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
Prince (History/New York Univ.) turns both an academic's and a fan's eye on the great love of his youth, the Brooklyn Dodgers. What is it about Dem Bums? Perhaps no other sports team has inspired such love, bordering on obsession, in its fans. No other team has inspired such lasting feelings of loss and betrayal by its departure from a community. Prince should be well equipped to answer the question of why this is so. He grew up in Brooklyn a diehard Dodger fan, the son of two diehard Dodger fans. This book, essentially nine interconnecting essays, treats the Dodger phenomenon from a variety of historical perspectives, touching the now familiar bases of current scholarship: race, class, gender, and ethnicity. In a racially, ethnically, and religiously balkanized borough, Prince claims, the Dodgers ``inject a generally soothing common ground.'' The team was also, he argues, ``the most overtly political sports team of the postwar decade,'' a judgment engendered not just by the presence of Jackie Robinson and its repercussions, but by the rabid anticommunism of the borough, a political stance in which the team willingly participated, with red-baiting Branch Rickey in the lead. At the same time, the Dodgers seemed an equally willing embodiment of the American ``melting pot'' in a town riven with ethnic tensions. Prince is a witty observer, and there are some interesting insights here, but too much of the book has a second-hand feel, and the author repeats himself from essay to essay. Any one of the essays in this book could be profitably expanded into a book of its own; as they stand here, they are just too slight. A slender volume that other diehard Dodger fans will undoubtedly want to own. If you rooted for anyone else during the '50s, skip it.
Pub Date: April 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-19-509927-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
A former ranked junior player, Berry (Tough Draw: The Path to Tennis Glory, 1992) again brings his expertise to bear on the pro tennis circuit. What are the components necessary to build a tennis champion? How old should a player be before turning pro? Does college tennis help or hinder when you get onto the professional tour? When is it time to quit? These questions, particularly the first, are the themes of Berry's follow-up to his acclaimed Tough Draw. The focus of this volume is on three players: Jonathan Stark, a 23-year-old with a monster serve; Ania Bleszynski, a 17-year-old junior player with a taste for science; and Stefan Edberg, a former number one who, at 28, is struggling to stay in the top ten. Topspin follows them from the 1993 US Open through the aftermath of the '94 Open. Stark will move up the rankings ladder as far as 36, only to slip back to 67 by the end of the year. Bleszynski is that rarity, a young female player who is interested in schoolwork; she will eventually accept a full scholarship to Stanford. Only Edberg's story has an inevitable ending; he falls out of the top 15 in the men's rankings, no longer able to beat the very top players in the world or, occasionally, even players of the next caliber. Along the way, Berry meets and chats with numerous tennis legends, as well as coaches, parents, and other tennis journalists, seeking the answers to his key questions. Berry's unique combination of an ex-player's perspective blended with the literary intelligence of a former Fulbright professor makes him an unusually perceptive observer of the sport, even for the hard-core fan. But his insight into the mind of young players, combined with his considerable interviewing skills and charm, will draw in the more casual tennis fan as well.
Pub Date: May 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-8050-3543-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1996
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