Eating Apes (California Studies in Food and Culture, 6)

Book Description

Eating Apes is an eloquent book about a disturbing secret: the looming extinction of humanity's closest relatives, the African great apes--chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas. Dale Peterson's impassioned exposé details how, with the unprecedented opening of African forests by European and Asian logging companies, the traditional consumption of wild animal meat in Central Africa has suddenly exploded in scope and impact, moving from what was recently a subsistence activity to an enormous and completely unsustainable commercial enterprise. Although the three African great apes account for only about one percent of the commercial bush meat trade, today's rate of slaughter could bring about their extinction in the next few decades. Supported by compelling color photographs by award-winning photographer Karl Ammann, Eating Apes documents the when, where, how, and why of this rapidly accelerating disaster.
Eating Apes persuasively argues that the American conservation media have failed to report the ongoing collapse of the ape population. In bringing the facts of this crisis and these impending extinctions into a single, accessible book, Peterson takes us one step closer to averting one of the most disturbing threats to our closest relatives.

Customer Reviews:

An important read.......2006-01-06

This book is very important to read: mostly because so few people know about the bushmeat trade in Africa and its impact on the great apes. The book goes into why apes are worth saving, the contribution of logging to crisis, how the crisis is kept hidden, and suggestions on how to alleviate the problem. You will be very surprised to learn the lengths, difficulties, and dangers the contributors of the book go through simply to bring this issue into the spotlight. I also found it very shameful how the crisis has been ignored and exacerbated by the media and the conservation groups.

Honestly though, I felt the book was a little long. It's not actually a long book, but its longer than it needs to be. It seemed to get a little repetitive as the author kept hammering the same points over again. Also, though the author does include an aside on vegetarianism and its merits (while discouraging veganism), he is not a vegetarian himself. While this is, of course, not the subject of the book I feel that if he is going to argue to protect the great apes on the grounds of their sentience, than it is wrong to overlook the sentience of cows, chickens, and especially pigs (who have the same mental capacity as a dog). This is just a minor criticism, but it did bother me a little throughout the book.

So yes, you should read this book. Its very thorough, detailed, complete, and compelling. You will learn a lot and, if the authors have succeeded (and I think they have), you will be sufficiently outraged and willing to contribute to the cause.

Powerful challenge to wildlife conserv groups, loggers, more.......2005-01-23

American and international conservation organizations may be doing little more than feel-good guilt assuaging with many of their slick magazine glossy photos, while ignoring a huge elephant right in front of the world's faces and refusing to show readers the problem.

So says Peterson in the challenging and disturbing book Eating Apes.

Peterson writes about the hunting for bushmeat in Central Africa, specifically hunting great apes - gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos. He accuses the Wildlife Conservation Society of doing little more than giving PR flak to a German logging concern in the Congo, CIB, a decade ago, just at the time public pressure was starting to ratchet up on the issue, in large part due to photographer Karl Ammann.

He also accuses Wildlife Conservation, the magazine of WCS, along with National Geographic and other such magazines and other media for generally downplaying or even spiking the issue. Ammann, as interviewed in the book, is even blunter, noting how several wildlife conservation magazines said they didn't want his pictures specifically because they were too controversial and, in not so many words, too guilt-provoking while showing that the modern western-nation wildlife preservation industry wasn't wearing any clothes on this issue.

Read Eating Apes. Then rethink your donations to wildlife groups, at least without some strong letters to the editor.

A family affair.......2004-04-07

Sometime far in our past, humans took up rocks and sticks to hunt food instead of scavenging from other predators. With our meat available today in shrink-wrapped containers it's easy to lose sight of that long-standing tradition. Others in the world still obtain meat in the traditional environment. The difference is that instead of spears, the weapons are high-powered shotguns. Instead of skulking through the forest seeking prey, hunters are now given rides by timber carriers using deep-penetrating access roads. In this book, Dale Peterson reveals the transformations forest hunting has undergone in West African nations. It's not a
pleasing picture, but it's valid and it's important. And it must change.

The bushmeat trade has many implications, but Peterson has chosen three significant ones. One, of course, is that by killing chimpanzees, bonobos and gorillas for food, we're consuming our nearest relations. The primate line divided only 12 million years ago, with the descendants of one line becoming today's mountain gorillas. The other line led to chimpanzees and bonobos with a spur turning off about 7 million years ago leading to you and me. The proximity of chimpanzee and human DNA patterns is no longer news, but the reminder needs to be flashed occasionally.

