A False Spring
by Pat Jordan
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Book Summary Information
Author: Pat JordanEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-09-01
ISBN: 0803276265
Number of pages: 278
Publisher: Bison Books
Book Reviews of A False Spring
Book Review: Bittersweet classic about unfulfilled promise
Summary: 5 Stars
I first read an excerpt from "A False Spring" in a magazine (SI?) when it first came out in 1973 and read the whole book a few years later. This is a brutally introspective memoir of a former Milwaukee Braves "bonus baby" who never came close to putting it together in the minor leagues, but that's just the backdrop. It's really a sort of coming-of-age book with a baseball setting.
What truly sets "A False Spring" apart for me is the frankness of the man who wrote it and his willingness to put into print things about himself that most of us would never say to our best and most rusted friends. That takes a lot of courage, and Jordan has plenty of it. When he wrote it, he was close enough in time to remember events and their causes clearly but also had spent enough time away from it to start making sense of them.
As a baseball story, it can stand on its own...you'll read lots of familiar names and some terrific descriptions of the teams he played on and the towns he played in. You really get a feel for spring training and minor league baseball in the late 50's and early 60's. Moreover, Jordan's pure writing style far surpasses what we've come to expect from ex-jocks and the often-painful description of how baseball and life never were as he'd hoped they'd be during his late teens and early twenties is downright haunting. There's more humor than you might expect, but it's usually of an ironic variety.
This is not a "light and breezy" read, per se, but it's one of the best books within a baseball setting ever written BECAUSE of that. Well worth getting.
Summary of A False Spring
In A False Spring, Pat Jordan traces the falling star of his once-promising pitching career, illuminating along the way his equally difficult personal struggles and quest for maturity. When the reader meets Jordan, he is a hard-throwing pitcher with seemingly limitless potential, one of the first ?bonus babies? for the Milwaukee Braves organization. Jordan?s sojourn through the lower levels of minor-league ball takes him through the small towns of America: McCook, Waycross, Davenport, Eau Claire, and Palatka. As the promised land of the majors recedes because of his inconsistency and lack of control, the young man who had previously known only glory and success is forced to face himself.
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