Wait Till Next Year: Summer Afternoons with My Father and Baseball

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Overview

Set in the suburbs of New York in the 1950s, Wait Till Next Year is Doris Kearns Goodwin's touching memoir of growing up in love with her family and baseball. She re-creates the postwar era, when the corner store was a place to share stories and neighborhoods were equally divided between Dodger, Giant, and Yankee fans.

We meet the people who most influenced Goodwin's early life: her mother, who taught her the joy of books but whose debilitating illness left her housebound: and her father, who taught her the joy of baseball and to root for the Dodgers of Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, and Gil Hodges. Most important, Goodwin describes with eloquence how the Dodgers' leaving Brooklyn in 1957, and the death of her mother soon after, marked both the end of an era and, for her, the end of childhood.

An endearing memoir of a young girl growing up loving her father and baseball.

Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble

The Barnes & Noble Review
Doris Kearns Goodwin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the bestsellers No Ordinary Time — Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II and The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An American Saga, tells her own story of growing up an avid baseball fan in the 1950s in Wait Till Next Year: A Memoir. Goodwin, a lifelong fan of baseball who was featured in Ken Burns's acclaimed PBS series on the sport, celebrates one of the most glorious periods of the sport. At the same time, she remembers the people who have most influenced her life: her father, who gave her not only a love of baseball but the confidence to pursue her dreams, and her mother, a chronically ill woman through whom she came to worship books.

Wait Till Next Year takes place in a suburb of New York City in an eight-year period during which one of the three New York teams — the Dodgers, the Giants, and the Yankees — competed in the World Series every year. For Goodwin there would never be a better time to be a Brooklyn Dodgers fan, with Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, and Gil Hodges in the lineup. With equal parts tenderness and realism, Goodwin also evokes the seemingly tranquil world of the 1950s. It was a time when owning a single-family home was the realization of a cherished dream, when everyone knew everyone else on the block, when the corner stores provided most everything that a family needed, and when the great festivals of the Catholic Church provided drama, reassurance, and continuity. However, this decade was alsoatime touched by the chill of the cold war, the stifling effects of sexism, and the ugliness of racial prejudice.

A coming-of-age story that reveals the early shaping of the mind and sensibility of one of our most distinguished writers, Wait Till Next Year is a love letter to a golden age of sports and a personal chronicle of a rapidly changing society.

As the tenured radicals attempt to rewrite our nation's history, the warm, witty, eloquent personal testimony of someone of Doris Kearns Goodwin's stature is well worth reading.
—Maggie Gallagher

More Reviews (12) Fewer Reviews

Ann Hulbert

For self-esteem-building role models, for baseball lore, and inning-by-inning action, and for a lively trip into the recent American past, you can hardly do better. -- New York Times Book Review

Boston Globe

A fine writer's conscious mastery of her difficult craft.

Chicago Sun-Times

Absolutely endearing....A book you will pass on to your best friend with a "You've just got to read this."

Jim Abbott

In an era when memoirs are often characterized by salacious confessions...Doris Kearns Goodwin restores a refreshing element of innocence to the genre....Such stability rarely exists anymore, in baseball or in life. Wait Till Next Year is a chance to savor it again. -- The Orlando Sentinel

Jodi Daynard

Lively, tender, and....hilarious....[Goodwin's] memoir is uplifting evidence that the American dream still exists -- not so much in the content of the dream as in the tireless, daunting dreaming. -- The Boston Globe

Peter Delacorte

A poignant memoir...marvelous...Goodwin shifts gracefully between a child's recollection and an adult's overview. -- San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

Tom Cooper

Readable as history, as a baseball story, or simply as the tale of a remarkable girl destined to become a remarkable woman, Wait Till Next Year is everything a literary memoir should be. -- St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Publishers Weekly

This memoir by the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian (No Ordinary Time) is a moving ode to her father and to their shared love of baseball. The word "recollections" in the subtitle rather than "reflections," say, is an apt designation of the book's content, which is charming and endearing, though does not allow access into the author's inner life. The baseball games of Goodwin's New York City youth are dramatically and beautifully narratedit is refreshing to read about a girl's passion for the sport; her childhood love of the game and the three teams that played in the city in the 1950s is evident in every paragraph. But when Goodwin focuses on herself and her family apart from baseballher mother was chronically ill and dies in the final pages of the bookshe seems content to skim the surface of the story, with emotion held too deeply in check for what ought to have been the book's climax. Yet in the pages giving her childhood perspective on such things as race and the Army-McCarthy hearings, we behold the deep roots of this historian's success in her art.

