It will shed light to fans in a new way.
Jacob Kornhauser has written a wonderful book about one of my favorite topics: baseball players who get one day, one game in the big leagues. It made me think of my favorite movie, Field of Dreams. Enjoy.
Kornhauser details the journeys of 11 players who made the majors for a single game. Some never made it back due to injury; for others, it was lack of talent. Circumstances often drive the shortness of a career: perhaps the role a team envisioned for a player is usurped when someone playing the same position develops more quickly. Or maybe the front-office staff who believed in a player's potential was fired en masse. The rigors of minor-league life--two steps up the hierarchy, then one back--also drive players to abandon the dream and get on with life. Kornhauser examines all of these situations in his moving profiles of these 11 one-game wonders. This is one of the very best baseball books in years. Readers will put faces and names to what they knew on a subliminal level: major-league baseball is really, really hard, and a lot of fine young players get left behind.
No matter the backstory or the ending, there's a certain magic around a ballplayer whose entire career comes down to one appearance in a big-league game, a lifetime lived in the span of just a couple hours. In this book, Jacob Kornhauser has given each of those one-game wonders a chance to have his full story told--and there's magic in that too.
The book is a fascinating concept. . . . Kornhauser has done his homework here, and then some. His sketches are illuminating, profound, and heartbreaking. You'll love each and every one of them, but for very different reasons. You'll just have to take a break here and there to recover before reaching the end.
The title is inspired, and its human interest stories are well told. For all of us who think "Damn Yankees" is for us--we who would sell our souls to the devil in exchange for one big league season--no, one at bat--this book rings true.
It will shed light to fans in a new way.
When an athlete says his goal is to play in the Big Leagues one day they don’t really mean it. What they’d really like to do is play a lot of days. Season after season of days, truth be told. But for some that “one day” is all they’ll get it. And the stories Jacob Kornhauser tells of each player’s “day” are as entertaining and compelling as those of any superstar. Rich and intriguing and worthy of that rare and richly deserved moment in the Majors. Individually it’s a collection of days. Sewn together it’s Cooperstown.
The book is a fascinating concept.. .. Kornhauser has done his homework here, and then some. His sketches are illuminating, profound, and heartbreaking. You'll love each and every one of them, but for very different reasons. You'll just have to take a break here and there to recover before reaching the end.
NINE: A Journal of Baseball History & Culture
The title is inspired, and its human interest stories are well told. For all of us who think “Damn Yankees” is for us—we who would sell our souls to the devil in exchange for one big league season—no, one at bat—this book rings true.
Kornhauser details the journeys of 11 players who made the majors for a single game. Some never made it back due to injury; for others, it was lack of talent. Circumstances often drive the shortness of a career: perhaps the role a team envisioned for a player is usurped when someone playing the same position develops more quickly. Or maybe the front-office staff who believed in a player’s potential was fired en masse. The rigors of minor-league life—two steps up the hierarchy, then one back—also drive players to abandon the dream and get on with life. Kornhauser examines all of these situations in his moving profiles of these 11 one-game wonders. This is one of the very best baseball books in years. Readers will put faces and names to what they knew on a subliminal level: major-league baseball is really, really hard, and a lot of fine young players get left behind.
Jacob Kornhauser has written a wonderful book about one of my favorite topics: baseball players who get one day, one game in the big leagues. It made me think of my favorite movie, Field of Dreams. Enjoy.
No matter the backstory or the ending, there’s a certain magic around a ballplayer whose entire career comes down to one appearance in a big-league game, a lifetime lived in the span of just a couple hours. In this book, Jacob Kornhauser has given each of those one-game wonders a chance to have his full story told—and there’s magic in that too.
