A crowdsourced almanac of charming baseball anecdotes.
Gray collects fans’ favorite memories of America’s pastime in this sports book, the second in a series.
There’s something about baseball that sticks in the memory: the smell of the concession stand, the crack of the bat, the electricity of a hometown crowd. It’s no wonder that those who love the game can recall, almost photographically, their favorite moments, even after the passage of decades. The author’s simple survey question—“what was your favorite game, or moment, relating to baseball?”—has elicited so many responses from fans that he has enough to fill a second volume. Collected here, the answers represent 370 respondents and reference almost every Major League Baseball team (including a few that no longer exist), along with quite a few minor league and college teams. Sam Schiff remembers seeing the very last game the Dodgers ever played for Brooklyn, including the final man ever to pitch for the Brooklyn iteration of the team: Sandy Koufax. Dave Rey remembers an entire crowd of traffic-delayed fans sprinting to AT&T Park so as not to miss Barry Bonds breaking Hank Aaron’s home run record. Evan Weiner remembers when the Houston Colt .45s, a new expansion team, pulled themselves out of their losing streak by hosting a “Voodoo Night” and hiring a local shaman to put a hex on the Philadelphia Phillies. Memories of classic rivalries, shattered records, and legendary (and forgotten) stars fill these pages, as do tales of friendship, family bonding, civic pride, and childish wonder. Gray lets the fans speak for themselves, which lends the book a wonderfully polyphonic style. The anecdotes read like well-practiced bar stories (which many of them no doubt are), like this humbling one from Steve Aaronson: “Moose Skowron and Mickey Mantle were in Skowron’s red convertible and, standing at the curb, I said…‘Oooh, Mr. Skowron, may I please have your autograph?’ He replied, ‘Get the hell out of here, you little pisspot.’ Mantle thought this was hilarious.” Baseball fans of every era will enjoy this collection of sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, always heartfelt memories.
A crowdsourced almanac of charming baseball anecdotes.Pub Date: July 13, 2022
ISBN: 9798885904650
Page Count: 406
Publisher: Palmetto Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
“Protect your passion,” writes an NBA star in this winning exploration of how we can succeed in life.
A future basketball Hall of Famer’s rosy outlook.
Curry is that rare athlete who looks like he gets joy from what he does. There’s no doubt that the Golden State Warriors point guard is a competitor—he’s led his team to four championships—but he plays the game with nonchalance and exuberance. That ease, he says, “only comes from discipline.” He practices hard enough—he’s altered the sport by mastering the three-point shot—so that he achieves a “kind of freedom.” In that “flow state,” he says, “I can let joy and creativity take over. I block out all distractions, even the person guarding me. He can wave his arms and call me every name in the book, but I just smile and wait as the solution to the problem—how to get the ball into the basket—presents itself.” Curry shares this approach to his craft in a stylish collection that mixes life lessons with sharp photographs and archival images. His dad, Dell, played in the NBA for 16 years, and Curry learned much from his father and mother: “My parents were extremely strict about me and my little brother Seth not going to my pops’s games on school nights.” Curry’s mother, Sonya, who founded the Montessori elementary school that Curry attended in North Carolina, emphasized the importance not just of learning but of playing. Her influence helped Curry and his wife, Ayesha, create a nonprofit foundation: Eat. Learn. Play. He writes that “making reading fun is the key to unlocking a kid’s ability to be successful in their academic journeys.” The book also has valuable pointers for ballers—and those hoping to hit the court. “Plant those arches—knees bent behind those 10 toes pointing at the hoop, hips squared with your shoulders—and draw your power up so you explode off the ground and rise into your shot.” Sounds easy, right?
“Protect your passion,” writes an NBA star in this winning exploration of how we can succeed in life.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9780593597293
Page Count: 432
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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