Library Journal

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author on how baseball brought her close to her father.

The Boston Globe

A fine writer's conscious mastery of her difficult craft.

Kirkus Reviews

Pulitzer Prizewinning historian Goodwin turns her gaze inward, looking back on a childhood enlivened by books and baseball. In many ways Goodwin had a typical '50s girlhood. She grew up on suburban Long Island at a time when many families were relocating to such communities. Her father worked, her mother was a homemaker. Perhaps the biggest difference between Goodwin and other girls growing up in this era was her deep and abiding enthusiasm for baseball. When she was six, she recalls, her father gave her a score book and taught her how to use it, a gift that 'opened [her] heart to baseball.' Retelling games for her father's benefit after he came home from work was her 'first lesson . . . in narrative art.' One can easily see how recreating these games from the score book taught her to harness her imagination to quotidian details to re-create history. If baseball bonded her more deeply to her father, books served the same purpose in her relationship with her mother, a sickly woman with severe angina and numerous other problems. Goodwin also offers a child's-eye view of the Cold War, from the lunacy of bomb shelters and 'duck and cover' drills to a particularly disturbing memory of reenacting the McCarthy hearings with other neighborhood children. Gradually we see her neighborhood unraveling under economic pressures, the Dodgers and Giants moving to the West Coast, and finally, her mother dying of an apparent heart attack at 51. Regrettably, Goodwin recounts all this in unimaginative prose, offering surprisingly few original insights into either baseball or the sociopolitical currents of the time. Except for the final chapter about her mother's death and her father's subsequent depressionand drinking problems, the book falls far short of her compelling historical narratives.

From Barnes & Noble

The Pulitzer Prize-winner reminisces about growing up in an idyllic suburban neighborhood in Long Island in the 1950s during the "golden age" of baseball, when the islanders pledged undying love and loyalty to the Dodgers, Giants, and Yankees. Out of something as small as a scorebook, Goodwin re-creates the tranquility baseball brought to the lives of relatives, friends, and neighbors terrifiedby McCarthyism, polio, A-bomb drills, and racial prejudice. B&W photos.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780684847955
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication date: 6/2/1998
Pages: 272
Sales rank: 81,825
Product dimensions: 5.50 (w) x 8.40 (h) x 0.80 (d)

Meet the Author

Doris Kearns Goodwin won the Pulitzer Prize in history for No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II, which was a bestseller in hardcover and trade paper. She is also the author of the bestsellers Wait Till Next Year, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, and Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream. She is a news analyst for NBC and lectures widely. She lives in Concord, Massachusetts, with her husband, Richard Goodwin.

Read an Excerpt

From Chapter One

When I was six, my father gave me a bright red scorebook that opened my heart to the game of baseball. After dinner on long summer nights, he would sit beside me in our small enclosed porch to hear my account of that day's Brooklyn Dodger game. Night after night he taught me the odd collection of symbols, numbers, and letters that enable a baseball lover to record every action of the game. Our score sheets had blank boxes in which we could draw our own slanted lines in the form of a diamond as we followed players around the bases. Wherever the baserunner's progress stopped, the line stopped. He instructed me to fill in the unused boxes at the end of each inning with an elaborate checkerboard design which made it absolutely clear who had been the last to bat and who would lead off the next inning. By the time I had mastered the art of scorekeeping, a lasting bond had been forged among my father, baseball, and me.

