Book Review: Sadaharu Oh

Title: Sadaharu Oh

Author: Sadaharu Oh and David Falkner

Genre: Autobiographical

Ease of Reading: Small margins and what seems to be 11-point font initially made this 279 page book a little more intimidating to me than what it should have been. There's a four page glossary, eleven page appendix and two pages of stats at the end of the book. Plus, there's sixteen pages of pictures in the middle of the book. In total, that cuts it down to only about 246 pages about one of the greatest baseball players ever not to play in Major League Baseball. It took me only about five days to knock this book out, but I was reading large chunks at a time hoping to find some Zen-like tips to help me get through the new school year. LOL

Synapse: The book starts with Oh's early sandlot days and how he was recruited to play at the Waseda baseball school. His dad didn't want Oh to play baseball, but he finally relented and actually wound up supporting him and providing medical aid during a pivotal time in his young career. There was no draft in the Japan Central League, which I found to be very interesting, and Oh was signed by the Yomiuri Giants. He struggled mightily early in his career, especially considering the expectations the Giants placed on him from the onset. He found his way with his hitting instructor, Arakawa-san, and the two of them put in many long days and nights of baseball and martial arts before Sadaharu Oh finally was pressured into trying his famous one-legged "flamingo" hitting stance during a game. The new stance required immense balance, but it also helped rid Oh of a hitch in his swing which didn't allow him to reach his perceived potential. The rest of the book talks about his relationships with the press, his teammates, the fans, and his chasing Babe Ruth and then Hank Aaron.
  
Comments: I've always been intrigued by baseball leagues in foreign lands and the Nippon Professional Baseball League would be the biggest and most popular not directly tied with Major League Baseball. I was hoping to learn a lot more about Japanese baseball, but I was only able to glean some things here and there from the text about how things were back in the 1960s and 1970s. This book is an autobiography, not a history of Japanese baseball, so I guess I shouldn't be too disappointed. Nevertheless, it was a fun read and I learned much about the all-time home run king. For instance, here's an interesting paragraph from the book:

The press has told stories about how, when I had a bad year, I voluntarily went into the front office and asked for a pay cut! Well, not quite. I never asked to have my salary reduced. If I had a bad year, I took the attitude that I didn't deserve more for the following year, and I also took the position that I didn't want multiple-year contracts -- not for any selfless wish to deprive myself but because I believe that making things too comfortable takes away the challenge. And everything I do, including salary talks, has only one goal - to keep my mind focused on the challenge.

The "challenge" at first was becoming the best hitter he could be, but Arakawa-san set the goal from very early in Oh's career for him to top Babe Ruth's home run record. Eventually, Oh saw in himself what his mentor and hitting instructor did and the "challenge" soon changed to becoming the all-time home run king. Sadaharu Oh was a very driven man to say the least.
 
Grade: I genuinely enjoyed reading this book. It was a nice way to cap-off my summer and I'd like to thank my first cousin Mark for gifting me the book. I give this book an 'A-' overall, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys autobiographies or someone looking to learn more about Sadaharu Oh and his baseball career.

I'd be happy to pass my copy along if you're interested. Just let me know in the comments!

Book Review: Teammate

Title: Teammate 

Author: David Ross with Don Yeager 

Genre: Autobiographical

Ease of Reading: This was a really quick read for me. The print is fairly large, it's well written, I'm a fanboy of David Ross and the World Series Champion Cubs. The 242 pages really never stood a chance.

Synapse: The formatting of the book really kept things flowing. In chapter one the book starts with the morning before Game 7 of the World Series, but also in chapter one we learn about David's baseball path before he was drafted by the Dodgers. Periodically, journal entries from Ross' iPhone are introduced to chronicle the play of the 2017 Cubs throughout the season. As the chapters increase in number, the story lines of Game 7, David's career, and the Cubs 2017 season continue to move to a common culmination. I found it fascinating how there seemed to be a lot of give and take between the three different story lines and how easy it was to follow each of them as the pages turned.
 