Another implication is health. With so much attention given to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, it's worth reflecting on its origins. More importantly, as Peterson reminds us, is to consider how it works. HIV/AIDS appears to be a recent evolutionary virus quirk. It adapts and evolves with amazing speed. The roots of it remain in the African forest and a new strain can emerge at any time. The best means of transmission from ape or monkey to human is through blood - that stuff the hunter is soaked in as he butchers his forest kill.

The third theme is the question of human relations with the rest of our environment. Human population growth is presented in a novel framework. How many humans come into existence every day is contrasted with the great ape population. Peterson calculates that the entire gorilla population is equalled by new humans every twelve hours. Population pressures in the "developed" world lead to demands for African timber products. In turn, the timber firms are cutting great swaths of forest using displaced populations for labour. To feed these workers, hunters are hired or loggers hunt and apes, due to their availability and size, become a major food source. In a feedback cycle of habitat reduction and hunting, the apes are simply being exterminated. Recovery would require sharply reduced logging. Peterson notes that trees are being taken that began growth in Michaelangelo's time, but their replacements will be cut in only forty years.

Peterson is effusive in his description of the significant role played by Swiss photographer Karl Ammann. Ammann's chance encounter with a logging truck driver revealed the role international logging firms play in the ape slaughter and the extended bushmeat trade. The logging firms, particularly CIB, contend they are providing "employment for locals, health services, food and education". Peterson explains the falsity of this contention, with "health services limited to a nurse and schools and teachers paid for by the workers' families.

Peterson argues that the long-established bushmeat tradition is already lost, displaced by commercial logging practices and new, mass hunting methods using guns, sometimes lent by government officials. If we can change a culture, such as was done with slavery, hunting traditions no longer tenable can be modified, as well. He cites the willingness of Americans to spend minimal annual funds to protect wolves, bears and other fauna. Why not establish a fund for ape protection. He calculates that US$1 billion per year could be raised with an individual contribution of but US$50. Not an enormous sum, given that other donations and military expenditures far exceed it. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Difficult to digest but a must-read nonetheless.......2003-08-05

With its appealing cover-picture of two baby chimps and its appalling title, "Eating Apes" is a must read for everybody interested in conservation in general and the survival of the great apes in particular. Although I've been already aware of the bushmeat crisis through voluntary work at a zoo, this book hit me hard. The scope of denial by many - individuals and conservation groups alike - paired with risky relationships between NGOs and logging companies is driving our closest living relatives - the great apes - to extinction. Dale Peterson's book encompasses every aspect of this difficult and very complex issue and Karl Ammann's pictures and comments provide further evidence of what really is happening. Everbody who makes or is going to make decisions regarding the bushmeat trade, logging, development and conservation in central Africa has to read this book before making those important and far-reaching decisions. My next task will be to check with the various conservation groups I support, to find out what they are planning to do about this subject. Depending on their answers, I may well choose to cancel some memberships. Something I haven't actually thought about before reading this book - so I hope that many others will follow suit and choose action over complacency!

A Disturbing And Essential Book.......2003-07-20

What animals we eat are selected by what culture we grow up in. Distant societies think nothing of eating dogs. Some closer ones think eating horse is completely acceptable. Then there are frogs, snakes, and insect larvae. It is all a matter of getting enough protein. One man's protein is another man's atrocity. Americans are used to eating meat they find in Styrofoam trays wrapped in plastic, but the indigenous peoples of central Africa have always eaten the animals living around them: elephants, antelopes, porcupines, rodents, and so on. They don't mind a stew of gorilla or a chimp's sirloin, and what of it? It's the way they have always done things. Tribal languages, in fact, often use the same word for wild animal as they do for meat. The world, however, is not the way it always was, and a shocking book, _Eating Apes_ (University of California Press) by Dale Peterson, shows that apes on the menu is not something the world ought to continue to accept.

