on People Who Made a Difference, Child of Mine: Essays on Becoming a Mother, Nike Is a Goddess: The History of Women in Sports, Diamonds Are a Girls Best Friend: Women Writers on Baseball, A Kind of Grace: A Treasury of Sportswriting by Women, and Making Words Dance: Reflections on Red Smith, Journalism and Writing.

She grew up on Long Island where she pitched briefly and poorly for the Blue Jays of the Roslyn Long Island Little League. On her parents first date, her father, a water boy for the 1927 New York football Giants, took her mother to a Brooklyn College football game. She retaliated by taking him to Loehmanns after the final whistle. It was a template for their 63-year union. As a child, Jane Leavy worshipped Mickey Mantle from the second-floor ballroom in the Concourse Plaza Hotel where her grandmothers synagogue held services on the High Holidays.

Jane Leavy attended Barnard College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where she wrote her masters essay (later published in The Village Voice) on Red Smith, the late sports columnist for The New York Times, who was her other childhood hero.

She has two adult children, Nick and Emma, and she lives in Washington, DC, and Truro, Massachusetts.

Reviews

[Jeffrey Rubenstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating view of a 1989 major league season for the Washington Senators as told uniquely by a woman sports writer. Jane Leavy uses baseball and humor to describe this season of hell saga.

[Schuyler Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jane Leavy has written several sports related books that I’ve really enjoyed, all best selling non-fiction, about stars such as Mickey Mantle and Sandy Koufax. “Squeeze Play” is the fictional account of a hapless major league team and the locker room antics they engage in.

It’s a raunchy story full of sex talk and nasty tricks with little to recommend it as great fiction. But, as a career sportswriter with access to locker room antics, Leavy lets out all the secrets about a woman in an atmosphere of naked men with nothing but time on their hands and a woman to harass. Out of some 100,000 words in her book, probably 25,00 f-words and numerous other foul expressions dominate. I suspect she used some literary license in her account to create interest because, during 30 years in a male-dominated firehouse, I never witnessed such licentious behavior.

I did, however, enjoy the book because her descriptions, while outlandish, gave real insight into the pressure put upon professional baseball players. It’s not an easy game although it appears peaceful and serene compared to football, hockey, and basketball. The striving for perfection that keeps players in the game creates great tension. Their performance is always open to discussion and criticism. The plot is about the demands and performance standards that keep their lives in turmoil and their careers unstable.

Not a book for the prudish, it’s a revelation for those who know sports. They shouldn’t be shocked to find that the boys of summer are not choirboys. I enjoyed its raucous atmosphere and waded through its raunchiness with many a laugh and even a little anguish. I thank the author for taking me inside the locker room.

[Maya Senen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was something of a let down. If you are familiar with Leavy's nonfiction biographies ("The Last Boy," for instance, on Mickey Mantle), you know she is abundantly familiar with the game and more importantly "what baseball is all about." Given her pedigree as a writer, I really was expecting more. As it stands, this felt like an attempt at a charming recast of Bull Durham, from the perspective of a budding young journalist. It's not quite a hit, but not a total out- I guess it will be your fielder's choice?

[Melsene G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Baseball and sex. Oh, did I say sex? Lots of genitalia, naked ballplayers, you name it. If you don't like profanity, this is not for you. However, if you want to follow a female sportswriter covering the Washington Senators and their horrible season in 1989, you'll have a good old time seeing crazy things inside the locker room. Did I say sexism? You bet! The book is semi-autobiographical of course. A.B. Berkowitz is a Jewish female sportswriter and the author clearly draws from her own experience. Most of the writers are paid by the ball clubs so their news articles are biased and will make the teams/managers look good. They're bought and paid for - propaganda. Nothing new here.

She mentions the horrible 1962 Mets quite a bit. Of course many of the characters are creeps, immoral, nasty, rude, and lack integrity. Like many other baseball books, the business of baseball has an ugly side from the owners to the managers, the ballplayers, umpires, and the press.

Check out the author's other books which are non-fiction and well researched. Babe Ruth, Micky Mantle, and Sandy Koufax.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Belatedly finished this one, and glad I did. A good read. So many insights into what sportswriting was like around 1990, and I find that interesting. Also lots of observations about what it was like for women sportswriters in particular at that time, which is also interesting. Sure sounds like it was pretty crazy (sexist) at that time. Kind of obvious it would have been that way when you think about it, I guess, but this novel sure spells it out. Beyond that, had great insights about baseball beat-writing that still hold up today.
Some really fun writing where she has great turns of phrase. Sometimes she goes off on tangents that don’t quite resonate with me. Either way, it’s really a fun & funny read.
I even like the character’s writing. She has a fun habit of writing sentences like this: “Jane Leavy, the former sports columnist and award-winning author whose remembrances of Sandy Koufax and Mickey Mantle sharpened our understanding of some of baseball’s biggest stars, once wrote fiction, too. It was pretty entertaining stuff.”

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jane Leavy is mainly known for her baseball biographies and her sports writing but she managed to find time to write this funny novel about a young female Jewish sportswriter for a Washington paper. The novel is in the form of a diary of her season coverage of the Washington Senators/Nationals baseball team. This team is an expansion team full of aging veterans and mediocre position players. It is owned by a wealthy born again Christian who put his incompetent acolytes everywhere throughout the team. The stories range from hilarious to heart breaking, and AB, the writer is often her own worst enemy. It drags on a little too long like any baseball season, but there are enough good things to recommend this book.