Comments: I thoroughly enjoyed reading how David Ross blossomed into a clubhouse leader and truly embraced the role even though he was "just" a back-up catcher. I could sense his passion for winning, family, and his teammates and he detailed the peaks and valleys of attempting to balance all three without pulling any punches as an author. As a high school baseball coach I was looking for some characteristics which Ross really thought were important in being a good teammate and leader. Here's how I interpreted his words:
1. Work Ethic - Work hard and with pride. It's an easy way to gain respect.
2. Trust - Being a part of a team is as much about trusting in your teammates as anything else.
3. Make an effort to get to know everyone and what makes them tick.
4. Don't be afraid to call someone on the carpet when it needs to be done. This is probably the most difficult for many people. If you do the first three points though, then this last one is maybe a little easier for others around you to swallow.

Grade: I asked my sister to give this book to me as a birthday present when I first learned about. I waited a little while to get my hands on it, at no fault of my sister, but when I finally had a copy I pretty much devoured it. I haven't ripped through a book at that torrid of a pace in quite some time. Is it forevery baseball fan?  Probably not. It helps to be a Cub fan or be to be interested in being a better teammate, and it certainly helps to be both, like myself. Heck, if you're into baseball biographies and autobiographies then this one is for you, too. I may be a little biased, but I'm going to grade it out as 'A' material. It hit all my expectations and even brought occasional tear to my eye. Well done, Mr. Ross.

Book Review: Ahead of the Curve

Title: Ahead of the Curve: Inside the Baseball Revolution 
Author: Brian Kenny 
Genre: Nonfiction/Educational

Ease of Reading: I knocked out this 368 page book in a little over two weeks. Actually, it's closer to 310 pages once you ignore the glossary of sabermetric terms, the index, and references at the end of the book. The book is broken into quite a few chapters and each chapter is often broken into subsections, which makes the book very easy to pick and put down. I often found myself thinking, "Oh, I'll read just one more section." Sometimes one more section turned into entire chapters, but that may speak more to my interest in the material than the ease of reading. 

Synapse: Sabermetrics are finally taking the baseball world by storm. Kenny discusses the history behind statistics and their use in managing a baseball game or running a front office. He uses statistics to show why major league managers should never bunt a runner over to second base. He debates how baseball's year end awards are given out and specifically examines the 1941 MVP decision between Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio. One of the chapter looks at players who should be in the Hall of Fame and he makes a strong argument for Tim Raines, who was voted in a week ago. My favorite chapter has to with Kenny's idea of bullpenning, which is really similar to the way the usage of pitchers is managed in the All-Star game. 

Comments: I've been forcing my way through another book in my Kindle during the last seven months and it's been a really boring read so far. I'm very much a completest and I'm having trouble giving up on the book.
Enter my sister. She gave me Ahead of the Curve as a Christmas present and once I started it I kept thinking about it. As a baseball coach, I found some ideas I could potentially apply to my high school baseball team. As a fan of numbers and baseball, this book really captured my interest and challenged the way I think about the game I love.
I really enjoyed this book and it now has me thinking, "Life is too short to read boring books." Now I don't think I'll ever finish that other one.

Grade: Kenny's work earns an A+ from me, and I've already begun passing it around to some of my friends who either enjoy Kenny's work on the MLB Network or who think baseball with a numbers slant like myself. I'm also thinking about trying out bullpenning through an OOTP simulation. Good stuff!

Book Review: Bigger Than The Game

Title: Bigger Than The Game - Restitching a Major League Life 
Author: Dirk Hayhurst  
Genre: Autobiography

Ease of Reading: I knocked out this 305 page book in a little over five hours of airplane time on my recent trip to California. I've been sitting on this one for some time now, because I knew it would be a fun read.  I read Hayhurst's previous two books (The Bullpen Gospels & Out Of My League) and absolutely loved them.  I'm not a fan of flying and I was counting on the third installment of Hayhurst's series to keep my mind off of flying. I was not disappointed as the pages practically turned themselves.