We ourselves are members of the tribe of great apes; chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans are on the branch with us. But if African tribes don't share our scientific view or our squeamishness, traditional hunters, in predation balance over the centuries, surely are not going to do lasting harm. Traditional hunting, however, is no longer traditional. There has been an invasion from outside the continent by logging companies, making huge profits from our demand for hardwoods. The companies have lots of workers, many of them from the region, and all the workers have to be fed. Hunters, many of whom are also from the region, are hired to bring in the protein. Bows, arrows, and nets have given way to the far more efficient and deadly wire snares and automatic rifles and shotguns. Perhaps if greater firepower were the only threat to our primate cousins, they could still make it. But we are destroying their habitat (again, mostly by logging), and primates will suffer before other species because of their slow rate of reproduction. There are plenty of species headed toward extinction, but few because we are eating them, and none so close to us evolutionarily. In addition, butchering the apes may be the way humans got HIV and Ebola viruses. It may well be that you haven't heard of the problem of eating apes into extinction because the conservation organizations are keeping quiet about such a downer of a message, and because they are, believe it or not, in partnership with the loggers.

What will be needed is the courage to challenge cultural convictions. It is possible for the West to value (or at least claim to value) sensitivity to other cultures, but in the case of eating apes, it will have to impose scientific knowledge of close kinship, risk of disease, and impending loss of primates to get the native cultures to change. It may even be possible within the corporate culture, which mines habitats to get at profits, to insist not just on sustainable development (a nebulous idea the logging companies pay lip service to) but to take on a wider view of environmental improvement. You can figure up the odds of occurrence of these cultural changes, and especially if you look at our past record, you will not be optimistic. Peterson includes an appendix of what you, and what conservation organizations, can do; he obviously is not giving up hope. Perhaps it is a sign of hope that his reasonable and dispassionate account of this disaster will start many people thinking about the previously covert problem of the loss of the apes. Nevertheless, this is a profoundly disturbing and sad book, and will not be forgotten by those who can get through it.

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Steak, sex and society

Weak Hypothesis From Berkely Graduate

Great little book

A Weak Little Book

Well-written overview with intriguing hypothesis

The Hunting Apes: Meat Eating and the Origins of Human Behavior
Craig B. Stanford
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Amazon.com

Most evolutionary biologists agree that what makes humans unique among animals is our brainpower. But why--and how--did we evolve our oversized brains? Craig Stanford dusts off the old "Man the Hunter" theory, roundly criticized as replete with bad (and sexist) assumptions, and finds a thick, juicy, postmodern steak at the heart of it. He argues, "The origins of human intelligence are linked to the acquisition of meat, especially through the cognitive capacities necessary for the strategic sharing of meat with fellow group members."

Stanford studied the great apes, especially chimpanzees, and came to the conclusion that among primates, meat is a valuable commodity both nutritionally and socially. Although many other foods are nutritionally desirable, meat is unique in its social desirability, and for males, it represents power:

Underlying the nutritional aspect of getting meat, part of the social fabric of the community is revealed in the dominance displays, the tolerated theft, and the bartered meat for sexual access. The end of the hunt is often only the beginning of a whole other arena of social interaction.

In Stanford's view, females play a crucial role in keeping groups together and cementing individual relationships. Meat plays an important role in the way males fit in to a society, and the ability of males to get meat readily may very well explain their societal dominance. These conclusions are not liable to be nearly so controversial as the way Stanford gathered his data--he drew broad parallels between chimps and modern hunter-gatherer societies. Stanford also admits that a lack of fossil evidence supporting his meat/brain link is problematic. The Hunting Apes is an interesting look at what is likely the worthwhile center of a discredited evolutionary theory. --Therese Littleton

Book Description

What makes humans unique? What makes us the most successful animal species inhabiting the Earth today? Most scientists agree that the key to our success is the unusually large size of our brains. Our large brains gave us our exceptional thinking capacity and led to humans' other distinctive characteristics, including advanced communication, tool use, and walking on two legs. Or was it the other way around? Did the challenges faced by early humans push the species toward communication, tool use, and walking and, in doing so, drive the evolutionary engine toward a large brain? In this provocative new book, Craig Stanford presents an intriguing alternative to this puzzling question--an alternative grounded in recent, groundbreaking scientific observation. According to Stanford, what made humans unique was meat. Or, rather, the desire for meat, the eating of meat, the hunting of meat, and the sharing of meat.

