Reply #40: well, I think both novel and film are great

[fishwax]

They clearly had different purposes in mind, of course. I saw the movie as a kid, long before I read the book--I loved it at the time and still do. I read the book in college as part of a class on the history of sports in America, and fell in love with it as well. It incorporates so much of the mythological history of baseball that it practically serves as an alternate history of the game.