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The Celebrant
The first two decades of the twentieth century were a time of promise and innocence in America. Hardworking immigrants could achieve the American dream; heroes were truly heroic. Eric Rolfe Greenberg brilliantly and authentically chronicles the real-life saga of the first national baseball hero, Christy Mathewson, and the fictional story of a Jewish immigrant family of jewelers. In these pages Mathewson and other great players like John McGraw, Honus Wagner, and Connie Mack discover the realities behind the shining the burdens of being a hero and the temptations that taint success.
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1983
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews
July 31, 2016
What a strange and wondrous, albeit thin and quirky niche piece of historical fiction, and, as a special bonus, a gratifying and fulfilling novel! It didn't surprise me to learn that the original - published now more than twenty years - saw print through a University press; so, kudos to the University of Nebraska Press for recognizing the genius of the work and anticipating that the book could become a gift to those lucky enough to receive it.
I wish I'd made a note as to how it ended up on my reading list. I expect I saw it on the newspaper sports page at the beginning of the baseball season, which would make sense, to the extent that it's on the list of Sports Illustrated's Top 100 Sports Books of All Time. So let's get the obvious out of the way: if you don't know or care about (and, potentially, love) baseball , this book is not for you. It's an homage to the history of the game, if not a meditation or a benediction. If the phenomenon of sports iconography, of unabashed hero worship (particularly of the legends such as, here, Christy Mathewson) means nothing to you, I expect this will leave you cold. But if you love the game, if you've read, I dunno, Men at Work, or Summer of '49, or, Shoeless Joe, or, more recently, Moneyball or, on the fiction side of things, The Art of Fielding, or even the are-you-kidding-me, "is it more bizarre that folks wrote, published, or read this" restropsective Stephen King chronicle The Faithful, ... well, this is a must read.
But ... but ... as geeky and as detailed and as micro and as myopically obsessive the baseball theme dominates, there is ... so ... much ... more to this - both in terms of the history - yes, lots and lots and lots of baseball (in the early 1900's, particularly the professionalization of the league, the leagues, the players, the World Series, and yes, the scandals) but also the immigrant (particularly Jewish) experience, life in New York City, travel (trains and those new automobiles), department stores, hotels, ... and, yes, the story itself, of coming of age, and family, and of expanding horizons, and self-examination, and change, and love, and loss.
Part of me wishes that the baseball minutiae wasn't as dense so that more readers might embark up on the journey, meet the protagonist's family, and wonder at what aspects of the history are real versus imagined. But I can't imagine how non-baseball fans could penetrate the initial layer of breathless recounting (or re-imagining) of individual games (regardless how epic or significant they've become over time).
Which brings me to the conclusion that I'll join those that deemed this one of the best baseball books ever, ... and that's plenty good enough for me.
I wish I'd made a note as to how it ended up on my reading list. I expect I saw it on the newspaper sports page at the beginning of the baseball season, which would make sense, to the extent that it's on the list of Sports Illustrated's Top 100 Sports Books of All Time. So let's get the obvious out of the way: if you don't know or care about (and, potentially, love) baseball , this book is not for you. It's an homage to the history of the game, if not a meditation or a benediction. If the phenomenon of sports iconography, of unabashed hero worship (particularly of the legends such as, here, Christy Mathewson) means nothing to you, I expect this will leave you cold. But if you love the game, if you've read, I dunno, Men at Work, or Summer of '49, or, Shoeless Joe, or, more recently, Moneyball or, on the fiction side of things, The Art of Fielding, or even the are-you-kidding-me, "is it more bizarre that folks wrote, published, or read this" restropsective Stephen King chronicle The Faithful, ... well, this is a must read.
But ... but ... as geeky and as detailed and as micro and as myopically obsessive the baseball theme dominates, there is ... so ... much ... more to this - both in terms of the history - yes, lots and lots and lots of baseball (in the early 1900's, particularly the professionalization of the league, the leagues, the players, the World Series, and yes, the scandals) but also the immigrant (particularly Jewish) experience, life in New York City, travel (trains and those new automobiles), department stores, hotels, ... and, yes, the story itself, of coming of age, and family, and of expanding horizons, and self-examination, and change, and love, and loss.
Part of me wishes that the baseball minutiae wasn't as dense so that more readers might embark up on the journey, meet the protagonist's family, and wonder at what aspects of the history are real versus imagined. But I can't imagine how non-baseball fans could penetrate the initial layer of breathless recounting (or re-imagining) of individual games (regardless how epic or significant they've become over time).
Which brings me to the conclusion that I'll join those that deemed this one of the best baseball books ever, ... and that's plenty good enough for me.
March 1, 2014
Fair warning - spoilers ahead.
I wanted so badly to love this book, but in the end I just didn't. I keep looking at all of the 4 and 5 star reviews here and I have to admit that the book just didn't speak to me the way it apparently does others.
I had a hard time becoming invested in the characters and (though there were exceptions here and there) I found the writing rather stilted and it was hard for me to read for long stretches - I'd get bored.
Also, as far as the characters go, I found the main character's motivations not as explained as I would have liked. I understand idealizing a hero, but at times Jackie took it to an extreme that I found creepy.