Based on new insights into the behavior of chimps and other great apes, our now extinct human ancestors, and existing hunting and gathering societies, Stanford shows the remarkable role that meat has played in these societies. Perhaps because it provides a highly concentrated source of protein--essential for the development and health of the brain--meat is craved by many primates, including humans. This craving has given meat genuine power--the power to cause males to form hunting parties and organize entire cultures around hunting. And it has given men the power to manipulate and control women in these cultures. Stanford argues that the skills developed and required for successful hunting and especially the sharing of meat spurred the explosion of human brain size over the past 200,000 years. He then turns his attention to the ways meat is shared within primate and human societies to argue that this all-important activity has had profound effects on basic social structures that are still felt today.

Sure to spark a lively debate, Stanford's argument takes the form of an extended essay on human origins. The book's small format, helpful illustrations, and moderate tone will appeal to all readers interested in those fundamental questions about what makes us human.

Customer Reviews:

Steak, sex and society.......2001-08-26

With a wealth of primate research supporting his thesis, Stanford argues that meat is an essential element in human evolution. Although not the older and simpler "Killer Ape" hypothesis of some years ago, Stanford sees meat hunting and consumption as the foundation of human society. Meat also acted as a basis in developing the resource voracious human brain and associated communication skills we developed. Among those primates who consume meat, its acquisition remains a male-dominated activity. However, instead of resulting in inexorably male-dominating societies, meat distribution and consumption results in complex negotiation patterns in which females play significant, if not equal roles. This concept suggests humans must seriously reassess their role in Nature. Urging that humanity's lineage is far from linear, he presents a good overview of recent studies. Although the number of definitive fossils is meager, they still demonstrate that our primate roots are not in doubt. The struggle by researchers to properly place humans within the larger animal community has been stoutly resisted by many, both scholars and the lay public alike. Feminist anthropologists, in particular, have striven to displace the male dominated academic group with excessive roles of females in various primate cultures. Some have stretched the idea to the point of seeing females as the true source of language, nutritional foods and even tool making. Stanford addresses these suggestions as mostly unrealistic. Instead, he notes how meat plays a major role in mating scenarios, granting females an active role in selection. Acquiring meat may be accomplished through various strategies, from opportunistic scavenging to actively seeking prey. The true hunter, he contends, must develop a sophisticated array of skills in pursuing meat - prey location, stealth, communication, and the tools able to kill and process. Once obtained, the distribution of the kill becomes an essential element in societal arrangement. He reviews many forms social structures have taken, from selfish monopolization of the kill to the hunter himself receiving but limited return for his effort. What the hunter does gain in all societies is respect and recognition of the group. For Stanford, this is but one indication of the diversity encountered in all primate societies, human and otherwise. The only universal is the hierarchical structure resulting from the hunting role. While hierarchy is the norm, dominance doesn't necessarily follow. In this study, Stanford examines the many social structures primates have developed. These range from nearly solitary, such as the orang-utan, to both male-male and male-female bonding strategies. These elements are essential to understanding the roots of human societal structures. As an example, in primate societies, in contrast to many other animals, it is the female who migrates from the natal group. Stanford doesn't follow this to suggest that dowries and bride-bargaining derive from this behavior, but the inference is clear. Indeed, part of the value of this book is his restriction to biological patterns. One need only accept that humans are included in the primate community. Stanford's book may raise some hackles, but it's far too important an idea to dismiss lightly. He's a skilled enough writer not to get bogged down in a pedantic rendition of the evidence or his conclusions. With the large number of works on the vagaries of human evolution appearing in recent years, finding worthwhile books can be a daunting task. Rest assured that The Hunting Apes is worth your attention and investment. Future research may modify it slightly, but is unlikely to supplant it.

Weak Hypothesis From Berkely Graduate.......2000-11-02

This book by Craig Stanford started to show some real information toward a hypothesis than lost all track. It lead to be a dull and redundant essay. It lacks logical sense in scientfic theory and has a biased theme. I would suggest another book most likely a book by Jane Goodall.

Great little book.......2000-02-15

I found Hunting Apes to be a superbly written summary of current debates in human evolution. Stanford makes a case for meat-sharing's supremacy that may or may not be true, but even if his theory were someday disproved, this book would stand as an excellent piece of readable science.

A Weak Little Book.......2000-01-16

This is not a work of fiction, so the reader's response should not be "Did I like it?" but "What did I learn?" The answer is, little. (I should qualify that by saying I have read quite a bit on this topic.) Stanford presents little that cannot be found elsewhere, more incisively. Every time you think he is going to say something, he shies off. In fact, I think there is only one sentence in the whole book: "While women may collect most hunter-gatherer protein, we should not ignore the fact that men are able to use meat for their own selfish and manipulative political ends." (p212) This is new?

