A great baseball coach, manager, and father offers what may pass for wise tips on traversing the base paths of baseball and life. Sports Illustrated editor Burke should have done more designated hitting for Ripken Sr., who spews worn-out truisms with the ease of tobacco juice from the dugout steps. Ripken has been an exemplary minor-league manager, a fair major-league one, an outstanding coach for the Baltimore Orioles, and a Hall of Fame father. Two of his sons played for him in the Birds” infield, Billy and the legendary but now past-his-prime Cal Jr., who broke Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games played. Unfortunately, someone decided to extend this baseball booklet into a tract about general wisdom, and Sr.’s greatest strength, parenting, does not bat cleanup. Of baseball as a bonding agent between the generations, for example, he can only say, “When Cal was young, he—d ride along in the car with me to the ballpark.” Jr.’s streak, a total of 2,632 games dating back to May 1982, figures prominently here, and Sr. insists that Jr. wasn—t penciled into the lineup card during its last seasons for the gimmick. For the most part, however, he dishes out tired advice about the importance of practice, versatility, confidence, adjustments, and competitiveness. There are too many pages in this skimpy book, two-thirds of them filled with clichÇd graphics and large-type pull quotes repeating points from the hackneyed text—much like the overdone instant replays on new stadium scoreboards. Ripken gets more interesting when he expresses opinions. These include: real ballplayers don—t go to college; the DH is good but inter- league play isn—t; a woman will break into the majors; and nobody will break The Streak. There are a few worthwhile moments, but most of this compendium of Oriole wisdom is for the birds.
Pub Date: May 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-671-02775-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1999
In a frustrating parallel to the national pastime's recent history, Panek's exhaustive look at the Class A Diamonds' 1992 season spends more time in meeting rooms than in the locker room or on the field. The business of minor league baseball is the focus here; the game itself becomes incidental. The Midwest League affiliate of the San Diego Padres, the Waterloo (Iowa) Diamonds were owned by 15 area residents. Municipal Stadium was owned by the city and needed a half-million-dollar renovation to meet the minimum requirements of the 1990 Professional Baseball Agreement with the major leagues. The city wouldn't budge, despite the club's estimate that baseball pumped $2.5 million annually into the city's economy. All of the fundraisers and promotions dreamed up by general manager David Simpson and his assistants scarcely covered the team's $300,000 annual operating budget. Valued at about $1 million, the team was threatening to sell itself to outsiders. Against that unstable background, manager Keith Champion tried to motivate young players to play good baseball, in spite of often primitive living conditions and inadequate facilities. As Panek astutely observes, ``Champ'' had a dual responsibility: to win, but also to develop players for his real bosses, the San Diego Padres. He took his orders from the big-league club regarding who to play where, how many pitches a pitcher was allowed to throw, and so on. PEN awardwinning fiction writer Panek is at his best in this nonfiction debut when portraying the players' youthful and often crude behavior on and off the field, whether hooting at a young woman in a halter top or playing tic-tac-toe with their spikes in the outfield grass. His looks at the hopes and dreams of individual players are his most effective passages. Well written, but too much behind-the-scenes and background stuff and not enough baseball.
Pub Date: July 9, 1995
ISBN: 0-312-13209-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1995
A slim, mildly inspirational book suggesting that you have to risk getting lost in order to find yourself.
A memoir about living in the wilderness, withstanding the elements, seeing no one, and doing almost nothing but running.
Swedish author Torgeby was always an indifferent student beset by anxiety and itching to get outside. “I don’t understand why I should be stuck inside doing something I don’t want to do,” he writes of that boyhood. “I don’t bother with my homework and always have the lowest marks in my class in every test. I just want to run.” His life got worse when his mother was diagnosed with a serious illness and he undertook her care. Though he had begun running competitively early on, he was always better in training than he was in a race, for reasons his coach said were all in his head. When he was 20, he left his home and family to live in the woods and run. Though he would interrupt this seclusion for a six-month training sojourn in Tanzania, he ended up spending four winters battling the elements, running daily, and taking odd jobs in the countryside when his money ran low. A journalist wrote some articles about him, but he wondered why people were interested. Some readers may be tempted to agree with him, as he doesn’t come across as particularly perceptive or reflective. Yet the articles sparked the attention of a documentary filmmaker, toward whom his subject was also ambivalent, not wanting the bother of attention but enjoying a bit of celebrity (the book was a bestseller in Sweden). Other runners found inspiration in his story, and he made his re-entry into civilization, with a wife, a family, and a message about how little you need to live life to the fullest. You don’t need expensive shoes or special socks or any consumer trappings. “You only need to put on your shoes and get going,” he writes. “Let the blood circulate. Then everything becomes much clearer.”
A slim, mildly inspirational book suggesting that you have to risk getting lost in order to find yourself.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4729-5497-8
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Bloomsbury Sport
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
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