In a similar vein, this book was a weak 3 until the last 20 or so pages, where it became a weak 2. The problem: I flat out didn't agree with Jackie's behavior toward his brother. If my brother were in gambling trouble that I could help with, I certainly wouldn't decline to do so in order to please a baseball player I admired. Particularly when this absence of help results in his brother's suicide. Messed. up.
Also, I found the allegory of Christy Mathewson's suffering to Jesus Christ's suffering on the cross, again, creepy. The dude is a baseball player. A talented, upstanding baseball player. I get that, but the fervor he seems to engender from both the author and his main character I just find rather off-putting.
This was supposed to get me excited for baseball season, but it left such a sour taste in my mouth, I may need to read another baseball-related book to make up for it.
I wanted so badly to love this book, but in the end I just didn't. I keep looking at all of the 4 and 5 star reviews here and I have to admit that the book just didn't speak to me the way it apparently does others.
I had a hard time becoming invested in the characters and (though there were exceptions here and there) I found the writing rather stilted and it was hard for me to read for long stretches - I'd get bored.
Also, as far as the characters go, I found the main character's motivations not as explained as I would have liked. I understand idealizing a hero, but at times Jackie took it to an extreme that I found creepy.
In a similar vein, this book was a weak 3 until the last 20 or so pages, where it became a weak 2. The problem: I flat out didn't agree with Jackie's behavior toward his brother. If my brother were in gambling trouble that I could help with, I certainly wouldn't decline to do so in order to please a baseball player I admired. Particularly when this absence of help results in his brother's suicide. Messed. up.
Also, I found the allegory of Christy Mathewson's suffering to Jesus Christ's suffering on the cross, again, creepy. The dude is a baseball player. A talented, upstanding baseball player. I get that, but the fervor he seems to engender from both the author and his main character I just find rather off-putting.
This was supposed to get me excited for baseball season, but it left such a sour taste in my mouth, I may need to read another baseball-related book to make up for it.
May 18, 2018
In some ways, the most intriguing part of this novel is its title. Like “alienist,” celebrant is a word that once upon a time meant a combination of concepts that have since been refined and separated. Someone who was a celebrant was part fan, part artistic admirer of a performer, and part residual believer in some religious ritual.
In that way, this novel sets out to explore the entwined and sometimes conflicting dimensions in which a young man comes to appreciate the baseball world of pre-World War I, a time during which the great Christy Matthewson emerged as the first of the all-time legends of the game. Jake admires Matthewson so much that he refuses multiple opportunities to meet him, choosing instead to design a commemorative ring as part of his work with his family’s rapidly growing jewelry firm. He is, in that regard, a fan, someone taking pleasure at a distance from a man slowly being deified by a game that’s attracting more and more attention from the American public.
At the same time, Jake and his family are Jews, first-generation immigrants who – while growing in wealth – still experience anti-Semitism. (It’s mild, but the most clear-cut example of it, harassment at the hands of a couple of players, rankles Jake for years.) He’s still occasionally an observant Jew, and he seems confident his children will embrace the identity as well, but part of what he finds in baseball is the opportunity to embrace an American faith. He is, therefore, a ‘celebrant’ in the sense that he wants to bring out what he sees as the deep-seated purity of the game. He won’t take money for the ring, for instance, wanting to keep his admiration pure.
When you cross that insight with Greenberg’s own celebrant-like appreciation for the first era in which professional baseball became the nation’s real pastime, there are a lot of things to find interesting in the novel. The history is tight and clever; as a one-time committed adolescent baseball historian myself, I know a lot of these stories, and I’m impressed to see them from fresh angles. We get “Merkle’s Boner” in real-time, before it’s frozen into clear-cut history. We get the Black Sox scandal as it slowly unfolds, before Shoeless Joe Jackson gets cast as a tragic figure for the century that follows. And, above all, we get the apotheosis of Matthewson, the first of the first players elected to the Hall of Fame, while he is still a human and not yet an eternal.
In such a light, this book is exactly the sort I’ve been looking for in the class my friend Will and I are preparing about the intersection of fandom and faith. Maddeningly, though, it falls short. As rich as it is in history and concept, it misses out on the real drama of creating characters who shape a larger narrative. It not only makes present the lost moment of the turn of the last century, but it also embraces that period’s literary technology. This is a novel dominated by old-school Realism; it owes its style and form more to William Dean Howells than to the generations of innovators who’ve come since.
If Jake is the character who embodies the central intellectual conflict of the novel, he does so as a mostly empty body. There’s no clear personal impetus, no explanation for why he in particular feels as he does. He’s the family artist – with no backstory on how he came to be so – and that casts him in a role separate from his siblings.
In contrast, Eli, comes to represent the serpent-like power of gambling in the face of baseball. He loves the game less for itself than for the prospect of using it to discover secret sources of income, to make it a joyful way to compete without paying the price of becoming an athlete himself. Eli is alive and energetic; he’s clearly Jake’s favorite brother, and he is the salesman primarily responsible for building the family business.
