from: Bison Books
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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780803273382
ISBN number: 080327338X
Label: Bison Books
Manufacturer: Bison Books
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 243
Printing Date: December 01, 2003
Publishing house: Bison Books
Sale Popularity Level: 129839
Studio: Bison Books
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Henry Wiggen, hero of The Southpaw and the best-known fictional baseball player in America, is back again, throwing a baseball “with his arm and his brain and his memory and his bluff for the sake of his pocket and his family.” More than a novel about baseball, Bang the Drum Slowly is about the friendship and the lives of a group of men as they each learn that a teammate is dying of cancer.
Bang the Drum Slowly was chosen as one of the top one hundred sports books of all time by Sports Illustrated and appears on numerous other lists of best baseball fiction. In the introduction to this new Bison Books edition Mark Harris discusses the making of the classic 1973 film starring Robert DeNiro, based on his screen adaptation of the book. Also available in Bison Books editions are The Southpaw, It Looked Like For Ever.
Amazon.com Review:
Sure, Harris's most acclaimed novel, the second of his Henry Wiggen books, centers around a pair of ballplayers for the fictionally fabled New York Mammoths--the novel's narrator, pitcher Wiggen, and Bruce Pearson, his tag-along catcher and best friend. And sure, on one level, it's the conventional tale of a disparate dugout population cohering over the course of a season and marching ineluctably toward the World Series. But convention, like a 55-foot curveball, ends there and then scoots off in its own unpredictable direction. Harris's story--funny, bittersweet, and affecting--is, in the end, a haunting meditation on life, death, friendship, and loyalty. That it's set against the backdrop of the Major Leagues makes it a baseball novel. That it's a brilliant study of human nature, passionately felt and beautifully crafted, makes it enduring literature. --Jeff Silverman
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Rated by buyers 
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From the sound of the spikes on the cement, the movie is authentic. From the opening lines to the end, the book is bittersweet in it's finest form. Running around the field at Subic Bay Naval Base in the Philippines in 1976, our shortstop, Vinnie Mallozzi from South Babylon Long Island and I, the second baseman would run and without prompting would hum or whistle "The Streets of Larado." The locker room, like the barracks or in our case, our ship, is a place for men, of lessons learned and friendships formed. Before The Natural, Fields of Dreams or Bull Durham, there were Mark Harris' novels and this movie with Robert DeNiro of all people as Bruce Pearson that showed men as they are and maybe more importantly of what they want to be. Don't play baseball much these days, but I still have a bat, a glove and a baseball. What I also do is hum Streets of Larado while on my runs, in rememberance.
Rated by buyers -
My wife checked the book-on-tape version of this novel out for me from the public library, so that I could listen to it as I commuted to and from work. Wow! What a beautiful and powerful story.
We are, all of us, dying. But when we are confronted with that fact, it helps us to appreciate what time we have. Mark Harris weaves this simple idea into a stunning and unforgettable story.
5 stars to the book, and 5 stars for my very thoughtful wife!
Rated by buyers 
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I very first read Bang the Drum Slowly as a high school student and it stayed on my mind for several days after I finished it. In fact, it had such an impact on the way that I saw life that I was more than a little reluctant to read it again, fearing that my fond memories of the book would be spoiled. That kind of thing has happened to me several times in the past, but not this time. Bang the Drum Slowly is still the great book that I experienced the very first time around.
In the era before free agency rules made millionaires out of very mediocre baseball players, even all-star left-handed pitchers had to find work in the off season. Henry Wiggin, star lefthander for what was probably the best team in baseball during the early 1950s, the New York Mammoths, was no exception. Henry took to selling life insurance and annuities to his fellow ball players and he became quite good at his sales job. One of Henry's customers was Bruce Pearson, a third-string Mammoth catcher who bought an insurance policy covering his life only to later discover that he was dying of Hodgkin's Lymphoma, a disease that was incurable in the 1950s.
Bang the Drum Slowly at its base is a realistic baseball novel told in the words (and with the spelling skills) of a small town boy born during the Depression who had the physical skills to become a major league baseball pitcher. It is an honest look at what goes on off the field and in the clubhouse when athletes spend more time on the road, and with each other, than they spend with their wives and children. There are racial tensions, drinking problems, womanizing and personality clashes that have to be dealt with by management, a baseball management generally interested only in the club's bottom line.
The heart of this story, however, is the bad break that fate has handed Bruce Pearson. He faces imminent death even in what turns out to be the best season of his career. Henry Wiggin, feeling protective of the naïve Pearson, does his best to keep Pearson's secret from team management and their teammates. But when word of Pearson's situation slowly begins to leak, amazing things begin to happen to the New York Mammoths and to Bruce Pearson.
Mark Harris, who passed away just a few weeks ago, will long be remembered for Bang the Drum Slowly, a book that was chosen by Sports Illustrated as one of the Top 100 sports books of all time. This book has something for baseball fans and non-sports fans alike and, even after such a long absence, I enjoyed spending time again with Henry Wiggin.
Rated by buyers -
This is one that I really hated to finish because I was enjoying it so much. Probably the best sports fiction book I've ever read. I enjoyed it much more than The Natural. The characters seem very realistic. The book manages to be both funny and sad, and it captures the feel of a real baseball season with all the personal interactions that happen between games. Now, I only wish I knew how to play Tegwar.
Rated by buyers -
Bang The Drum Slowly is a must read book for sports fans and an entertaining book for casual readers. The book starts with "Author" getting a call from his friend Bruce. Author finds out that Bruce is diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease. Bruce tells only Author because he is his only friend on the baseball team. Author feels responsible for Bruce and keeps his spirits up. The team goes through most of the season dysfunctional and barely staying in very first place. The team finds out about his illness and rallies around him. Bruce's career is revived, while salvaging the season. Bruce dies at the end of the novel before the season is finished. Bang The Drum Slowly is an enjoyable for all readers. Mark Harris writes the book in very first person as the character Author. The book is written sloppy to fit Author's baseball personality. The description, feelings, and visualization are not great, so the book is not for a meticulous reader. If you are looking for a book to entertain you, then Bang The Drum Slowly is a perfect book to choose. Harris does a good job by putting you in the lives of the baseball players. He shows all the different personalities and how the mesh on a team. It is interesting to learn how the baseball players live. You learn about the player's constantly traveling, media, and refraining from bad desires from big cities. As a baseball player, I enjoyed learning how the players I worship live. After reading the book, you learn that baseball was only a small part of it. Harris emphasizes the importance of friendships. He shows how great accomplishments can be achieved if people work together and give it their all. The love in friendships can do great things. Bruce became a great baseball player after every one rallies around him because it improves his self-esteem. Bang The Drum Slowly is a great book because it strongly gets its theme across while making the reader keep the book in the readers hands. YOU MUST READ BANG The Drum Slowly!!!
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