All through the summer of 1949, my first summer as a fan, I spent my afternoons sitting cross-legged before the squat Philco radio which stood as a permanent fixture on our porch in Rockville Centre, on the South Shore of Long Island, New York. With my scorebook spread before me, I attended Dodger games through the courtly voice of Dodger announcer Red Barber. As he announced the lineup, I carefully printed each player's name in a column on the left side of my sheet. Then, using the standard system my father had taught me, which assigned a number to each position in the field, starting with a "1" for the pitcher and ending with a "9" for the right fielder, I recorded every play. I found it difficult at times to sit still. As the Dodgers came to bat, I would walk around the room, talking to the players as if they were standing in front of me. At critical junctures, I tried to make a bargain, whispering and cajoling while Pee Wee Reese or Duke Snider stepped into the batter's box. "Please, please, get a hit. If you get a hit now, I'll make my bed every day for a week." Sometimes, when the score was close and the opposing team at bat with men on base, I was too agitated to listen. Asking my mother to keep notes, I left the house for a walk around the block, hoping that when I returned the enemy threat would be over, and once again we'd be up at bat. Mostly, however, I stayed at my post, diligently recording each inning so that, when my father returned from his job as bank examiner for the State of New York, I could re-create for him the game he had missed.

When my father came home from the city, he would change from his three-piece suit into long pants and a short-sleeved sport shirt, and come downstairs for the ritual Manhattan cocktail with my mother. Then my parents would summon me for dinner from my play on the street outside our house. All through dinner I had to restrain myself from telling him about the day's game, waiting for the special time to come when we would sit together on the couch, my scorebook on my lap.

"Well, did anything interesting happen today?" he would begin. And even before the daily question was completed I had eagerly launched into my narrative of every play, and almost every pitch, of that afternoon's contest. It never crossed my mind to wonder if, at the close of a day's work, he might find my lengthy account the least bit tedious. For there was mastery as well as pleasure in our nightly ritual. Through my knowledge, I commanded my father's undivided attention, the sign of his love. It would instill in me an early awareness of the power of narrative, which would introduce a lifetime of storytelling, fueled by the naive confidence that others would find me as entertaining as my father did.

Michael Francis Aloysius Kearns, my father, was a short man who appeared much larger on account of his erect bearing, broad chest, and thick neck. He had a ruddy Irish complexion, and his green eyes flashed with humor and vitality. When he smiled his entire face was transformed, radiating enthusiasm and friendliness. He called me "Bubbles," a pet name he had chosen, he told me, because I seemed to enjoy so many things. Anxious to confirm his description, I refused to let my enthusiasm wane, even when I grew tired or grumpy. Thus excitement about things became a habit, a part of my personality, and the expectation that I should enjoy new experiences often engendered the enjoyment itself.

These nightly recountings of the Dodgers' progress provided my first lessons in the narrative art. From the scorebook, with its tight squares of neatly arranged symbols, I could unfold the tale of an entire game and tell a story that seemed to last almost as long as the game itself. At first, I was unable to resist the temptation to skip ahead to an important play in later innings. At times, I grew so excited about a Dodger victory that I blurted out the final score before I had hardly begun. But as I became more experienced in my storytelling, I learned to build a dramatic story with a beginning, middle, and end. Slowly, I learned that if I could recount the game, one batter at a time, inning by inning, without divulging the outcome, I could keep the suspense and my father's interest alive until the very last pitch. Sometimes I pretended that I was the great Red Barber himself, allowing my voice to swell when reporting a home run, quieting to a whisper when the action grew tense, injecting tidbits about the players into my reports. At critical moments, I would jump from the couch to illustrate a ball that turned foul at the last moment or a dropped fly that was scored as an error.

"How many hits did Roy Campanella get?" my dad would ask. Tracing my finger across the horizontal line that represented Campanella's at bats that day, I would count. "One, two, three. Three hits, a single, a double, and another single." "How many strikeouts for Don Newcombe?" It was easy. I would count the Ks. "One, two . . . eight. He had eight strikeouts." Then he'd ask me more subtle questions about different plays — whether a strikeout was called or swinging, whether the double play was around the horn, whether the single that won the game was hit to left or right. If I had scored carefully, using the elaborate system he had taught me, I would know the answers. My father pointed to the second inning, where Jackie Robinson had hit a single and then stolen second. There was excitement in his voice. "See, it's all here. While Robinson was dancing off second, he rattled the pitcher so badly that the next two guys walked to load the bases. That's the impact Robinson makes, game after game. Isn't he something?" His smile at such moments inspired me to take my responsibility seriously.

