I just read "Caught Stealing" a few weeks ago. There's very
little about sports in it, except as it relates to the main
character's emotional development -- golden boy athlete whose
potential career was ended by the incident at 3rd base, which
destroyed his leg, for athletic purposes at least. I vaguely
recall the "ERA" point, but I think I assumed that his
"arm" enabled him to be a starting pitcher as well as
outfielder, which it seems to me might be possible at the
high school level. With respect to the fact that he
apparently wasn't actually "caught stealing" in the play that
ended his hopes of an athletic career, I think this may be
more a matter of a slightly awkward attempt to use the book
title in describing the incident than of ignorance of the
rules of baseball.
Maybe I'm making excuses for the author because I enjoyed the
book so much. Obviously these fairly minor (imo) issues
didn't bother me. However, inaccuracies that indicate
careless research or lack of knowledge often do bug me,
though they may not prevent me from finishing a book.
Stephen Burridge
On 12/30/06, T. Kent Morgan <
tkmorgan@shaw.ca> wrote:
>
> For purposes of full disclosure, I want advise list
members that
> that I read the messages in the archives about this
book before
> posting this comment. Because of my interest in
sports
> mysteries/fiction, I picked this book up not long
after it came out.
> Most reviews/blurbs mentioned that Hank Thompson was
an ex-
> ballplayer who now was tending bar in NYC. Finally
last night I took
> it off the shelf and was turned off by page
7.
>
> First of all, the extent of Thompson's ballplaying
was high school.
> Here's the first bit that turned me off. Huston has
Thompson
> remembering his high school career.
>
> "You're a four-tool player: bat, glove, arm and
legs. You play
> center field. You lead the team in homers, ERA, RBI,
stolen bases
> and have no errors."
>
> Anyone who knows baseball knows that ERA is not a
batting statistic,
> but a pitching statistic that stands for earned run
average. Maybe
> Huston meant BA for batting average.
>
> Here's the next paragraph.
>
> "In the regional championship game you are caught
stealing third.
> You slide hard into the bag as the third baseman
leaps to snare a
> high throw from the plate. Your cleats dig into the
bottom of the
> base and as you pop up out of your slide, the third
baseman is
> coming down with the ball. He lands on the ankle of
your caught foot
> and as you continue up, he falls down with his full
weight on your
> lower leg."
>
> Caught stealing, I don't think so. Clearly, Thompson
was safe, not
> out, so he had a stolen base and was not caught
stealing. I assume
> that the title, Caught Stealing, refers to more than
this incident,
> but I'll never know. With those errors, Huston (and
his editor) lost
> me as a reader for this book and the others in the
series.
>
> Am I the only person who can be turned off this
quickly by mistakes
> of this type?
>
> Kent Morgan
>
>
>
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