Synapse: Reading Hayhurst's first two books leading up to this one isn't necessary, as he does a more than adequate job of filling in the blanks. The meat of the book focuses on Hayhurst rehabilitating his shoulder (and mind) in an attempt to make it back to the Big leagues. The reader is given an all exclusive pass inside a spring training complex, a major league training room, and Dr. James Andrew's physical rehabilitation center in Birmingham, Alabama. The relationships (good and bad) within the text are fascinating sub plots to follow and watch develop. My favorite is when he finally tells off another pitcher who has been undermining him during the last couple of seasons. 

Comments: This is probably my favorite of the three books I've read from Dirk Hayhurst.  Nothing will ever match the laughable stories from The Bullpen Gospels, but Bigger Than The Game didn't have to make me laugh out loud to be a winner with me. Being a former pitcher, and one who has gone through a couple of arm injuries, this one really hit close to home with me.  (Although stories about nuns in a training room full of male athletes doesn't hurt!)

Grade: Hayhurst has a great writing style in which he has the ability to take serious matters and put a light-hearted twist to them, yet he still finds away to award them their due gravity as well.  His books go deeper than the game of baseball as there are many life lessons to be learned.   Then one earns a solid A from me, and it will retain a nice place on my bookshelf for future re-readings.

Side note: Needless to say, I'm a big fan of Mr. Hayhurst and I really like his musings on Twitter.  Dirk Hayhurst, always the consummate self-promoter, was listing personally signed copies of his book with inscriptions on eBay. I asked my wife to buy this book for me that Mr. Hayhurst tweeted about last fall and she gave it to me for Christmas. Yeah, Laura is the best.

Thanks for the autograph, Dirk!

 Three drawings of the ever elusive Garfoose and a penned "Keep your chin up and your fastball down!"  How cool is that?

Book Review: The Game From Where I Stand

Title: The Game From Where I Stand   
Author: Doug Glanville   
Genre: Autobiography

Ease of Reading: I knocked this 257-pager out in less than a week.  It's a fairly quick read and although Glanville is a graduate of an Ivy League school I didn't find myself reaching for my dictionary.  I guess being a former baseball player writing about baseball to an audience of baseball fans this should be terribly shocking.

Synapse: More or less, I found Doug Glanville's book to be in the same vein as Dirk Hayhurst's offerings. Hayhurst writes with a little more flair, but Glanville's book was enlightening in its own right.  Doug Glanville is a former number one draft pick and the first such pick to be an African American graduate of an Ivy League school. Needless to say, he has plenty of material to talk about.  He speaks about locker room dynamics, relationships (inside the game and out), steroids, stalkers, Montreal as a party town, buying a car, respecting the game, breaking in as a rookie and exiting as a veteran.  I really enjoyed Glanville's insight, because often times we only see the player through the eyes of the press, but Glanville allows the reader to see the game and the lifestyle through the eyes of a of a major leaguer.  There are equal parts of funny anecdotes and somber life lessons sprinkled throughout the text.  The book definitely held my interest throughout.   

Comments:  I picked up this book for a number of reasons:
1. Glanville is a good Twitter follow
2. He's a former Cub who had a game winning hit in the 2003 playoffs
3. He's managed to turn himself into well-respected baseball analyst
4. and . . . Doug Glanville is in my Chicago Cubs binder!  Woo-Hoo!

Grade: Overall, I was not disappointed with the content selection within the chapters, but the text is broken up into topical chapters which I felt didn't allow his story to flow as smoothly as possibly. But it was still enjoyable overall.  If that's the only knock, then it's a pretty fine read and deserves a high mark.  Doug Glanville, I'm sure you're not concerned with my amateur grades, but rest assured you've earned an 'A' in my eyes.  Thank you for telling your story and sharing your insights of the game I love.

Minor league cards of Doug from the mid '90s.

Side note: I was hoping to do twelve book reviews this calendar year, but this is only the tenth and there's a high probability it may be the last.  You know how it goes... life happens.   No worries though. I see the upcoming break from book reviews as more of a hiatus than a complete abandonment, because I've rediscovered that I enjoy reading... albeit, it has to baseball related material!