Sometimes, a particular play would trigger in my father a memory of a similar situation in a game when he was young, and he would tell me stories about the Dodgers when he was a boy growing up in Brooklyn. His vivid tales featured strange heroes such as Casey Stengel, Zack Wheat, and Jimmy Johnston. Though it was hard at first to imagine that the Casey Stengel I knew, the manager of the Yankees, with his colorful language and hilarious antics, was the same man as the Dodger outfielder who hit an inside-the-park home run at the first game ever played at Ebbets Field, my father so skillfully stitched together the past and the present that I felt as if I were living in different time zones. If I closed my eyes, I imagined I was at Ebbets Field in the 1920s for that celebrated game when Dodger right fielder Babe Herman hit a double with the bases loaded, and through a series of mishaps on the base paths, three Dodgers ended up at third base at the same time. And I was sitting by my father's side, five years before I was born, when the lights were turned on for the first time at Ebbets Field, the crowd gasping and then cheering as the summer night was transformed into startling day.

Interviews & Essays

On Friday, October 10th, barnesandnoble.com welcomed Doris Kearns Goodwin to discuss WAIT TILL NEXT YEAR.

Moderator: Welcome to the barnesandnoble.com Live Events Auditorium. It's not every day that we get to chat with a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. This evening, barnesandnoble.com is pleased to welcome Doris Kearns Goodwin, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for NO ORDINARY TIME, who is online to discuss her impressive body of work and her recently released memoir, WAIT TILL NEXT YEAR. Good evening, Ms. Goodwin. We're glad you could be here tonight!

Doris Kearns Goodwin: I'm delighted to be here. Thank you.

Carla from home: What is the significance of the title WAIT TILL NEXT YEAR?

Doris Kearns Goodwin: It was for years the anthem of the Brooklyn Dodgers, when time after time they would win the pennant and then lose the World Series to the New York Yankees. So it became a symbol of the hope that next year would bring better fortune. But in my personal life, it also held a special meaning as the promise of the healing that time would bring after my mother died.

Marcus Allen from Ann Arbor, MI: What were some of the major differences between writing a book about a historical figure -- like FDR and LBJ -- and writing a book about your own life?

Doris Kearns Goodwin: I tried to narrow the differences a little bit so that I would feel comfortable by doing as much research as I could, even on my own short life, from 6 til 15. But even so, it is different to use "I" and write in a personal voice in contrast to telling the story from the voice of the historian. There's also the worry that one's own memory can be faulty or inadequate, and that is why I tried to interview so many of the kids I grew up with, to shore up my memory and enhance my recollections.

Ravo123 from Flanders, NJ: I am a 12-year-old boy and remember you from TV. I wondered, Was it hard to be on the Ken Burns baseball documentary?

Doris Kearns Goodwin: No, it was actually a lot of fun. Ken Burns is such a warm and friendly interviewer that he makes it very easy to tell stories and to feel relaxed.

Craig from New York: How did you get involved in the Ken Burns project on baseball?

Doris Kearns Goodwin: He knew that I had written several articles on the Red Sox spring-training camps and that I was an irrational baseball fan. And I think he needed a female face to go along with all the male faces on his documentary. As it turned out, it seemed that almost everything I told him appeared on the air, including stories of old boyfriends that I had dropped because they didn't like baseball -- but I presume they weren't watching a documentary on baseball 30 years later.

Gene Sofie from Washougal, WA: Would you do a biography of a Brooklyn Dodger player?

Doris Kearns Goodwin: There is a very good book just recently published on Jackie Robinson, but if that book had not been in the works, I would have loved to do a biography on Robinson, both as a player and as a force in the civil rights movement.

Lars from San Francisco: Hello, Ms. Goodwin. It's an honor to speak with you. Why did you decide to center your memoir around the golden age of New York baseball? And why was this age so golden?

Doris Kearns Goodwin: After the Ken Burns documentary was on the air, it seemed that everywhere I went, people wanted to talk to me about their own memories of baseball when they were young. I realized that the emotion in their voices meant that they were really remembering their own families and relatives who might no longer be alive. So I decided to write about my own memories of growing up in the '50s in New York, when three teams captured the attention of almost everybody living there. The rivalry among those three teams is what made the '50s considered the golden age of New York baseball.