From the other side, we have brother Arthur, who has no affection at all for baseball but recognizes ways of using it to help with their corporate growth. He represents a different serpent, not the original one that devastated baseball with the Black Sox scandal but rather the one that threatens it now, the one that sees it as nothing more than a commercial opportunity, one where profits have to be maximized without respect to the joy that inspired the game in the first place.
Both brothers provide useful intellectual contrast to Jake’s quiet, religious-like appreciation of the game, but neither does so from the perspective of a fully formed character. Each is a stock figure, defined expressly for the purpose of offering that contrast rather than as a character who finds his way to such opposition. All three are brothers, for instance, yet there’s no explanation for how they turn out so differently.
(SPOILER: In one of the closing scenes of the novel, with Matthewson slowly dying from the gas he inhaled during World War I, Matthewson explicitly compares himself to a dying Christ and holds Jake to a difficult purity of faith, one that means the end of Eli’s hopes and, in effect, costs Eli his life. Just in case that point isn’t clear, the novel’s final words – as Jake reflects on what it meant to see his hero, possibly his savior, wither and die – are “Eli, Eli,” the same words the dying Christ speaks on the cross.)
It’s frustrating to find a book dealing with such compelling topics that does so with so heavy-handed an approach. I know there are many who admire this as one of the really fine baseball books of the last quarter century, but I’m afraid I don’t see it. It is a remarkable act of baseball historical fiction, and it poses a series of thoughtful questions about the nature of fandom. But at that other level – the level of taking material and finding fully formed characters who seem genuinely to live – I don’t find it all that compelling a novel.
In that way, this novel sets out to explore the entwined and sometimes conflicting dimensions in which a young man comes to appreciate the baseball world of pre-World War I, a time during which the great Christy Matthewson emerged as the first of the all-time legends of the game. Jake admires Matthewson so much that he refuses multiple opportunities to meet him, choosing instead to design a commemorative ring as part of his work with his family’s rapidly growing jewelry firm. He is, in that regard, a fan, someone taking pleasure at a distance from a man slowly being deified by a game that’s attracting more and more attention from the American public.
At the same time, Jake and his family are Jews, first-generation immigrants who – while growing in wealth – still experience anti-Semitism. (It’s mild, but the most clear-cut example of it, harassment at the hands of a couple of players, rankles Jake for years.) He’s still occasionally an observant Jew, and he seems confident his children will embrace the identity as well, but part of what he finds in baseball is the opportunity to embrace an American faith. He is, therefore, a ‘celebrant’ in the sense that he wants to bring out what he sees as the deep-seated purity of the game. He won’t take money for the ring, for instance, wanting to keep his admiration pure.
When you cross that insight with Greenberg’s own celebrant-like appreciation for the first era in which professional baseball became the nation’s real pastime, there are a lot of things to find interesting in the novel. The history is tight and clever; as a one-time committed adolescent baseball historian myself, I know a lot of these stories, and I’m impressed to see them from fresh angles. We get “Merkle’s Boner” in real-time, before it’s frozen into clear-cut history. We get the Black Sox scandal as it slowly unfolds, before Shoeless Joe Jackson gets cast as a tragic figure for the century that follows. And, above all, we get the apotheosis of Matthewson, the first of the first players elected to the Hall of Fame, while he is still a human and not yet an eternal.
In such a light, this book is exactly the sort I’ve been looking for in the class my friend Will and I are preparing about the intersection of fandom and faith. Maddeningly, though, it falls short. As rich as it is in history and concept, it misses out on the real drama of creating characters who shape a larger narrative. It not only makes present the lost moment of the turn of the last century, but it also embraces that period’s literary technology. This is a novel dominated by old-school Realism; it owes its style and form more to William Dean Howells than to the generations of innovators who’ve come since.
If Jake is the character who embodies the central intellectual conflict of the novel, he does so as a mostly empty body. There’s no clear personal impetus, no explanation for why he in particular feels as he does. He’s the family artist – with no backstory on how he came to be so – and that casts him in a role separate from his siblings.
In contrast, Eli, comes to represent the serpent-like power of gambling in the face of baseball. He loves the game less for itself than for the prospect of using it to discover secret sources of income, to make it a joyful way to compete without paying the price of becoming an athlete himself. Eli is alive and energetic; he’s clearly Jake’s favorite brother, and he is the salesman primarily responsible for building the family business.
From the other side, we have brother Arthur, who has no affection at all for baseball but recognizes ways of using it to help with their corporate growth. He represents a different serpent, not the original one that devastated baseball with the Black Sox scandal but rather the one that threatens it now, the one that sees it as nothing more than a commercial opportunity, one where profits have to be maximized without respect to the joy that inspired the game in the first place.
Both brothers provide useful intellectual contrast to Jake’s quiet, religious-like appreciation of the game, but neither does so from the perspective of a fully formed character. Each is a stock figure, defined expressly for the purpose of offering that contrast rather than as a character who finds his way to such opposition. All three are brothers, for instance, yet there’s no explanation for how they turn out so differently.
