Title/Author:
“The Utility of
Boredom: Baseball Essays” by Andrew Forbes
Tags:
Baseball, collection,
short stories, Blue Jays
Publish date:
April 4, 2016
Length:
160 pages
Rating:
5 of 5 stars (outstanding)
Review:
No matter the genre or
topic, a book that is a collection of essays or short stories will usually be a
mixed bag with some good ones, some not-so-good ones and some that are
so-so. That is not the case with this
collection of baseball essays penned by Andrew Forbes. Each story is one that
Forbes writes from the heart and expresses his love for the game of baseball
and his favorite team, the Toronto Blue Jays.
Of the essays that
talk mostly about the game on the field, his love of the Blue Jays shows,
especially the ones about the 1992 World Series championship team and the
emotions he was experiencing during the 2015 postseason that ended with the
Blue Jays losing to the Kansas City Royals in the American League Championship
Series.
One of the passages in
that essay is a great illustration of the terrific writing Forbes exhibits in
each story. When describing his joy when Jose Bautista hit a home run in the
deciding fifth game of the Division Series, Forbes describes when he “lost it”
in this fashion:
“It was the most
gloriously and deliriously deterministic moment imaginable…It was fantasy made
real, anti-logic captured on live TV. It was a bullet to the brain of objectivity.
It made no sense whatsoever and it was beautiful.” That is quite the description of a moment
that many fans will experience when their favorite team has a dramatic moment –
in this case it was Bautista’s home run and subsequent bat flip. I thought the
description of his emotions and passions in that paragraph was vivid and
beautiful.
Other essays that were excellent included one on San Francisco Giants pitcher Madison Baumgarner, defunct teams such as the Seattle Pilots and the essay that matches the title of the book. I will end this review with an excerpt from that essay as it had the best explanation I have read that tells why I and many other fans believe that baseball is the greatest game on earth:
“You have to think of
the long game. Baseball’s an exercise in concentration, a chance to train the
brain to ignore the echoes of other forms of entertainment offering easier
enticements. You sit through nine innings because that’s how long a game is and
you want to watch a game. You sit through blowouts. You endure a game devoid of
offense and call it a pitcher’s duel. When you attend a game, you show up early
and stay until the final out is recorded, transit schedules and traffic be
damned. This is your quiet commitment.
This is your loyalty and your investment., your faith that every recess
and concavity will eventually be mirrored by something amazing. Slow and
steady, you say.”
Amen.
I wish to thank
Invisible Publishing for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest
review.
Book Format Read:
Paperback
Buying links:
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