Rating: 
Summary: A Baseball Gem
Review: If you have ever had any doubt that baseball is a slow paced, boring sport that withers in comparison to football, basketball, and hockey, then this book is definitely for you. In it, George Will explains the simple pleasures of baseball and the tremendous perfections in which it involves. He goes into great detail of the managers roles, the pitchers roles, the batters roles, and the fielders roles, focusing mainly on Tony LaRussa, Orel Hershieser, Tony Gwynn, and Cal Ripken respectively, but often throwing in stories of other baseball greats. Will gives tremendous insite of the finer points of the game which should be appreciated by any true sports fan. He shows how baseball is not only a game of physical skill, but of tremendous mental skill, and a little bit of luck. I found this book to be amazingly interesting and insiteful. Already being a baseball fan it taught me to enjoy the game on a whole knew level, the strategic level of it and I highly recommend it to any baseball fan, or sports fan for that matter.
Rating:
Summary: An inside look into the game of baseball.
Review: If you have ever wondered how the players and managers prepare to do the amazing things we see every day of the baseball season this is the book for you! I have loved the game for my entire life, but I never realized so much preparation goes into every little aspect of the game. George Will covers each part of the game - pitching, hitting, and fielding - by observing and interviewing some of the greats of the game; Hershiser on pitching, Gwynn on hitting, Ripken on fielding, and Larussa on putting it all together. George Will quoted Wes Westrum in this book - "Baseball is like church. Many attend, but few understand." This book increased my understanding of the game and as a result has added to my enjoyment of baseball. I see things I didn't see before I read this book - the nuances of the game have become more clear. I did not believe I could love the game more, but after reading this book, I do! I would highly recommend this book to both students of the game and to newcomers looking to understand the game.
Rating: 
Summary: A Book that Really Makes You Respect the Modern Ballplayer
Review: Men at Work is a wonderful piece of writing that gives its readers a solid understanding of what it takes -- both physically and mentally -- to make it in the complex world of baseball. Some may find it a difficult, slow read, but compared to his political columns, Will really dumbs it down. I guess he realizes that baseball is not a sport enjoyed by Harvard-educated intellectuals. But the book itself is refreshingly intellectual, due to Will's dedicated study of the game and his (and the subjects' of the book) attention to detail. The only setback of the book is that, it may seem a little outdated. There is hardly any talk of free agency, revenue sharing, expansion, etc. Of course, this book was written before the big salary boom of the 1990s. Expansion was far off and the lack of competitive balance had yet to become an issue. This book is excellent, nearly perfect, in fact. Subjects for Men at Work II might include Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Ivan Rodriguez, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, Nomar Garciapara, or Joe Torre (Lou Piniella would most likely offer a wonderful look at modern managers). Hopefully, Will realizes that there is still much to be learned on the part of fans everywhere. We could use another book, George.
Rating:
Summary: Bad Politcs, Good Insight
Review: Picking players such as Orel Hershiser, Tony Gwynn, and Cal Ripken Jr to analyze made the book extremely enjoyable for me as two out of three of them were players I was able to regularly watch. All three of them were players with high integrity and strong character. Had Will chosen the Albert Belle and Roberto Alomar types of characters to highlight, I would have never bought the book. Will dissected the game of baseball down to it's intimate points that are easy to forget when watching the game (especially on TV). I wish he could eliminate his political bias and long-windedness while sticking to his sports topic. There were times in the book when I felt like I was reading excerpts from some Republican campaign manager.
Rating: 
Summary: Makes growing grass seem fast paced.
Review: Simply too much categorical, mind numbing data (that isn't actually used on a game-by-game basis) to maintain any sort of interest. If it were a book on chess problems then it may have made sense to break down sooooo many possible variables, but it's not; it's a book loosely based on Will's belief of how the game should really be viewed and it makes osmosis seem exciting. As a rule, I find most of Mr. Will's writings to be interesting; even insightful. . . Unfortunately to all rules, there must be an exception. I picked up the book thinking that Will would be able to answer questions about the game and it's inner workings. How very disappointing.
Rating:
Summary: Simply the best baseball book available...
Review: So insightful and so true, even 10 years after the book was published. A must for any fan of THE GAME.
Rating:
Summary: George Will can't write!
Review: The book does provide some very interesting stories and the premise of the book is a good one, but George Will somehow manages to mess it up. I found the book to be very incoherent, jumping from one thing to the next with little, if any, transition. The book has everything, except good writing. I never thought I would say that about George Will, but it is true.
Rating:
Summary: Don't confuse your genres
Review: The point of this book - unlike Keith Hernandez's fine "Pure Baseball" - is not really to instruct the baseball adept in the subtleties of the game. It is to present "portraits of greatness" - the sort of thing John McPhee (to whose lofty prose standard Will comes admirably close) did for Bill Bradley in "A Sense of Where You Are". It's a genre that I particularly enjoy and I think Will makes a solid case for all four of his subjects. Very enjoyable reading. (As the title suggests, much of Will's hero worship here seems to be driven by a sense of his own inadequate masculinity. But what would you expect from a guy who wears a bow-tie?)
Rating:
Summary: Verbose,overrated
Review: there is a tendencey among well educated baseball fans to make this great game out to be more then it is. George Will is an extreme example of this. Much of this is overwritten,and overblown which is too bad, beacause the subjects written about{cal Ripken, Tony Gwynn and the overrated-underrated Tony La Russa}are quite interesting,though Mr Will turns this book, somehow into a polemic on American values,thereby losing any credibility. Strange. A far,far better example of baseball wriitng exists in Thomas Boswells collections or anything by Roger Angel. This is the equivalent of a $2,000,000 a year utility infielder:overpaid and not worth the money.
Rating:
Summary: a classic to be enjoyed by generations to come
Review: This extraordinarily written masterpiece provides the reader with an insider look at our national pastime. Will writes with an educationally objective, yet personal style that grabs you from page 1. I didn't want to finish it; I wanted more. Will, like the men he features, is a master of his craft. A must read.
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