(SPOILER: In one of the closing scenes of the novel, with Matthewson slowly dying from the gas he inhaled during World War I, Matthewson explicitly compares himself to a dying Christ and holds Jake to a difficult purity of faith, one that means the end of Eli’s hopes and, in effect, costs Eli his life. Just in case that point isn’t clear, the novel’s final words – as Jake reflects on what it meant to see his hero, possibly his savior, wither and die – are “Eli, Eli,” the same words the dying Christ speaks on the cross.)
It’s frustrating to find a book dealing with such compelling topics that does so with so heavy-handed an approach. I know there are many who admire this as one of the really fine baseball books of the last quarter century, but I’m afraid I don’t see it. It is a remarkable act of baseball historical fiction, and it poses a series of thoughtful questions about the nature of fandom. But at that other level – the level of taking material and finding fully formed characters who seem genuinely to live – I don’t find it all that compelling a novel.
July 28, 2024
Interesting but . . . well, some of the Goodreads reviewers at the top of the stack -- 5-star Steve and 2-star Caroline and 3-star Tom -- tell you everything you need to know: this is a very unusual book that will be an acquired taste (or not) for most readers.
I purchased it from a thrift store with a serious baseball fan and her baseball-loving son in mind -- I would read and pass it on. Now, not so sure. Yes, there's lots of good stuff about the early years of organized baseball -- from the early 1900s to 1920. The accounts of the exploits of the rough-and-ready players and managers and owners and gamblers and fans are entertaining and sometimes eye-opening. But one probably needs to be familiar with baseball history to get the most enjoyment out of this side of the book. However, even if one knows little, the reader certainly can learn much about Christy Mathewson, one of the first five members of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Then there's the other side -- the tale of a Jewish family of jewelers. The narrator (and "the celebrant") is a jewelry designer with a deep love of baseball and, in some sense, of Christy Mathewson. The family's success story intertwined with the baseball story is well done but is pretty predictable and definitely not great literature.
So, what we have in The Celebrant is what appears to be an act of homage to baseball, written by an amateur author who found a university press as publisher. Take a look at what Steve and Caroline and others had to say in their detailed reviews and decide whether or not you want to be a high roller and plunk down $3 or $4 for a used copy of this. Mine might be back at the thrift store . . . unless that person I originally had in mind wants to read it.
I purchased it from a thrift store with a serious baseball fan and her baseball-loving son in mind -- I would read and pass it on. Now, not so sure. Yes, there's lots of good stuff about the early years of organized baseball -- from the early 1900s to 1920. The accounts of the exploits of the rough-and-ready players and managers and owners and gamblers and fans are entertaining and sometimes eye-opening. But one probably needs to be familiar with baseball history to get the most enjoyment out of this side of the book. However, even if one knows little, the reader certainly can learn much about Christy Mathewson, one of the first five members of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Then there's the other side -- the tale of a Jewish family of jewelers. The narrator (and "the celebrant") is a jewelry designer with a deep love of baseball and, in some sense, of Christy Mathewson. The family's success story intertwined with the baseball story is well done but is pretty predictable and definitely not great literature.
So, what we have in The Celebrant is what appears to be an act of homage to baseball, written by an amateur author who found a university press as publisher. Take a look at what Steve and Caroline and others had to say in their detailed reviews and decide whether or not you want to be a high roller and plunk down $3 or $4 for a used copy of this. Mine might be back at the thrift store . . . unless that person I originally had in mind wants to read it.
August 12, 2013
There are not many truly great baseball novels. "The Celebrant" is the exception that proves the rule. Given the Black Sox Scandal's relevance to the plot, I can't believe it took me 20 years to read it. Historical fiction similar in style to Doctorow's "Ragtime," and similar in emotional impact to Kinsella's "Shoeless Joe," "The Celebrant" touches on so much of what it means to be a baseball fan, how we interact with our heroes, what it means to be an immigrant in America. Christy Mathewson was the first American baseball hero of the 20th century, and millions of young men and women idolized him like Jackie Kapp did. Greenberg's Matty may be fictionalized, but he brings us closer to the New York Giants' star pitcher than arguably anyone has ever done. That's the thing about great fiction: done well, it can sometimes be more "true" than nonfiction. "The Celebrant" is great fiction. Highly, highly recommended.
April 18, 2021
I've read a half-dozen baseball novels in the 15 years that I've been tracking my reading. All came highly acclaimed, but none were great. Even though baseball has been called America's pastime, and it has been thought of as a metaphor for life, somehow they haven't risen to the occasion.
This is a really good novel, and I liked the arc that it traced between the narrator's life and his hero worship of Mathewson. The author did a good job of weaving the baseball facts into the story fiction. But the tragic ending seemed forced and unnatural.
Nevertheless, I appreciated the attempt, and felt like it rivaled The Natural. Well worth reading.
This is a really good novel, and I liked the arc that it traced between the narrator's life and his hero worship of Mathewson. The author did a good job of weaving the baseball facts into the story fiction. But the tragic ending seemed forced and unnatural.
Nevertheless, I appreciated the attempt, and felt like it rivaled The Natural. Well worth reading.
