Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 20, 1990 TAG: 9005200256
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Using the Texas oil boom of the 1960s as a backdrop, Terry Pringle's new novel examines the ways men develop bigger- Pringle than-life reputations and bigger-than-life fortunes supplying energy to energy-hungry consumers.
The story follows the rise of Stan Gaines, a returning Vietnam veteran. He begins negotiating mineral rights leases and becomes the head of an independent oil company trying to bash out the oil and real estate gluts of the 1980s. The technical jargon and procedures of oil exploration are nicely leavened by a 20-year a trois among Gaines, Billy Brewster - narrator of the novel - and Sally Wells who loves Billy but weds Stan. The novel is filled with fascinating characters, and the technical wizardry is explained in a rich literary texture. - LARRY SHIELD
\ The Game According to Syd.
By Syd Thrift and Barry Shapiro.
Simon & Schuster. $18.95.
\ Sparky.
By Sparky Anderson and Dan Ewald.
Prentice-Hall. $18.95.
\ Working the Plate.
By Eric Gregg and Marty Appel.
Morrow. $10.95.
These three are pretty poor books, but because the topic was baseball, I finished them anyway.
Syd Thrift attended Randolph-Macon College and is a native Virginian. I wanted his book to be good for that reason and because he was an innovator as general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates. His book, "The Game According to Syd," rambles incoherently. He describes systems of training in detail, illustrates his points with one player and then contradicts in the next 20 pages or so with three different examples that disprove his point.
"Sparky" is a better book. Anderson writes with candor about the nervous breakdown that caused him to leave the Detroit Tigers in midseason. The pressure put on one's self by becoming preoccupied with winning in all walks of life takes its toll. How Anderson got sick, faced his problem and then effected a cure saves the book. The section on his all-time team has got to be the most repetitious device in today's baseball books. He just can't bring himself to say anything bad about anyone. His reflections on big-league parks were interesting, but they could have been much better.
Eric Gregg was the third black umpire in major-league baseball and maybe the biggest gentleman ever to crouch behind the plate. His book, "Working the Plate," is anecdotal. No, to be accurate, it's real gossipy. Rico Carty called Gregg a "nigger." Gregg said, "Rico, you're blacker than I am." "Don't matter," he answered, "I'm Spanish."
Gregg says he hates Larry Bowa, Dave Kingman, and is not very fond of San Francisco manager Roger Craig. What Tony Pena does to umpires squatted behind the plate made me laugh, but it's funny only in a locker-room context.
- DUDLEY J. EMICK JR.
\ America's Nazis.
By Susan Canedy. Markgraf Publications. Price not listed.
The devastation of Germany in World War I and the Great Depression that followed were powerful events that led to the rise of Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany in the the 1930s. These same forces touched the United States in other ways. Susan Canedy, an Army historian at Fort Monroe, has traced the brief history of the German-American Bund, America's Nazis, during those tumultuous times.
Her book may well appeal to the student or professional scholar of the politics of that era, but there is little of interest to the general reader, beyond the author's cautionary note. A democratic society that practices the creed of civil rights and freedom of speech offers a ready pulpit for the next preacher of Nazism. The Bund may have disappeared into history, but its adherents have merely transferred their allegiance to another party of similar beliefs.
- SIDNEY BARRITT
by CNB