I was taken aback by Stanford's approach. "This has yet to be shown. But the notion that a high-quality diet frees the metabolism of an evolving hominid to develop a larger and larger brain is extremely appealing because it would explain both the trend toward greater encephalization and toward more meat in the diet of the evolution of the human lineage (p50-51)." Appealing? (Also, I never knew that evolution had a diet.) "Surely bonobos and gorillas ought to make use of such a valuable resource whenever possible." (p95) Come on, you guys, get with it, what's the matter with you, why don't you eat hamburgers, like God intended us to? I wish Stanford would just come out and say, "Eating meat is good for you, because I was raised on an American diet with plenty of meat, and I know what I want to hear and what you want to hear. Therefore, I am going to prove that eating meat is good for you, and what's more, it's good for all of us. Dumb gorillas, don't know a valuable resource when they see one!" Stanford's method reminds me of the half joking advice to young scholars: "Put forth your hypothesis, examine all the evidence, and throw away everything that does not agree with your hypothesis." I was also aware that academics prefer not to give credit to Ardrey's African Genesis, which effectively kicked off evolutionary psychology. Nonetheless, I was surprised to read on page 182 that "In their search for evidence that modern people operate on a cognitive plane shaped by a long history of natural selection, evolutionary psychologists have erred in their level of analysis. There is no reason to consider the cognitive domains by which we respond to our social environment to be uniquely human." I thought that was the whole point of evolutionary psychology, that our congnitive domains are NOT uniquely human.

In short, if you wish to learn something, I suggest you read The Wisdom of the Bones by Walker and Shipman, Moral Animal by Wright, Lemur's Legacy by Russell, or any one of a large number of books that are more tightly reasoned than this one.

Well-written overview with intriguing hypothesis.......1999-12-22

I found this book very well written, easy to read and full of substantial information. This was a new topic for me, and I particularly found the contrasting information about hunting vs. scavenging was interesting. While the book is certainly about "hunting," it really isn't -- it's more about the politics behind meat, and about the move from being scavengers. Actually, the information about scavenging was most valuable.

The Omnivorous Ape: The First Complete Set of Rules to the Eating Game for Humans (Why Have Our Eating Habits Evolved?)

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The Omnivorous Ape: The First Complete Set of Rules to the Eating Game for Humans (Why Have Our Eating Habits Evolved?)

Manufacturer: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0191010847

Product Description

Everybody eats. And therefore everybody plays the Eating Game. Most of us play it like automatons. We get carried along by the team, making reflex movements in time with the others, but never understanding what it is all about. The aim of the game is to get food into the gut. It sounds simple, but our modern version is complicated by all sorts of innovations that make it hard to follow. That is where this book comes in. This is the first complete set of rules to the Eating Game. Here you will find a history of foods and feeding; a geography of feeders; an anthology of table manners and food taboos; an analysis of our oral orgins―and some answers to questions that have never even been asked. Things like: • Why are we happy to eat the same breakfast each day? • And yet outraged if the dinner menu does not change? • Why do we never eat blue foods? • How do you design a bad restaurant that makes a lot of money? • Why did Queen Victoria get so fat after Albert died? • What really makes supermarkets so successful? • Why are there topless waitresses but no topless usherettes? • What is oral rape? • Why do some people eat rotten eggs and wriggling baby mice? • And what prevents the rest of us from eating one another? But the Eating Game is more than just a guessing game. It is a new approach to the study of human behavior. A look at evolution as seen through man's mouth. I have deliberately isolated feeding from all other aspects of behaviro because it is the most fundamental. In captivity, even the wildest animal continues to eat, and it does so in almost exactly the same way as its less restricted relatives.

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This is the true story from Willie Stargell's mouth.

