Helpful Score: 1
ISBN 0061625108 - Baseball books always get bumped to the top of my to-be-read pile, regardless of the era, the team, or the author. Baseball, in fact, is the top of every list I have and it is the reason I check the weather constantly - one way or another, every day from late winter through autumn, there's a baseball game I need to see. So even Alyssa Milano, who's a wee bit suspect by virtue of her Hollywood-ness, moves to the top of the pile! Milano redeemed herself in my eyes, as far the Hollywood-ness goes.
In between relating short baseball stories, most of them well-known and many of them covered in depth in other books, Milano tells the story of her love affair with baseball. Beginning with her childhood in Brooklyn and her father's lifelong heartbreak over the departure of the Dodgers for Los Angeles, the author explains how baseball became a huge part of her life and a thread that ties her to her roots, her father, his father... Any true baseball fan sees superstitions everywhere and doesn't believe in coincidences, so it is poetic that the Milanos should end up in L.A., rooting for the Dodgers. Alyssa bleeds Dodger-blue, certainly, but she makes clear that her love of the game is more than an affection for one team - it's a love of the game, period.
Hardcore baseball fans aren't going to be impressed, in my opinion. The book is a tad on the cutsie side for me. The story here is more personal than baseball and reminds me - in a girly sort of way - of ISBN 0553375644 Final Rounds: A Father, A Son, The Golf Journey Of A Lifetime, although far less heartbreaking. I think men (in general) will be more impressed with Milano's baseball knowledge than women will be because men are more likely to open the book thinking "hey, a chick who likes baseball!" as if that was a novelty; women are more likely to recognize themselves and already know that chicks like baseball. And women are far more likely to be suspicious of the baseball book by the woman who sells a clothing line promoted by the MLB - and promoted a bit in this book, too. Still a fun, quick read, nice for the beach but I'd save it for December, when baseball seems like it's a hundred years away, if I had it to do again.
- AnnaLovesBooks
In between relating short baseball stories, most of them well-known and many of them covered in depth in other books, Milano tells the story of her love affair with baseball. Beginning with her childhood in Brooklyn and her father's lifelong heartbreak over the departure of the Dodgers for Los Angeles, the author explains how baseball became a huge part of her life and a thread that ties her to her roots, her father, his father... Any true baseball fan sees superstitions everywhere and doesn't believe in coincidences, so it is poetic that the Milanos should end up in L.A., rooting for the Dodgers. Alyssa bleeds Dodger-blue, certainly, but she makes clear that her love of the game is more than an affection for one team - it's a love of the game, period.
Hardcore baseball fans aren't going to be impressed, in my opinion. The book is a tad on the cutsie side for me. The story here is more personal than baseball and reminds me - in a girly sort of way - of ISBN 0553375644 Final Rounds: A Father, A Son, The Golf Journey Of A Lifetime, although far less heartbreaking. I think men (in general) will be more impressed with Milano's baseball knowledge than women will be because men are more likely to open the book thinking "hey, a chick who likes baseball!" as if that was a novelty; women are more likely to recognize themselves and already know that chicks like baseball. And women are far more likely to be suspicious of the baseball book by the woman who sells a clothing line promoted by the MLB - and promoted a bit in this book, too. Still a fun, quick read, nice for the beach but I'd save it for December, when baseball seems like it's a hundred years away, if I had it to do again.
- AnnaLovesBooks