June 19, 2012
I'm not a huge sports fan by any means, but I grew up in a family that loved baseball and that's the one sport I've made an effort to keep up with over the years. If you are neither a sports fan nor a baseball fan there is a good chance you aren't going to enjoy this book. I'm telling you that right off the bat (no pun intended). While the book itself is written well and contains some much deeper themes than just "sports" if you don't have a love in your heart for baseball none of that will be enough to interest you.
The Celebrant details the character Jack's relationship with Giants' picture Christy Mathewson. Jack adores Mathewson from affair, turning him into an idol and the ballpark his "secular temple." Jack's family runs a jewelry business and through Jack's love of Mathewson he designs rings that catapult the business to huge success as well as a contract with MLB for championship ring design. This is just part of the story though. While the relationship between Jack and Mathewson, the idololized and the celebrant, is the focus for the majority of the book the text also explores the darker aspects of the game -- ending in the Black Sox scandal.
This book should not be taken as a historical document of baseball in its early years, while the players are real this story is fiction and should be treated as such (although I do believe Greenberg did a decent job of staying true to the facts). Greenberg creates characters you feel you understand and empathize with, especially if you've grown up in a family that loved baseball. Jack's relationships with his brothers feel true to life and when he finally sees Mathewson as just a man it is the same feeling we've all felt when our childhood heroes turn back into mortals. A story of love, consequences, faith, and disillusionment "The Celebrant" is worth your time.
The Celebrant details the character Jack's relationship with Giants' picture Christy Mathewson. Jack adores Mathewson from affair, turning him into an idol and the ballpark his "secular temple." Jack's family runs a jewelry business and through Jack's love of Mathewson he designs rings that catapult the business to huge success as well as a contract with MLB for championship ring design. This is just part of the story though. While the relationship between Jack and Mathewson, the idololized and the celebrant, is the focus for the majority of the book the text also explores the darker aspects of the game -- ending in the Black Sox scandal.
This book should not be taken as a historical document of baseball in its early years, while the players are real this story is fiction and should be treated as such (although I do believe Greenberg did a decent job of staying true to the facts). Greenberg creates characters you feel you understand and empathize with, especially if you've grown up in a family that loved baseball. Jack's relationships with his brothers feel true to life and when he finally sees Mathewson as just a man it is the same feeling we've all felt when our childhood heroes turn back into mortals. A story of love, consequences, faith, and disillusionment "The Celebrant" is worth your time.
March 17, 2021
On the cover of my paperback copy of this book is this quote from W.P. Kinsella: "Simply the best baseball novel ever written." Well, I guess henceforth I'll take Kinsella's critiques with a grain of salt. I can think of three better baseball novels (I've only read about six or seven) and his is one of them. I think for a book to be one of the best baseball novels ever written, it also needs to be an excellent novel that could be enjoyed (though perhaps a bit less) by a reader who is not a fan of the game.
Greenberg creates a family with some professional and social contacts to the New York Giants. The family and the main character are clearly just constructs to tell about the Giants teams of the early 20th century and their star, Christy Mathewson. The main character is an unusual person and not a normal fan. During the story, he is inconsistent about following the Giants and going to games. His behavior, at times, is just bizarre and unpredictable. He marries and has children and, although some events within his family get a mention, his wife and children are simply names with no personality and very little importance.
Why, then, did I give this book a 3 star rating, rather than just 1 or 2 stars? Well, I made it through this book because I am a fan of baseball and dream of going back in time to watch a game at the Polo Grounds or Ebbets Field. Greenberg did his research and he describes games extremely well. I felt like I was in the stands for the 1905 World Series and for some moments of the critical late season games between the Cubs and Giants in 1908 (that includes the Merkle game--fans of baseball history will know what I mean). I learned some very interesting history of baseball of the great Christy Mathewson and so there were sections of the novel that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Greenberg creates a family with some professional and social contacts to the New York Giants. The family and the main character are clearly just constructs to tell about the Giants teams of the early 20th century and their star, Christy Mathewson. The main character is an unusual person and not a normal fan. During the story, he is inconsistent about following the Giants and going to games. His behavior, at times, is just bizarre and unpredictable. He marries and has children and, although some events within his family get a mention, his wife and children are simply names with no personality and very little importance.
Why, then, did I give this book a 3 star rating, rather than just 1 or 2 stars? Well, I made it through this book because I am a fan of baseball and dream of going back in time to watch a game at the Polo Grounds or Ebbets Field. Greenberg did his research and he describes games extremely well. I felt like I was in the stands for the 1905 World Series and for some moments of the critical late season games between the Cubs and Giants in 1908 (that includes the Merkle game--fans of baseball history will know what I mean). I learned some very interesting history of baseball of the great Christy Mathewson and so there were sections of the novel that I thoroughly enjoyed.
May 30, 2017
A jewelry designer becomes enamored with Giants pitcher Christy Mathewson, and the book follows that “hero worship” and it’s impact on the designer, his gambling brother, and the family jewelry business. I was reminded of “The Natural”, the book, not the movie. The tone seemed similar. The baseball description seemed similar, but “The Celebrant” very much put you into games, at times overthinking things like great fans often do. The characters were well crafted, including the ball players and managers as well as the jewelers’ family.
