The first two decades of the twentieth century were a time of promise and innocence in America. Hardworking immigrants could achieve the American dream; heroes were truly heroic. Eric Rolfe Greenberg brilliantly and authentically chronicles the real-life saga of the first national baseball hero, Christy Mathewson, and the fictional story of a Jewish immigrant family of jewelers. In these pages Mathewson and other great players like John McGraw, Honus Wagner, and Connie Mack discover the realities behind the shining illusions: the burdens of being a hero and the temptations that taint success.
Amazon.com Review: In the Ragtime tradition of revolving a fictional world around a factual core, Greenberg's 1983 novel is a polished gem, which is fitting because it is partly built around a jeweler. Though The Celebrant never caught on much with the general public, its adherents were virtual zealots; to them, reading the novel bordered on having a religious experience. Its sophisticated weaving together of the life of Christy Mathewson, the Giants' great hurler and role model, with a family of immigrant Jews in New York in the first quarter of the 20th century captured their imaginations--then sadly disappeared for almost a decade before its welcome reissue.
On the surface, The Celebrant is obviously a baseball story--many of "Matty's" greatest on-field feats are meticulously recreated--as well as a story of how deeply the game reached into the lives of new arrivals from the Old World desperate to become American. On a deeper level, it is a stunning meditation on the fragile balance between the heroism of a man who won World Series rings and the hero worship of the young jeweler who made those rings for him. Its simplicity is deceptive. The Celebrant does much more than celebrate; it paints the corners of another era and another ethos with the command and control Matty himself was known to exhibit. --Jeff Silverman
baseball, dark and glimmering Eric Rolfe Greenberg's The Celebrant gives us not only a fictional account of the career of Christy Mathewson, the great New York Giants pitcher of the early 1900s, but also a revealing look into hero-worship, all through the eyes and voice of a young jeweler who designs rings to celebrate Christy's masterful performances on the mound.
The book is well-crafted, the writing measured and often reverential, a wonderful example of form and function working as one. Greenberg captures the rough energy of the world of McGraw's Giants and their fans, and also paints an interesting picture of the unlikely friendship between the earthy McGraw and Mathewson, his college-educated ace. The story of the Kapinski brothers involves not only McGraw and Mathewson, but other, less savory characters such as Hal Chase and his associates on and off the field.
A dark historical baseball novel, and one of the best.
Baseball When the Only Juice was Alcoholic If there were a Hall of Fame for baseball books, Mr. Greenberg's book would surely be inducted. Perhaps not on the first ballot, but definitely within the first few years of eligibility.
This book made me feel as though I'd stepped through a time-warp and into the stands of the Polo Grounds 100 years ago. The baseball scenes are told with an obvious fondness through the eyes of the narrator, whose life we learn about through his musings on his beloved Giants and the magnificent Christie Matthewson.
Spanning almost twenty years of baseball action, from Matty's rookie season no-hitter through his death in the mid 1920's, we are given a glimpse of how life used to be for an avid baseball fan. We are treated to encounters with John McGraw, Hal Chase, Smokey Joe Wood, Amos Rusie, and Christie Matthewson himself. Near the end of the book there is an impressive amount of time given to the 1919 Black Sox, and the tainted World Series against the Reds.
A time machine This book not only takes you back in time to see the early baseball legends so clearly you think you actually watched them play, but it also creates a picture of the era they lived in: life-style, business experience, ethnic experience. It would make a great choice for a high school student doing a book report or history report on the early 20th century.
The Celebrant shows us the origins of hero worship at the birth of the pop culture era - both good and bad. Jackie's love of Matty is embodied in the beauty of the rings he gave the pitcher and at the same time it is obsession that leads (at least in part) to the destruction of someone Jackie has a "real-life" relationship with (as opposed to one based on fantasy).
Some reviewers here are not satisfied with the ending, but I kind of enjoyed the ambiguity of it. This man will never be able to remember the joy of watching Matty pitch without also thinking of the personal tragedy it will forever be linked with. The great and the terrible are forever woven together in a past we see clearly through Jackie's memories.
This observation won't make sense unless you've seen the film, but there's an epilogue at the end of Barry Lyndon (and I'm butchering it) - "all these souls, whether good or evil, great or small, are all long dead and forgotten save to memory." Something like that. That's how this book plays out. It's very much in the past. Very much a part of distant memory and yet Grenberg gives us access to those memories as if they are our own. When I see picture of Matty now I smile as if I watched him play myself. And there's saddness in the memory. I remember Matty's life cut short and I remember Eli. And they both are equally real to me.
Anyway, it's a wonderful time machine and you need to have that baseball fan in your life read it - especially if it's a young person who never heard of the "immortals."
Like Living Through The Era Essential to understanding and enjoying "The Celebrant" is knowing just who Christy Mathewson is. The book is half the action on the field, the dugouts and the offices, half the business of the Kapinskis, a Jewish immigrant family who carry a high fanatical esteem of Mathewson. But the book is very much baseball, so understanding the "hero" status of Mathewson would be helpful, and the author assists with tiny statistical boxes laced throughout the book.
The book is also a zealous, near-stalkerish account of Mathewson, famous for his 327 wins (with the highest winning percentage of all righties), career 2.13 earned run average, as well as his blonde-haired, blue-eyed, Bucknell-educated pedigree. The tall Mathewson dominated the early 1900s by developing a "fadeaway" pitch that tailed into righthanders, more familiar as today's screwball.
The book follows the Kapinskis gradual absorption into the baseball world after the younger brother, a talented artist, designs a beautiful commemorative World Series ring in an era when such rings weren't commonplace. His business savvy and gambling-addicted brother pushes all the deals and the pair soon gain prominence not only within the jeweler's circle, but in baseball, particularly with their worshipped idol Mathewson, the rest of his teammates and hard-as-nails manager McGraw.
The book includes many historical aspects of baseball: the gambling scene that once heavily threatened to ruin the game; the pre-free agency relationship that had owners literally owning their players (who had little control over their careers), and the gradual integration of all sorts of fans into the game.
It's a good read, leaving you with the sort of feeling you get after watching a long baseball movie based on fact.
This book is not for Baseball buffs I bought this book many years ago. I'm surprised it's still in print -- It should have never been in print. It is a contrived historical novel with fictional characters of zero intrest. ...
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