[Chickens McShitterson · Rating 1 out of 5]

So bad I couldn’t finish. Gave up before page 100.
Leavy is a genius with biography. Awful at fiction. Awful. I can’t believe the same person who wrote A Lefty’s Legacy and The Last Boy wrote this steaming pile of garbage.
Casual racism throughout; stilted dialogue; and about a trillion characters each with a nickname. Went a nowhere that took forever to get to. Entertainment Weekly’s blurb that it is “the best novel ever written about baseball” clearly ignored a multitude of other baseball novels.

[Kris Dersch · Rating 3 out of 5]

This delightfully funny baseball romp caught me by surprise. Yes, it's light and fluffy, but light and fluffy of the truly delightful sort. A dash of romance, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny with more than enough baseball to satisfy a true fan, told by an author who knows the game and the inside of a locker room too well. Always on my spring training shelf.
Featured on the No Extra Words Podcast Episode 108.

[Philip · Rating 3 out of 5]

Funny read at times tried too hard to fit in the locker room. Granted it was her 1st book, stick to the bios much better to judge her good talent. Read 'em all and can honestly say, Jane knows baseball and she must be the commissioner!

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

I'm writing a review for this for a new baseball blog that is launching soon and I will link to that once it goes live in a couple of weeks.

[Alison (Lady Coffin) S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good

[Jeff Hookey · Rating 5 out of 5]

The literary equivalent of Major League. Uproariously funny! Anyone that ever played the game can relate to the craziness that comes with a group of men playing a kids game.

[Herb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny, sometimes LOL funny. Enjoyable.

[Barry Mann · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just couldn't get into it

[Aaron Lozano · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very enjoyable read, I thought that it started with such a bang there was only downhill from there. However, the ending was magnificent.

[Donald S · Rating 5 out of 5]

hilarious! A very fun baseball book.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of fun. (Men behaving badly) Some of the events seem creepy in the generation of Me2. The book did seem somewhat dated, but still lots of fun. (And extremely well-written).

[Mr. Wakiki · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like Jane Leavy


In the book was good but a little bit too much swearing for me. I did seem like she took a lot of stories from her non-fiction books, and stuck them in here.

[Patrick B · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightful read about the life of a female sprotswriter for a fictional baseball team owned by a TV Evangelical pastor. A pretty unique read.

[Keith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some reviewers claimed that this is not only the best baseball novel ever written by a woman, but the best baseball novel ever written. It depends, I guess, on what a person is seeking in a baseball novel. If you seek sentimentality this book is not for you. If you seek warm-heartedness and inspirition, this book is not for you. If you seek a discussion of the American "idea" in the context of baseball, like Philip Roth did in his "Great American Novel", this book is not for you. If, however, you seek a novel about a trailblazing female sports writer in the baseball locker room of the fictional second coming of the expansion Washington Senators, owned by the founder of a religious TV network as payback for delivering the Conservative Christian vote to a (Republican) president, a shocking, to some, portrait painted through a female sports reporter's eyes, exposing (the locker room exposed) team with with compassion and uncommon grace, this novel is for you. I didn't know quite what to think of it at the beginning, but as the novel moved along, everything started falling into place. And when I finished I joined the camp of the reviewers who claim that this is the best baseball novel ever written. I am rating it five stars. I note that the overall rating for the book in Goodreads is three and a half stars. That is understandable.
This book will not appeal to the sensibilities of all readers. True Puritans will not like it at all. It is the kind of book book burners would like to burn because it contradicts all their warm feeling about their diamond heroes and is "a corrupting influence" on their children. Jane Leavy, who rests her reputation more on the laurels of her best-selling biographies of Sandy Koufax and Mickey Mantle, writes without fear of such reactions. She has a writer's heart, one that takes her wherever the story leads her. I have nothing but admiration for writers with that kind of heart. Words are precious. They have the power not only to move hearts and move minds, but shake the very foundations and presuppositions of society. I have not read her Koufax bio, yet. I have read "The Last Boy", the Mickey Mantle one, though. I plan to read Koufax soon. I am like a fly and good books about baseball are like flypaper to me. I can't resist them. Especially ones like "Squeeze Play". Especially one some, including me, consider to be the best baseball novel ever written.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read this book at least a dozen times--checked it out from the library when it was first released, bought a copy for myself and reread it a number of times, and just now bought it again on Kindle. I love the book, love the characters, and feel the baseball story ringing true every time.

But I still feel like, in the end, Ari chose the wrong man. She gave up the honorable man, the one who made good choices for good reasons after thinking things through, the one who made her toes curl. And instead, she took back the one who behaved imperiously, rudely, and abruptly, and who cheated on her (while she cheated on him).

It is a mark of a very good writer that one can be brought to care this much about fictional characters.

[J.R. Griffith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this admittedly raunchy tale of baseball antics and was pulling for the main character by the end. A very funny story about a female reporter covering an expansion team, spending about half the time in the locker room, which could be loosely based on experiences by the author.

[matteo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Baseball! It's absurd, it's ridiculous, it's like Bull Durham without actually having to look at Susan Sarandon!

[Coki · Rating 4 out of 5]

on CD

[Patrick]

Great baseball fiction. An American League team comes to DC and is followed by a female sportswriter. Fantastic, hilarious.

[Marvin · Rating 2 out of 5]

A trashy baseball novel with a female sportswriter as the narrator.

[Tim Chizmar · Rating 1 out of 5]

Look up the word MISANDRY.. This book is full of it