[It Looked Like For Ever] is a very likeable book, and to damn it with a little faint praise, I should say that it rather amused me but not violently. Part of the problem is that it goes on too long, allowing Mr. Harris to repeat jokes and stretch out bits that were perhaps best deleted to begin with. (p. 102)

It Looked Like For Ever is about the sadness of growing older in a game for younger men—of being, in effect, struck out by Nature. Henry Wiggen has reached forty, retirement age—actually well past it—for most baseball players, and his problem is that he would like to play out one last season so that his youngest daughter can see him play. But such plot as there is here is scarcely more than an excuse for Mr. Harris to mock the clichés of baseball and...