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i have never read anything better than this book and i 100% reccommend it

Focusing on the baseball content of this book and then criticizing it for it's lack of accuracy, would be about as stupid as watching Get Smart to do research on the CIA.

Instead, I would suggest that readers focus on some of the relationships between the characters in this book. The interplay between star pitcher Jack Farber with his father and catcher make for great reading. The same is true for the descriptions of the Northeast and some of the some small cities the Cape League plays their games.

Where the book does tend to fall apart is at the end. The writer attempts to make a negative statement about the attitudes of professional athletes by concocting an unrealistic ending that is far too predictable.

Still, I enjoyed reading the book and would recommend it to most people. In fact, I would even it recommend it to most baseball fans with the exception of those geeks that spend way too much time with box scores rather than with real life.

Finally, another recommendation for a fun baseball book would be Summerland by Michael Chabon.

This is a bad novel, with all the authenticity of hair in a can, and as flat as the troublesome slider thrown by the nominal hero of the story. The baseball action is described in aimless, excessive, and error-prone detail, almost every plot line is preposterous and full of holes, and the dialogue reads like something out of a Chip Hilton story. Examples beyond what has been offered in other reviews:

- Hard luck mother of catcher despairs of his ever getting started with a law career if he wastes a couple of precious years trying to play baseball. Yep, those law firms hate to hire former athletes...

- A pitcher from a college baseball powerhouse goes from summer league MVP to being essentially cut from his team, AND NOBODY KNOWS ABOUT IT. Did Einstein predict the presence of media black holes, too?

- A pitcher (from Stanford, no less) continues to pitch through pain; apparently the lure of the Ted Kennedy Trophy (I'm not making this up) is far greater than the $2 MM+ signing bonus he'll get for being a first round draft pick.

Ugh. Even the "local color" of the summer league scene, which was the reason I picked up the book in the first place, is trotted out with a sort of Truman Show kind of gloss, and goes nowhere. No runs, no hits, and too many errors.