Book Review: Mortal Stakes

Title: Mortal Stakes  

Author: Robert B. Parker
Genre: Fiction, Mystery

Ease of Reading: Three hundred twenty-eight pages of twelve point font that kept me wanting to read more.  It was tough to put this one down and read very fast.
Synapse: Spenser, a private investigator, has been hired by the Red Sox' front office to investigate the club's star pitcher who is suspected of throwing the occasional game.  The story takes place during the early 1970s and is more of a suspense thriller than a book about baseball.  I would like to divulge more information about the plot, but I don't want to ruin it for any future readers.  If I take the suspense out of it, then I'm stealing the book's main hook.  And I don't want to rob any potential readers of a fun few hundred pages.
Comments: From what I can tell Robert B. Parker has made a small fortune writing a series about a chiseled bachelor, named Spenser, and his sleuthing. The writing sometimes focuses on the minutiae of the characters' dress or eating habits a bit more than I would care for, Parker makes up for it with well-painted action scenes which I clearly see within my imagination.  ON a side note, I normally can't sit still for a suspenseful movie on my own couch, but for some reason I was much more comfortable reading a book of the same genre.  Go figure.
 Grade: I liked this one. This is two books in a row now that uses baseball as a subplot rather than the main vehicle and I'm okay with that.  Maybe my horizons are broadening a bit?  Any book that I have a difficult time putting down is worthy of an 'A' in my estimation, and Mortal Stakes certainly fits the description.

Book Review: One-Handed Catch

Title: One-Handed Catch  

Author: MJ Auch 
Genre: Fictional, Short Story

Ease of Reading: Another quick read, this one took me just a few sittings to knock out.  In all, it totals two hundred forty-six pages twelve-point font.
Synapse: Norm, the twelve year old son of a butcher, loses his hand in a meat grinder.  He struggles with how others will perceive him and he doesn't want attention drawn to himself and his disability.  He feels his mother is out to make things difficult for him, although she is just asking his teacher and coach to not give him a free pass.  His best friend thinks he should give up baseball and his dad, who is dealing with post-accident guilt, won't spend time him.  Norm, who wasn't the best baseball talent to begin with, listens to the radio and reads the newspaper in attempt to glean as many baseball related tips as possible to help improve his game.  As Norm begins to learn how to cope with the loss of his hand he finds he has a solid support network of people who are pushing him to succeed in different ways.  Before long he has learned to tie his own shoes again and is walloping the ball into the gap.
Comments: If I can't find a taker for this book I think I may donate it to one of the middle schools in my school district.  It's a good story about perseverance and relationships through the eyes of a pre-teen boy.  At the end of the book there's a brief segment about the author and I learned the storyline is based loosely upon the author's husband, who lost his hand in meat market.
On a side note, the cover and title are a bit misleading.  I figured the book would climax at the end with Norm making a fantastic one-handed catch.  Wrong.  His friend, Carl, accidentally makes a nice catch in centerfield and Norm pitches the game of his life.  Okay, I didn't see that one coming.
 Grade: Overall, I felt the book was a fairly quick read and it kept my interest.  It was a nice little tale, but I felt I was a bit older than the intended audience.  The twelve year old me gives it an 'A'.  Good subject matter, solid plot, nice life lessons to be learned. If you have a young baseball nut at home this one would probably be right up their alley.

