Sometimes You See It Coming: A Review

Since finishing graduate school, I've made it a priority to get back into the habit of reading regularly.  While (unlike the rest of my life) my book choices don't completely revolve around sports, I have recently read two baseball-centric books that I really enjoyed.  The first was Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding, which has dominated Best Seller and Best Books of the Year lists since it came out in September 2011.  While I could go on and gush about how much I enjoyed Harbach's book, you can easy go online and find dozens of glowing reviews about this work that, according to Sports Illustrated, "will knock out baseball and literature fans alike."  Instead, I'd like to offer some praise for a much less heralded, but almost as enjoyable, book - Kevin Baker's Sometimes You See it Coming.

Take a few days to read through Kevin Baker's debut novel, published in 1993.

Baker's book, loosely based on the life of MLB legend Ty Cobb, follows the life and career of fictional right fielder John Barr, "the kind of player who isn't supposed to exist anymore. An all-around superstar, he plays the game with a single-minded ferocity that makes his New York Mets team all but invincible. Yet Barr himself is a mystery with no past, no friends, no women, and no interests outside hitting a baseball as hard and as far as he can."  The book follows Barr's life through the eyes of a number of different, well-developed and seemingly realistic characters - teammate "Rapid" Ricky Falls, manager Charli Stanzi, and Mets beat writer Ellie Jay.  Rather than focusing on the dominant superstar himself, Sometimes You See It Coming is unique in the way it concentrates on what it's like to play alongside, coach and cover an unparalleled talent.

Having only experienced MLB players and coaches through the eyes of the media, it's hard for me to say with confidence what these people should truly sound like.  Baker does such an incredible job of creating a number of unique and believable voices, however, that I imagine that he has an excellent grasp on how people involved in professional baseball really speak and act.  As he moves his readers through the book's chapters, he bounces back and forth between narrators - sometimes we hear from Falls, other times from Stanzi, Jay or other more minor characters - and you actually feel like you're hearing from completely different people.  As with any complicated personality, real or fictional, John Barr is best understood through the eyes of the people closest to him.  Only through the differing but complementary opinions of Falls, Stanzi and Jay does Baker show us what mysterious athletes like Barr (and Cobb) are really about.

I won't go into the plot in detail (it's not really what makes the book so special, anyway, as it's somewhat predictable), in hopes that you'll read it and find it out for yourself.  At just over 300 pages in paperback (yes, I still read non-electronic books), I ran through Sometimes You See It Coming in just a few days.  If you like baseball, I'd highly recommend Baker's only sports-related novel (but I still think that you should read The Art of Fielding first).  Even if you don't, though, Baker's character development and wit make this one worth reading.  And after you make your way through this book, you can move on to Baker's other (albeit non-sports-related) novels, all of which I'd also highly recommend.