I really enjoyed this book. Reading it felt like you were experiencing being a fan from afar. The era was well drawn, as were the characters. The baseball stories were generally fun – both the game and the business aspects. The jewelry business stories were interesting, but they seemed to be there to set the stage for Jackie’s moral dilemma at the end. This is the kind of book that would appeal to those interested in well-written baseball history novelized.
I really enjoyed this book. Reading it felt like you were experiencing being a fan from afar. The era was well drawn, as were the characters. The baseball stories were generally fun – both the game and the business aspects. The jewelry business stories were interesting, but they seemed to be there to set the stage for Jackie’s moral dilemma at the end. This is the kind of book that would appeal to those interested in well-written baseball history novelized.
August 22, 2012
The Celebrant is rightfully regarded as one of the best baseball novels ever written. Mark Harris' The Southpaw resonated a little more with me, because I really go into the Henry Wiggen character and enjoy that casual, Huck Finn, kind of story telling. But Greenberg did a fabulous job in taking the reader back to the early 1900s, when Christy Mathewson helped broaden the game's appeal to those who thought it was ruled by uneducated ne'er-do-wells. The baseball detail is amazing. He really brings some of the most storied games/series in baseball history to life, through the eyes of his characters, blending the historic and the fictional as well as any book I can recall.
The off-field story really picked up pace for me with the introduction of Arthur, Jackie and Eli's younger brother, who applies himself to analyzing and improving upon the family's jewelry business. His battles with Eli move the story to its tragic conclusion, and even though he seems overly ambitious, it's easy to understand why he feels it's important to protect the company from Eli's gambling.
The off-field story really picked up pace for me with the introduction of Arthur, Jackie and Eli's younger brother, who applies himself to analyzing and improving upon the family's jewelry business. His battles with Eli move the story to its tragic conclusion, and even though he seems overly ambitious, it's easy to understand why he feels it's important to protect the company from Eli's gambling.
April 13, 2015
I think you have to be a pretty big baseball fan to enjoy this book, which centers around the remarkable pitching career of Christy Mathewson in the early part of the 20th Century. Mathewson, along with a couple of more-recognizable names like Ruth and Cobb, was part of the first class of the Baseball Hall of Fame. The book was at its most "inside baseball" when it provided page after page of batter-by-batter commentary of games that ended over 100 years ago. It was at its best when it explored the refined relationship between Mathewson and the book's protagonist, a German Jewish immigrant jewelry designer named Yakov (or Jackie). I found this dynamic way more interesting than the play by play of Merkle's Boner, which isn't at all what non-baseball fans might imagine. Can you name anybody else in the inaugural Hall of Fame Class? If so, you'd like the book. If not, well, I'd be interested if you felt the same way as I did about Jackie and his family, or if the stories about Iron Jack McGinnity's fastball caused you to lose interest.
March 19, 2021
Scroll down to Caroline's review, read it and then skip this book.
My "review":
When I randomly bumped the excellent "Bang the Drum Slowly" on twitter someone (I trust) said, "oh yeah, that's good, but 'The Celebrant" is better."
Like Caroline I *wanted* to like it, but this is not just not a good novel, it's a bad novel.
As I drifted through the boring and poorly written family tale and too-specific baseball recountings I could not connect with any characters and [spoiler] when the author took about a page and a half to describe the flu-epidemic passing of one of the main character's children, having taken three times as long on boring baseball play-by-play, I began skipping ahead. The dead was emotion-free b/c no connection had been made to the players and the writing lay flat.
As for the fabled final 20 pages ... the best thing I can say about them is that as you read each successive one you are that much closer to being done with this drivel for good.
If you seek fictionalized baseball from a golden era, try "Bang the Drum Slowly."
My "review":
When I randomly bumped the excellent "Bang the Drum Slowly" on twitter someone (I trust) said, "oh yeah, that's good, but 'The Celebrant" is better."
Like Caroline I *wanted* to like it, but this is not just not a good novel, it's a bad novel.
As I drifted through the boring and poorly written family tale and too-specific baseball recountings I could not connect with any characters and [spoiler] when the author took about a page and a half to describe the flu-epidemic passing of one of the main character's children, having taken three times as long on boring baseball play-by-play, I began skipping ahead. The dead was emotion-free b/c no connection had been made to the players and the writing lay flat.
As for the fabled final 20 pages ... the best thing I can say about them is that as you read each successive one you are that much closer to being done with this drivel for good.
If you seek fictionalized baseball from a golden era, try "Bang the Drum Slowly."
November 21, 2013
if you are not slightly a baseball history dork you can probably skip this one but holy crud did I love this book. This novel is about a set of Jewish jeweler brothers and their anguished ways of being men. The narrator is obsessed with Christy Mathewson, the older brother is a degenerate gambler and the younger brother is obsessed with success. Christy Mathewson winds up being both a Christ figure and a fable about how fame corrodes human natures. Also a bunch of weird baseball nerd stuff and John McGraw acting like Mynheer Peeperkorn from The Magic Mountain. Slightly absurd in points but I would definitely put this on any short list of best novels about baseball.
