Baseball as Metaphysics

by Marvin Cohen

Originally published in 1974 as Baseball the Beautiful: Decoding the Diamond, this new paperback edition has been completely reformatted and contains the full text of the original version. According to author Marvin Cohen, the original publisher took the liberty of changing the book's now restored title "for commercial feasibility and to bring in the lumbering lowbrow audience." Introduction by Jim Bouton. This new edition contains a later essay that did not appear in the original, and the author has also written a new foreword.

Genres: Baseball

112 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Marvin Cohen was born in New York in 1931 and has had about 150 miscellaneous jobs.

Reviews

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

"With the upcoming publication of Marvin Cohen's Baseball as Metaphysics, an expanded edition of his 1974 Baseball the Beautiful, all of his previously published books will now be available in new paperback editions."
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

That's some serious SPADE=work!

Perhaps this time next year Cohen will end up on a list like ::
"Unexpected Classics: 10 Overlooked Novels Finding Life in New Editions"
http://www.signature-reads.com/2017/1...

[Simon Robs · Rating 3 out of 5]

This a dud, but it's ostensibly baseball lore(ish) and can be read in short order - read on plane and leave somewhere for a chance reader fodder.

[Rick · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Probably the most sympathetic book ever written about the game."
— New York Post

"Cohen's essays on the sport never become trapped in sentimentality or overblown analysis — as pleasing as a perfect game with two out in the ninth."
— Penthouse

"Cohen approaches baseball as the artist does a great work of art — it contains, for him, the metaphysical, the holy, the myth, that which lives beyond us, love. Seeing baseball as the supreme art, we are drawn into the book, and close to whatever art we are involved in, close to life."
— Margins

"Unlike any book on baseball that you have ever read."
— Arizona Republic

[The Ghost's Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is no baseball book quite like this one. This is also barely a baseball book, but it's great.