Review: Men at Work by George Will
I had planned a different review today, but in honor of the brilliant managing job Mike Hargrove did yesterday (he gamed last night’s snow storm to a T) in the Cleveland Indians’ home opener against Hargrove’s Seattle Mariners - I pulled this book off the shelf and reread it last night…
The book Men at Work by George Will has been a long time favorite of mine. I first read it in the early 1990’s when I picked it up at an airport concession stand waiting to get on a flight and it did something for me that years of schoolyard and little league baseball never did - it taught me to love the game.
Well-known political writer George Will has a passion for baseball that exceeds his love of politics and it can be seen in this master stroke from 1990. Will uses his analytic writing style to deconstruct the game of baseball and reveals something much more than hitting, running, throwing and catching. He unveils that which makes the game of baseball truly great - the strategy and the finesses, or as Will quotes one of the book’s subjects current St. Louis Cardinals’ Manager Tony LaRussa on the title page, “there’s a lot of stuff goes on.”
The subtitle of this book is “The Craft of Baseball” and Will sets it exactly that way. The book focuses on only four areas of the game and the four leading individuals (at that time) who practice their particular craft. Will opens the book with a profile of the Manager - Tony LaRussa. The LaRussa profile will change the way that anyone watches a baseball game. The influence of player tendencies combated by good old fashion baseball-man hunches are the source of LaRussa’s personal demons and brilliance. It’s no mistake that this guy’s teams consistently win.
Will follows his profile of LaRussa with similar devotions to the Pitcher - Orel Herschiser: a man who made the art of pitching more cerebral than physical, the Batter - Tony Gwynn: who defined the art of timing as the key to good hitting, and finally, the Defense - Cal Ripken, Jr.: whose play in the field was based more on positioning and knowledge than it ever was on ability. Each piece of the book builds on the next and creates an incredible paradigm through which to see baseball anew. It becomes apparent as one reads Men at Work that we are now watching the game through Will’s prism and that is the true gift of this book.
I would recommend this book to anyone who loves baseball, but I would also make it required reading for the person who used to play the game out of youthful joy and now would rather turn the channel than watch a ball game. If you’re like me, you’ll fall in love for the first time all over again.
A Pulitzer Prize-winning political commentator, George F. Will’s column appears in 450 newspapers nationwide. His work also appears biweekly in Newsweek. Will is a commentator for ABC News and the author of five books in addition to Men at Work. The book is available from your local bookseller or online.