Book Review: Senior Year

Title: Senior Year   
Author: Dan Shaughnessy  
Genre: Biographical, Short Story

Ease of Reading: This one took me a little over four hours to conquer.  In all, it totals two hundred twenty-five pages of fairly easy text to flip, much in the mold of Shaughnessy's writings for The Boston Globe.
Synapse:The book covers the twelve month period of the senior year of Dan Shaughnessy's son, Sam.  Throughout the book Dan reflects on his own high school experience and tries to relate his teen years to Sam's.  There are many parallels, but there are some major differences including Dan's lack of an athletic ability and Sam's recruitment to play baseball at the collegiate level. Generally, the book is about a father, a son, and high school baseball, but a few interesting tangents find their way woven into the text as well.
Comments: I think I'm going to pass this book on to the baseball coach at the high school I teach.  He has a son who will be entering eighth grade next year and you know how time flies.  Before long he'll be a senior as well.
I found this book at a used book store in the heart of Texas while on vacation and I almost knocked it out in one day of air travel. 
Grade: Overall, I felt the book was a fairly quick read and it kept my interest, but it was lacking a true climax.  The life of a high school senior is one big roller coaster, but I don't know that any of the given peaks are higher than any others: drinking, girls, grades, prom, and baseball.  Shaughnessy touches on all of the aforementioned, and he does it with style, but I didn't feel like any of them kept the pages turning for me. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the book, and I was glad I found it before jumping on my return trip home, but it was not 'A' material to this reader.  I think a solid 'B' is fair though.

Book Review: Mint Condition

Title: Mint Condition
Author: Dave Jamieson
Genre: History 
Ease of Reading: Two hundred forty-pages of text written for young and old card collectors alike. The author did a good job of breaking down the history of baseball cards in chapters, which kept the pace moving.
Synapse: The book does a wonderful job of sending the message of baseball cards were introduced as a gimmick to sell cigarettes and other products, but then became an item which could sell itself.  Along the way Jamieson unveils who the first big time card collectors in the hobby were.  The latter half of the book gets deep into licensing issues, the players' union, the junk wax era, slabbing cards, and doctoring cards. 
Comments: The history lesson Jamieson gives from the first half of the 1900s was very interesting and well written with a great amount of detail. I liked how Jamieson was more detailed with the early days of card collecting and didn't spend nearly as many pages on the hobby from the 90s to present.  I've lived those years and know the hobby pretty well.
Grade: I am baseball junkie.  I loved playing the game and I love watching it, talking about it, reading about it, and collecting cards.  Combine a couple of those things together and I'm a happy fanatic.  I'm always up for learning something new and this book delivered on that front a few times over.  I can easily identify myself within this book: a collector, not someone looking to make a buck.  Because Jamieson seems to favor the collector within his writing, at least that's how I'm interpreting his body of work, I'm giving this book a slightly biased grade of an 'A-'.  Why not an 'A' or 'A+'?  Well, because Jamieson somehow omits the blogopshere.  If he only knew what he's missing.  Even so, I think most of the participants in the baseball card blogosphere would find this book a fun read.

Side note: I would like to thank Paul, from Wrigley Wax, for sending me his extra copy.  No worries Paul, I'll pay it forward!

Book Review: Calico Joe

Title: Calico Joe
Author: John Grisham
Genre: Historical Fiction
Ease of Reading: This book was supposed to get me from Peoria, IL, with one short layover, to Waco, TX and back. One hundred ninety-four pages, when it's reading at less than a page per minute barely got me to Texas.  I had to pick up a used book for the return trip. Ha!
Synapse: It's 1973 and Joe Castle is raking in AA when Jim Hickman, the first baseman for the Chicago Cubs, and the AAA first baseman are both hit with injuries.  Castle hits three homers in his first game and takes the Major Leagues by storm for the better part of two months, until he runs into Warren Tracey. The story is told through the eyes of Tracey's son, Paul, who knows his father intentionally through the fastball which derailed what could have been a hall of fame career.  Fast forward a few decades and Warren has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and still contends the ball just slipped from his hand.  Knowing Warren doesn't have much time left Paul reaches out to his estranged father to see if things can be set things right between Warren and his boyhood hero, Calico Joe.
Comments: Grishman did his homework, took a few liberties, and then had Don Kessinger proofread his book before going any further. I absolutely love that!  Grisham created a wonderful character in Joe Castle and placed him in the mecca of Major League Baseball and a media storm.  The kid from Calico had it all.  The book read fast amd was entertaining, but it also had a few solemn moments and a couple of somber ones as well. Overall, it was a great piece about everyone's favorite subject: life.
Grade: Another piece of historical fiction tackled by one of the best writers of today.  The book took me about three hours to finish cover to cover and I wished there was more.  This short novel earns a well-deserved 'A' in my opinion.  My only wish is that John Grisham wrote more sports centered books.


