Here’s a review of a baseball book, A False Spring by Pat Jordan, I wrote back in 2013.
This is probably the best baseball book I’ve ever read. Of course, it goes deeper than baseball. Pat Jordan is a big bonus baby in the Milwaukee Braves organization with the blazing fastball and the big future ahead of him. The problem is, Jordan can’t harness that talent to make his dream of reaching the Major Leagues. He’s self-centered, arrogant and distant from everyone. We see Jordan from the time he is a hotshot high school pitcher groomed by an older brother. And then, reality sets in. Jordan is suddenly away from home for the first time – in McCook, Neb., pitching for a Class D team, the lowest rung on the minor league ladder, and not doing so well. And that’s pretty much the way Jordan’s career goes for the next few years – lonely minor league outposts, few pitching triumphs. Jordan’s descriptions of some of the small towns and ballparks of these dots on the map are part of what I like about this book. It’s also fun to read about some of the future Major League stars that Jordan plays with or against. He nearly gets into a fight with Joe Torre. His roommate in McCook is Ron Hunt. Another teammate is Phil Niekro. Some readers have criticized the book because Jordan is not a very likable character. It’s true he exhibits plenty of boorish behavior as his focus to become a Major Leaguer is so all consuming. He screams at his coaches, fights with teammates. He shows no interest in the clubs he plays for. It’s all about him. That said, I like the honesty of the writing. Jordan doesn’t paint himself as a saint. Sure, maybe I wouldn’t have wanted to hang out with the guy back in the late 1950s and early 1960s when he was struggling to control his fastball and fumbling at learning to become a man. Still, there are some real heart-felt sections of this book too. Midway through his minor league struggles, Jordan finds himself in Wisconsin. He’s at the point where he’s lost all confidence, and the team isn’t even letting him pitch. He pleads to be given a chance, and when it doesn’t happen, he jumps the team. He has a fling with a young woman in McCook. She wants to get to know the self-absorbed pitching prodigy a little better. But Jordan pushes her away. Jordan does have a girlfriend back home whom he eventually marries. We learn little if nothing about her, although we see her enduring the life of a baseball wife. Jordan rails at her, moving her to tears, when she doesn’t have his supper ready after a game. Even if you can’t root for this young pitcher, it’s a book worth reading. Let’s face it. We lose more than we win in life, and this story pounds that point home.
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