An impressively reported, smoothly written book that nonetheless feels airy in its content.
Cook (The Dad Report: Fathers, Sons, and Baseball Families, 2017 etc.) chronicles the 1947 World Series between the New York Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers, approaching this narrow slice of sports history from an unusual angle.
That year’s Series resonates with the author for a few reasons: the quality of play in the two New York City ballparks, the historic nature of Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers becoming the first African-American to participate in the event, and the fact that it was the first televised Series. The overriding narrative line, however, involves the unexpectedly significant roles of four under-the-radar baseball players—Al Gionfriddo and Cookie Lavagetto for the Dodgers and Bill Bevens and Snuffy Stirnweiss for the Yankees—as well as the controversial managers for each team, Burt Shotton for the Dodgers (filling in for the suspended, better-known Leo Durocher) and Bucky Harris for the Yankees. Cook traces the lives of all six men before 1947 and then illuminates their roles during the Series. “The six of them played key roles in a World Series that Joe DiMaggio called ‘the most exciting ever.’ ” In the third portion of the book, the author explains how his brief interval in the spotlight affected each man until his death. To be sure, all of his subjects led interesting lives in one way or another, but how they reached the Major Leagues and what happened to each after 1947 may only appeal to die-hard fans of baseball history. As a result, Cook’s unusual approach might limit the audience. The narrative works best when the author narrates the drama of the seven-game series, which the Yankees won. For readers unfamiliar with the Robinson saga, the compact account might provide a gateway to further reading.
An impressively reported, smoothly written book that nonetheless feels airy in its content.Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-250-11656-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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