I'd be happy to pass this one to anyone who is interested.  Just let me know!

Book Review: Blockade Billy

  Title: Blockade Billy
Author: Stephen King   
Genre: Historical Fiction, Short Story  Ease of Reading: I was reading a longer book when I recently left for vacation, but I took this one along as a back-up in case I finished. I should have brought a back-up for my back-up!  Eighty pages in all, which could probably be knocked out in an hour if you're a fast reader. 
Synapse:The Titans needed a starting catcher after they lost their top two backstops right before they headed north from spring training.  Enter William Blakely.  Blakely takes the league by storm and earns the nickname "Blockade Billy" because of how he blocks the plate so effectively.  There seems to be more to Billy than there appears and that's when you realize this is a short story written by Stephen King.  <Insert ominous music.>
Comments:  This is a nice little piece in which King demonstrates his baseball knowledge.  After pushing through my last book, it was a welcome to have a quick and easy read.
Grade: I don't know how I would feel if I paid the $14.99 MSRP, rather than the sale price of $4.98.  It's a quick book for sure, but I like value and feeling as though I got my monies worth is important to me.  On a separate note, I labeled this one as historical fiction because King mixes in quite a few other baseball names that I have come to know: Ted Williams, Bill Skowron, and Nellie Fox.  I'll give this one an 'A' based on price and entertainment value.  If anyone's interested I'd be happy to dump this one into a media mail envelope for you.  

Book Review: The Summer of Beer & Whiskey

Four months into 2014 and I've finished three books. I was hoping to do a book a month, but three in the first four isn't bad.  Here's the latest!

Title: The Summer of Beer & Whiskey
Author: Edward Achorn
Genre: Nonfiction
Ease of Reading: 268 pages of 12pt font, few pictures, narrow margins, lots of words... moves a little slow
Synapse: The book is less about beer and whiskey and more about the American Association season of 1883.  Baseball at the time was losing the attention span of America as it recently been overtaken by gambling and was view upon as dirty.  The National League, in attempt to clean up the game, raised the ticket prices to keep the riff-raff out and also banned the playing of league games on Sunday.  You know, because people should go to church instead of taking in a baseball game.  The American Association took some of the crooked players and some of the banned teams and started a league which thrived upon three key things: 1) admission prices were a fraction of the National League's, 2) baseball on Sundays, and 3) alcohol sales to help boost revenue.  Next thing you know, the NL has competition and baseball is revived in the eye's of the public with a great Pennant Race between the St. Louis Browns and the Philadelphia Athletics.
Comments:  I've read many baseball books, but this was the first nonfiction piece where I had to learn an entirely new set of players (save the brief mention of Old Hoss Radbourn, Charles Comiskey, and Connie Mack).  It took me a while to get into book because of this fact, but I was happy I stuck with it.  I learned much about America in the 1880's and what it was like being a major league baseball player during those times.  The book is chocked full of fantastic characters and anecdotes.  On a side note: As a Cubs fan, it was a little tough getting over the fact the Summer of Beer and Whiskey focuses a great deal on owner Chris on der Ahe and the birth of the St. Louis Browns (Cardinals).  Even still, it's amusing to think a German immigrant with a thick accent and no knowledge of baseball practically saved the game!
Grade: The title is a little deceiving as there wasn't too much focus on beer and whiskey, but instead it is a thoroughly researched book about professional baseball during one of its most tumultuous times.  It sometimes came across as a little dry, but it would quickly rebound with a fun little story or it would teach me something new about how baseball became the game it is today.  Did you know that it once took eight balls to earn a walk?  Here's another one: in 1883 pitchers couldn't throw overhand, but the most dominate pitchers of the time pushed the rule as far as they could (side arm slot or 3/4 slot when the umpire would allow it). 
Overall, I'll give it a solid "B" for a grade.  Not in my Top 10 baseball books, but definitely worth the read.