December 28, 2025
The Celebrant is as beautiful a piece of baseball literature as you're ever going to read. Greenberg's novel tells the story of a jewelry designer and erstwhile sandlot pitcher who becomes an admirer and celebrator of the work and career of Christy Mathewson. The baseball accounts in this book are both lyric and at times wonderfully grounded in reality, and the characters, both fictional and living, feel like fully realized human beings. Truly a lovely book.
October 5, 2016
This book was gay and I will fight anyone on that.
October 29, 2016
Even if you don't like baseball this is a fun read with a somewhat factual focus on Christy Mathewson - the Giants Ace at the turn of the century. It reads like it was written contemporaneously but it was actually completed in 1983. The story starts with a Jewish family who emigrates to the US. Like many immigrant families the older brother helps the younger one get an education. The main character is named Jackie. Early on there are two funny stories. Jackie's dad wants to move to Brooklyn and calls a landlord who asks "Do you have children?" To which the dad says 9. When he goes to the apartment the landlord, rejects him because he thought he had said "nein." (The German NO). In Jackie's first encounter with baseball another player has a high slide which catches him in the cheek and the other player says "Oh, Shit!" and Jackie says those were the first two words I heard in baseball.
Jackie is very interested in baseball and sees Mathewson pitch a perfect game. Instead of following his hero into the game he follows his older brother into his uncle's jewelry business. And early in his career, after the perfect game, crafts an elegant ring for Mathewson. That begins a distant relationship between the two until Mathewson's 1925 death from the lingering effects of poison gas in WWI.
The main character has a diffident relationship with his hero. But his older brother develops a close relationship with the pitcher and eventually through his contacts and the main character's design skills builds a huge business. One other brother is prominent who seems to have a hard nosed approach to building the business. The older brother is also a skilled gambler, who often loses his shirt in betting on baseball. The interplay between the three brothers and their uncle Saul is well thought out.
This reminds me of Zelig (the Woody Allen movie) because it weaves a very good story into historical events. It was really a fun read.
Jackie is very interested in baseball and sees Mathewson pitch a perfect game. Instead of following his hero into the game he follows his older brother into his uncle's jewelry business. And early in his career, after the perfect game, crafts an elegant ring for Mathewson. That begins a distant relationship between the two until Mathewson's 1925 death from the lingering effects of poison gas in WWI.
The main character has a diffident relationship with his hero. But his older brother develops a close relationship with the pitcher and eventually through his contacts and the main character's design skills builds a huge business. One other brother is prominent who seems to have a hard nosed approach to building the business. The older brother is also a skilled gambler, who often loses his shirt in betting on baseball. The interplay between the three brothers and their uncle Saul is well thought out.
This reminds me of Zelig (the Woody Allen movie) because it weaves a very good story into historical events. It was really a fun read.
April 15, 2024
Really loved this: requires a significant interest in pre-war baseball as a non-negotiable price of entry, but if you're into it this is such a hidden gem... personally, I could read thousands of pages of Greenberg summarizing long-forgotten games from 120 years ago. The subsuming of art into commerce, the push-pull between idol and idolizer, growing up and realizing that the things that you loved as a kid were the products of people who were just as flawed as you.
Baseball was developed in America and has the American stench on it: It's all a way to sell something back to you. But sometimes some real art comes out of it! And when it does, that art might be worth grasping on to even if everyone else is only in it to, like, sell dishsoap. Commodifying everything is no way to live a life, you need heroes and things you love with no expectation of return. Or maybe it's silly to cling to that when you could be out building empires.
Baseball was developed in America and has the American stench on it: It's all a way to sell something back to you. But sometimes some real art comes out of it! And when it does, that art might be worth grasping on to even if everyone else is only in it to, like, sell dishsoap. Commodifying everything is no way to live a life, you need heroes and things you love with no expectation of return. Or maybe it's silly to cling to that when you could be out building empires.
July 9, 2017
The Celebrant is a baseball novel narrated by a jewelry designer who was a fan of NY Giants and pitcher Christy Mathewson. When Mathewson threw his first no-hitter in St. Louis, Jackie designed a ruby ring to mark the occasion. Through the years, he designed six more rings for Christy. A subplot of the story is Jack's brother Eli's gambling addiction. Through the years Jackie enabled Eli, and Eli lost his job with the family jewelry firm. Many narrations of important games are scattered through the novel. Hal Chase's improprieties with gambling, Black Sox Scandal of 1919, the Fred Merkel mistake during a pennant chase,and manager John McGraw's dictatorial running of the NY Giants grace this novel. From my previous study of baseball from 1900 to 1920, much of the book is based on accurate fact.
October 2, 2024
Really interesting as a guy who used to just read through big baseball hall of fame encyclopedias, who had a similar fixation to an individual player to Jackie's fixation on Mathewson, and now as someone who has grown older and gotten cynical in many ways about professional sports and athletes but to whom they are still, for better and probably worse, a core part of my daily life and identity. Of particular interest are the things not included in those hagiographic encyclopedias and histories-for-kids, like the truly Wild West nature of the early pro ball, with all the poaching, sniping, and general unregulated chaos that happened between leagues. Of course, there's also a parallel story about a family of immigrants and the risks and benefits of different degrees of assimilation. Must read for anyone who was ever a big fan of baseball.
