Out of My League: The Classic Account of an Amateur's Ordeal in Professional Baseball

by George Plimpton, Jane Leavy (Foreword by)

Overview

This baseball classic that Ernest Hemingway called "beautifully observed and incredibly conceived" includes a foreword from Jane Leavy and never-before-seen content from the Plimpton archives.

The first of Plimpton's remarkable forays into participatory journalism, Out of My League chronicles with wit, charm, and grace what happens when a self-professed amateur has the chance to answer every fan's question: could he strike out a major league star?

Plimpton's inspired idea — to get on the mound and pitch a few innings to the All-Stars of the American and National Leagues — begins as a fun-filled stunt and comes to a deeply hellish, nearly humiliating end. This honest and hilarious tale features Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Whitey Ford, Ralph Houk, and other baseball greats and is "a baseball book such as no one else ever wrote, and one of the best ever."-New York Herald Tribune

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316284547
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	04/26/2016
Pages:	176
Sales rank:	967,711
Product dimensions:	5.75(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

George Plimpton (1927-2003) was the bestselling author and editor of nearly thirty books, as well as the cofounder, publisher, and editor of the Paris Review. He wrote regularly for such magazines as Sports Illustrated and Esquire, and he appeared numerous times in films and on television.

Date of Birth:

March 18, 1927

Date of Death:

September 25, 2003

Place of Birth:

New York, NY

Place of Death:

New York, NY

Education:

B.A. in English Literature, Harvard University, 1950; Master's degree, Cambridge University, 1952

Read an Excerpt

I stared miserably out into the locker room. Actually the room was crowded and noisy and there was nothing really in that atmosphere to inspire an attack of nerves: across the way Ashburn was getting on toward the end of This Week in Baseball; a few players were seated around their table pushing ballpoint pens slowly aacrss the horsehide surfaces of baseballs; the noise and laughter came from a tight circle of reporters and admiring surrounding a player, pumping him, and smoke lifted out thickly, illuminated periodically by the blue blink of a flash camera. No one was aware of me, or questioning my presence in a player's cubicle, and yet my knees were were quivering and I began to yawn helplessly—the thick weight of nerves draining me of energy.

Editorial Reviews

"Beautifully observed and incredibly conceived, this account of a self-imposed ordeal has the chilling quality of a true nightmare. It is the dark side of the moon of Walter Mitty."—Ernest Hemingway

"A baseball book such as no one else ever wrote, and one of the best ever."—New York Herald Tribune

"Out of My League copes with the problem of the imaginary nightmare of walking every batter and the glittering triumph (the shutout) of striking them out, one after the other."—Marianne Moore

"It's all there: the humor, the classical allusions and the verisimilitude that makes you feel that you were not only there to see it but suffered through it with George."—Allen Barra, Dallas Morning News

"A delight—more entertaining, if possible, than I remembered... the reader leaves George Plimpton's wide world of sports with deep reluctance.... His prose is as elegant and seemingly effortless as Ted Williams's swing or an Arnold Palmer iron shot.... His teammates recede—like the old baseball players vanishing into the cornfield in Field of Dreams, taking their magical world with them but living on in fond memory."—Edward Kosner, Wall Street Journal

"Sports memoirs, like humor collections, rarely outlive their authors, but Plimpton's books have aged gracefully and even matured. Today they have the additional (and unintended) appeal of vivid history, bearing witness to a mythical era."—Nathaniel Rich, New York Review of Books

From the Publisher