Willie Stargell: An Autobiography
Willie Stargell , and Tom Bird
Manufacturer: Harpercollins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Customer Reviews:

This is the true story from Willie Stargell's mouth........1999-11-01

Written just a year following his retirement from the Pittsburgh Pirates as a Hall of Fame player in 1982, this book caused quite a stir at the time of its first printing. Stargell gave honest criticism of teammate and fellow Bucco slugger Dave Parker on page 241 that Parker had "turned his back on me". Captain Willie was asked by Parker to stay around for a final season in '82 as a pinch-hitter/mentor, but was largely ignored by Parker. For Parker, who briefly considered taking uniform no. 8 in honor of Stargell when he departed as a free agent for Cincinnati in 1984, it was very biting criticism.

But those comments overshadow an otherwise good book. Stargell talks about growing up poor, being abducted by an aunt who could not have her own children from the ages of 6 to 12, the strength of his mother, and his high school team at Encinal High in Oakland, CA which featured two other future major leaguers in Tommy Harper and Curt Motten. He talks about feeling the sting of racism for the first time in the major leagues, once being told at gunpoint in Roswell, NM that he would be shot dead if he played in that evening's game. He speaks of his great love of the city of Pittsburgh and his teammates, who he dedicates the book to at the end, listing every, and I mean every, player he ever shared a Pirates roster with.

The perspective Stargell gives of the glory days in club history paints the warm feel of "The Family", perhaps the closest-knit team in baseball history. His recaps of the pennant race of 1978 and the Championship run of '79 will make you feel as if you are watching the games develop from the Pirates' dugout. You will relive the Bucs great years of the 1970's, when they finished in the first division of the NL East every year, winning six division titles and two World Championships.

Stargell also talks about losing not only his close friend Roberto Clemente during that time, but Bob Moose as well.

Willie Stargell was the leading home run hitter of the 1970's. The greatest living legend in Pirates history, no player in team history ever played on as many first place clubs in a Pittsburgh uniform. He was also one of the classiest men and great leaders in baseball history, and you will find that out for yourself when you read this fine book.

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Willie Stargell (Baseball Legends)
Mike Shannon
Manufacturer: Chelsea House Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding

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ASIN: 0791011925

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Willie Stargell: An Autobiography (SIGNED)
Willie; Bird, Tom Stargell
Manufacturer: Harper
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MBP994

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A shocking taste of baseball in the swinging early '70's.

Out of Left Field: Willie Stargell's Turning Point Season
B. Adelman , and S. Hall
Manufacturer: Xs Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 9998416191

Customer Reviews:

A shocking taste of baseball in the swinging early '70's........1999-11-01

Willie Stargell wrote of this book in his autobiography "Willie Stargell, An Autobiography"- "Adelman and Hall had approached me a few years before about writing the book. I entered the situation with an open heart and I got trounced on. Adelman and Hall traveled with the club for the majority of a season, gathering interviews and researching. What they produced was not the type of book I expected; it was filled with horror stories about the players and their personal lives. I feel fortunate that the publisher listened to my comments on the book.

That's why it's important to read the Author's Note on this book. It's almost like what would happen if you had Howard Stern write about a major league baseball team. "'Shocking' may be too mild an adjective for it" wrote the Pittsburgh Press when this book first hit the shelf.

And why not? Out of LF has great baseball subject matter. It was written in the season following the death of Roberto Clemente, and the feel of his absence is felt on every page of the book, as well as the standings for the '73 Bucs. The temporary demise of a great team, and Stargell doing everything he can to keep his slumping teammates in the pennant race until the very last day of the season. A managerial firing, the mysterious demise of a star player (Steve Blass) and the birth of a future star (Dave Parker).

But this book is not about on field action. It is about how rowdy, how spirited, how lecherous, and how profane a baseball team of the 1970's could be. The Pittsburgh Pirates of that era had the reputation of being the loosest and loudest of big league clubs, and this book only helps fuel the fire of that reputation.

Some of the most shocking stories of the book come from a five page diatribe from a baseball Annie named Gayle who makes Annie Savoy look like a nun. But when you see her picture; well, let's just say that if her stories are true there were a large number of major league baseball players who were slumming in 1973. Now, like any book of this nature, the reader must wonder how many of the stories are true, and how many are sensationalism or taken out of context. The Author's note at the beginning of the book also does little to establish credibility.

Still, like Ball Four before it, Out of LF shows that baseball players are human beings, and certainly not immune to temptation. And perhaps the highlight of the book is not the look in to a pivitol time in Pirates history, nor the shocking baseball stories. It is Dock Ellis' hilarious rant and theory that the Bible and Star Spangled Banner were written by the same person (p. 187)!

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