The Devil's Snake Curve: A Fan's Notes From Left Field
Like many, a less-than-gifted athlete ­growing up, Ostergaard, a native of Kansas City, became a baseball (and Royals) fan and has now written this anecdotal and idiosyncratic once-over on the sport. Although containing much that has appeared in sundry baseball books before, it also offers many rare and entertaining tidbits, such as Ted Williams being recruited to shoot bothersome pigeons in Fenway Park or the fact that midcentury Yankee owner Del Webb’s construction company built the camps that housed Japanese interns during WWII. Ostergaard obsessively links not only the history of the pastime but a great deal more to management and ballplayers’ attitudes regarding facial hair. Readers who, like the author, see baseball as a metaphor for, well, nearly everything, and who deem the Yankees as not only representative of the misdistribution of wealth in America but also connected to such events as the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Vietnam War will love this book. Those who merely ­enjoy baseball as baseball may still find plenty to like in Ostergaard’s oddball take on the sport. --Mark Levine