Product Description

Billy Chapel is a baseball legend, a man who has devoted his life to the game he loves and plays so well. But because of his unsurpassed skill and innocent faith, he has been betrayed. Now it's the final game of the season, and Billy's got one last chance to prove who he is and what he can do, a chance to prove what really matters in this life. A taut, compelling story of one man's coming of age, FOR LOVE OF THE GAME is Michael Shaara's final novel, the classic finish to a brilliantly distinguished literary career.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #198102 in Books
• Published on: 1997-03-11
• Released on: 1997-03-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

From Amazon.com
Serious sports novels often fall through the literary cracks simply because of the arena they play in. Michael Shaara earned his battle stripes--and a Pulitzer Prize--for The Killer Angels, a fictional resurrection of the Battle of Gettysburg, as serious a subject as a writer can confront. Yet, it's no more profound, in the end, than the personal dilemmas protagonist Billy Chapel faces in this, Shaara's final novel, found stashed in a desk after his death and published posthumously.

A certain Hall of Famer, Chapel is a major-league anomaly, a contemporary throwback to another sporting era. He's pitched 17 stellar seasons for the same club, and his love of the game has remained paramount; neither money nor fame has been his motivation. But on the single day this story takes place, he finds himself in crisis. At the crossroads of his life, his career, and his future, he must make the hard choices that will define the direction of the rest of his life. It's the end of the season, his team's out of contention, there's a rumor he may have been traded, and the woman he can't fully acknowledge that he loves announces she's leaving him. It is, as he tells himself, "Time to grow up, Daydreamer." Still, he dreams, but he also acts. As Billy takes the mound for his final start of the year--and maybe forever--we enter his stream of consciousness, and rush with him over the sometimes treacherous rapids of what has preceded this moment, and what may come. Amazingly, though his mind seems to wander through time, his concentration is fierce. Pitch by pitch, inning by inning, he remains focused, honoring his job and his legacy as he pitches a masterpiece of mythic proportion, ultimately leaving the field more a man than when he took it. Using baseball to sound the depths of human experience, Shaara delivers a masterpiece, as well. --Jeff Silverman

From Publishers Weekly
Reading this posthumously published baseball novel is best compared to watching a gifted young player whose promise slowly fades with every strikeout and weak groundball, despite occasional flashes of potential. Shaara, who won a Pulitzer in 1975 for The Killer Angels , died just after the book was finished, and one feels he might have liked to give it a rewrite. Just before the last game of the season, star pitcher Billy Chapel, a veteran of 17 years in the major leagues, discovers that his team plans to trade him. Moreover, he learns that his New York editor/girlfriend has inexplicably ended their romance--leaving him adrift and the reader more than a little indifferent. The love affair, seen in flashbacks (notably a scene in which they achieve congress in a small airplane), must compete with an unhealthy number of baseball cliches and a series of featureless characters; even Billy, whose thoughts we share, seems a blank. The book does come to life, fittingly enough, as Chapel takes the mound for his final and greatest game. Shaara succeeds in conveying the extraordinary physical and psychological demands of the professional game as well as the dizzying pleasures of its triumphs. But even the account of Chapel's greatest victory is marred by a trite ending. While flawed, however, this is a noteworthy attempt to capture the simultaneous loss of a life's love and a life's obsession.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Pulitzer Prize-winner Shaara's final work (he died in 1988) is about a baseball player's final work. Billy Chapel, a great pitcher, is going to be traded after 17 years of service. He plans to end his career with this game, rather than accept this betrayal by his team's new owners. We follow him pitch by pitch through his perfect game, and memory by memory through his imperfect life. Cushioned by a children's game, he has never quite grown up, never taken the ultimate risk of trusting a relationship; the woman he loves is equally frightened of commitment. They come together now, when Billy has to go home, with no home to go to. As much a psychological novel as a baseball tale, this is a good choice for popular fiction collections.
- Marylaine Block, St. Ambrose Univ. Lib., Davenport, Ia.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Actually 4 1/2 stars
Don't get me wrong this was a really good book. And I am so close to giving it 5 stars. It was just a little too short for me. The story invloving the ball game was great and showed why baseball is so pure at its core. The only thing that was lacking in the story was the story outside of the game. You will fly through this book, it is a good story and you will feel satisfied after reading it, even after that mild short coming I mentioned. Just my opnion, I could be wrong.

This little novel left me in tears (Don't tell anyone.)
I read the book in one easy afternoon sitting, and I'm not a speed reader. The story started slow, but grew better as the book went on - right to the very last sentence of the last page. I have not seen the movie, but I plan to now.

It is a simple novelette with a powerful emotional appeal, and a very uplifting message about loyalty, love and determination.

A Great Little Gem of a Book
Shutting out everything, concentrating on that one goal, time and time again. Why? All for the love of the game.

This little gem of a book was found by the author's son and published posthumously. Though it is no Gettysburg, it is a wonderful book from an author who left us too early before we got a chance to know him.

Billy Chapel is an aging major league baseball who once knew the pinnacle of greatness. But age has taken over, and he is on the verge of being put out to pasture--or as rumors roam--being traded. He is pitching his last game of the season, and as he pitches he ruminates over his life over a stream of conscienceless of thought. He knows it is the end of his career, but he is not going without a flash and begins to pitch the best game of his life. As he pitches, he begins to think back on his life, but as he does so he stays focus on the game--the perfect game. Why? For the love of the game.

There are no simple answers to his life. Nothing but memories, the future, and the love of the game.

A perfect little book from a great author.