(And I did get this done in January! Eat your words, Doherty! Take this ketchup and eat them!)
Title: Glory Jays
# Pages: 297
Published: Sagamore Publishing, 1993
Availability: Out of print, but available used
Author: Rosie DiManno
Who Is: the roving fluff columnist for the Toronto Star. Writes about lots of everything but not much of anything.
What It's About: It's about the key figures in the Blue Jays' 1992 World-Series-winning season. You have to know how this is going to work to read the book: each chapter is about a different Blue Jay (sometimes more than one). That chapter will run from the start of the regular season to the end, from that Jay's point of view. This is good for getting each guy's story in some kind of coherent shape, but it's useless if what you want is an overview of the whole season. Then the end chapters deal with the postseason and offseason, which do help to tie the preceding chapters together.
How's the Writing? Purple. No, more purple than that. There's some strong material in here, but the style is quite annoying. What Jon Caulfield could have done with this material!
Also, and I wish I didn't have to say this for so many of these books, it could have used more editing.
I don't think I'll be reading it again. I mean, I might. But it's really not that great.
Sabremetric Corner: Don't get me started. Okay, okay, she does know what on-base percentage is, which is actually pretty good for a mainstream writer in the early '90s.
Anecdotes: Nothing that jumped out at me. Lots of little interviewlets, many of which contained some vaguely interesting stuff. As I say, there is some good material in this book. Oh, one thing I'll mention: one of the chapters describes Five Games That Mattered. When I read it, there was one specific game I was looking for in there, the Doug Linton start that was the key to the whole pennant race, and she did include it. So DiManno and I do agree about something.