September 25, 2024
Enter the world of Major League Baseball when the New York Yankees were called the Highlanders, the National League ruled over all other upstart leagues, most players were considered social pariahs and paid less than laborers, and the pitchers were expected to take their at-bats. Enter the college man and pillar of integrity, the legendary Christy Matthewson, who develops a friendship with a jewelry designer he has met only once. Over the years, through intermediaries, they remain connected. The Black Sox Scandal at the 1919 World Series provides the ultimate test of this friendship: will the designer give in to the pleas of his brother to place a huge wager on the tainted series or will he follow the advice of the dying Matthewson?
November 22, 2024
I am a big baseball fan, as well as a fan of historical fiction. So, I had hoped to love this book. While I learned a lot about some of the early machinations of early professional baseball, and met some of the players, I found the actual recounting of various games hard to follow. Without knowing which players were on which team, it was hard to track who was doing what.
I listened to the audio version of the book, and found the narrator to be not very creative. He didn't use different voices or even add in much emotion to the reading, so it was hard to track the dialogue as well.
Nevertheless, I appreciated the relationship between Jack and the baseball stars. I enjoyed imagining the beginnings of the championship rings and how that became a thing.
I listened to the audio version of the book, and found the narrator to be not very creative. He didn't use different voices or even add in much emotion to the reading, so it was hard to track the dialogue as well.
Nevertheless, I appreciated the relationship between Jack and the baseball stars. I enjoyed imagining the beginnings of the championship rings and how that became a thing.
July 30, 2018
#42 on the SI Top 100 sports books list.
That list favors people who wrote for SI at one point (Greenberg did not). This is a very good book and could be ranked higher than some other baseball books - I would personally put this book higher on the list. It vividly recreates baseball in the 1900s - 1910s, with both creative fiction and detailed historical accuracy. And it does so from the vantage point of a family of Jewish immigrants, who make the World Series rings. You won't like this book if you don't like baseball - you may even have to nerd out a little on baseball history to like this book. But this a well-crafted, engaging, and highly unique baseball novel.
That list favors people who wrote for SI at one point (Greenberg did not). This is a very good book and could be ranked higher than some other baseball books - I would personally put this book higher on the list. It vividly recreates baseball in the 1900s - 1910s, with both creative fiction and detailed historical accuracy. And it does so from the vantage point of a family of Jewish immigrants, who make the World Series rings. You won't like this book if you don't like baseball - you may even have to nerd out a little on baseball history to like this book. But this a well-crafted, engaging, and highly unique baseball novel.
July 5, 2019
In Jackie Kapp lies the origin of the sports fan, or, in the sophisticated vision of Greenburg's splendid novel, the celebrant. In Christy Mathewson, brought to mythic life, lies the origin of the great sports hero. Matty is above the fray of brawling, often corrupt, ballplayers in early 20th-century America. The tale winds its way on the train tracks to the ballparks, Mathewson is a hero in its classic, tragic form. Jackie is his celebrant, and the family jewelry business rises and falls with the regal hurler. It is only late in the tale that Jackie discovers he is as important to Matty as Matty is to him.
March 7, 2022
I thought this was an excellent book about how the lives of a jewelry designer and Giants pitcher Christy Mathewson coincided. I found that I didn't want to put this book down. This isn't a criticism but I didn't find that there was much at stake for these people even at the end of the book. I did like how Jacky stood up to people who wanted him to do things he didn't want to do and that included meeting Mathewson.
July 3, 2018
A great little historical fiction about the Baseball life of Christy Mathewson. It covers the fictional Kapinski (Kapp) brothers whose family immigrated to the States and their lives against the backdrop of Mathewson’s major league career. If you have any interest in baseball history around the early 1900s (particularly the New York Giants) and/or Christy Mathewson, then you may enjoy this book.
August 12, 2023
I love baseball, books, and business. So it’s a wonder i didn’t know of this novel until recently. It’s close to great. Actually think it could use less of the baseball play-by-play. As such, it is not so much Mathewson, a literal first-ballot hall of famer, but moreso Smokey Joe Wood or Jeff Tesreau, in the proverbial Hall of Very Good.
July 1, 2024
This is a book that has been on my to read list for probably a decade. It is Field of Dreams meets Ragtime. Great works of baseball fiction are few and far between. The Celebrant may not be great but it is pretty close. A mix of actual baseball history set in fictional New York and early baseball America. Very good writing for baseball fans of all generations. Well worth the read.
November 29, 2018
I love baseball and I have for over 70 years. This story was a perfect fit. I had a tough time laying it down. This has to be one of the best baseball books I've read.
Try it, it will be worth your time.
Try it, it will be worth your time.
November 26, 2019
Very enjoyable work, but probably only if you love baseball. I almost didn't read it because the premise sounded strained, but it came off as uncontrived. Not great literature, but well worth the time.
June 1, 2023
On the better side of 3 stars, I enjoyed the historical events from the early days of Baseball’s Modern Era intertwined with fictionalized characters and events taking place during the height of Christy Mathewson’s career. Solid read if you’re into Baseball and Baseball History.
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