I'd like to thank my Aunt Chris and Uncle Ken for giving me the book for Christmas last year.  And thanks to you, the reader, for stopping by!

Book Review: Last Days of Summer

Two months into 2014 and I've finished two books.  Here's the latest!

Title: Last Days of Summer
Author: Steve Kluger
Genre: fiction
Ease of Reading: 358 pages of 12pt font, written in epistolary format... moves quickly
Synapse: Kluger's former agent wanted him to junk this effort, because: "Men's fiction doesn't sell well."  "Boys' fiction doesn't sell well."  "Coming-of-age doesn't sell."  "World War II doesn't sell."  ... and my favorite of the lot... "Baseball doesn't sell." Kluger found a new agent and not only did it sell, but it became a staple in high schools.  I wouldn't call this a baseball book, but more of a coming-of-age book that includes baseball, World War II themes, and pop culture from the 1940's.  No worries though baseball fans, the first two-thirds of the book is a heavy dose of the game we love.
Comments:  I've never read a book in epistolary format before.  The author used everything from newspaper articles to school report cards psych evaluations to tell his tale and it worked wonderfully.  The book flowed easily and it was a fun page turner.  I would readily suggest this one to any baseball fan or even to a history/war buff.
Grade: I'll give it an A+.  I've read more than my share of books in the past.  (Heck, I was even an English Literature minor in college.)  Yet, I think I can count on one hand the number of novels that made me laugh and cry.  Yes.  I said, "cry."  I couldn't help it.  1. I'm a softie.  2. It was well written and had tremendous character development.  After reading a couple hundred pages I felt like I knew the characters of the book better than I know my own math students.  I laughed and cried right along with the two main protagonists.  Nice job, Mr. Kruger.

 My wife has dibs on this one.  She says, "This will be the first book we talk about in our book club."  Huh.  She already is a member of a book club that meets monthly.  Oh well, I could do much worse than marrying a fine lady who wants to talk about baseball books with me!

Stay tuned for other book reviews in the future.  My personal goal is to finish a book each month this year

Book Review: The Batboy

One of my personal goals for this year is to read more.  I think I finished one book last year, which was an all-time low and something I'm not very proud of.  Perhaps I spent too much time reading about baseball cards around the blogosphere?  Nahhhh, that can't be it.

Well, seven days in to the new year and I already have finished a book. I've decided to start a new irregular feature on the blog: book reviews!  Baseball fans, you'll be pleased to know that my reading list is chocked full of bound anecdotal stories, biographies, nonfiction, and fiction stories centered around the great national pastime. 

Title: The Batboy
Author: Mike Lupica
Genre: fiction
Ease of Reading: 246 pages of 12pt font, double-spaced... moves quickly
Synapse: The book follows a fourteen year-old's summer baseball season and his job as batboy for the Detroit Tigers. Relationships are the focus behind this easy read as Lupica follows the protagonist and how he interacts with his mother, estranged father, and most importantly, Hank Bishop.  Once known as the "Bishop of Baseball", Hank has returned to the Tigers to help bolster Detroit's lineup for a pennant run.  Nevermind that Hank is on the backside of his career and is trying to put two PED suspensions behind him.
Comments:  I'm always up for a baseball story with a Disney-esque ending.  Lupica knows his baseball and some of the funniest parts of the story occur on the "inside" of Comerica Field.  I like that the author tackles the hard hitting PED slant, evening mentioning names like McGwire and Bonds, and I never felt as though it was the dominating element of the book.  This is the perfect book to knock out in a couple of sittings while you're getting from Point A to Point B.
Grade: I'll give it an A.  I like an easy read, one that is baseball accurate, and has some funny moments.  The only reason I didn't go with the A+ is because I felt it ended too early. There's a twelve page preview of another of Lupica's books at the end, which had me thinking I had an entire chapter to go...  but alas, I was done.  Bummer.

If anyone would like to borrow the book I'd be happy to ship it off through media mail. In a way, I'm sorry I didn't save this one for my next airplane trip. 

Stay tuned for other book reviews in the future, which will more than likely coincide with the breaks in my teaching schedule.