Bill from AOL: Hi, Doris! This question has to be asked! Who are you rooting for during this World Series? Thanks for taking my question!

Doris Kearns Goodwin: Since I am now a Red Sox fan, my loyalties go to the American League, and I feel somewhat torn between Cleveland and Baltimore, but hope that for the fans in Cleveland, they get a World Series.

Rory from Florida: Hey, Doris, I have two questions for you: 1) I am planning to write a book of commentaries very soon (I am already in the eighth grade and figured that December would be the perfect time to start). When I start writing this book, should I think of what commentaries I want to write? Do some research? What should I do? 2) How do you overcome writer's block?

Doris Kearns Goodwin: 1) First of all, it's terrific that you have such desires when you are in the eighth grade and wanting to write is one of the most important spurs to action. I would recommend that you figure out some subject that really captures your heart and interest first and then, if necessary, do the research and interviews needed to flesh out the commentaries. But the main advice is to simply write and write and write, because writing, like any other craft, depends upon practice and exercise. 2) Sometimes when there is a real block it means that you are not thinking right about what you want to write. It isn't that the words don't want to come out but that you are probably confused, so when that happens, I often just take a walk or go on an errand and try to clear my head. Or else try to pick up the chapter and the story in a different place and come back later to the part that is blocked. It's often especially hard to start something, and the first paragraph can take hours, so sometimes I just skip ahead to the middle of the story and then go backward.

Mike from New Jersey: On a different note, what is your reaction to the existence of tape recordings by President Johnson?

Doris Kearns Goodwin: In some ways I think the tapes capture Lyndon Johnson's personality better than any other form could, because he was such a great talker and could change his argument to fit the person he was talking to. So you really get a sense of his political skill through the tapes. I had known the tapes existed when I helped him on his memoirs, but at the time he did not want to release them. It was only after his death that Lady Bird decided to make them public.

Bobby from Bowie, MD: How do you feel about the Dodgers' being sold ? It was run by a family, and now it's part of the Fox empire!

Doris Kearns Goodwin: I mean, the first huge disappointment was when Mr. O'Malley Sr. took the Dodgers away from Brooklyn to L.A., but at least the team stayed in the hands of the O'Malley family for nearly 50 years. And it was evidently a very classy operation. Something is always lost when a family business is sold to a distant corporate owner.

Seth from Denver: While you were working on NO ORDINARY TIME, did you ever dream about FDR and Eleanor? Thanks for taking my question.

Doris Kearns Goodwin: Yes. The truth is that they become so much a part of your thoughts when you work on a book for six years as I did, that on several occasions I found myself dreaming of either Franklin or Eleanor or both. At times like that, I began to think that maybe I was going a little crazy and the project was going on too long, but now I am working on Abraham Lincoln and suspect he will enter my dreams in the years ahead.

Douglas Regan from Altoona, PA: What do you think about everything that's happening now with the Johnson White House tapes? Since you were so close to him, were you surprised at what was revealed -- especially about the JFK assassination and about our involvement in Vietnam?

Doris Kearns Goodwin: Johnson had talked to me earlier about his doubts as to whether Oswald was the lone assassin, but he said that, at the time, he thought it was critical for the nation to move forward after Kennedy's death, and therefore he publicly supported the Warren Commission Report.

Gene Sofie from Washougal, WA: When you are writing your presidential biographies, what source materials do you favor (letters, diaries)?

Doris Kearns Goodwin: My favorite materials when they are available are indeed letters and diaries, because they often reveal the emotions of the writer as well as descriptions of people and events. It will be much harder in the years ahead for historians to capture the emotional lives of the people living now, who do not tend to write letters to one another anywhere near as often.

Thomas Nichols from Austin, TX: While researching WAIT TILL NEXT YEAR, was there a memory that you had forgotten but someone reminded you of? Which one?

Doris Kearns Goodwin: Yes, there were actually quite a few memories that must have been somewhere in my head but needed to be pulled out through conversations with other people. For instance, the game that we children played after the McCarthy hearings on television -- a terrible game, as it turned out -- was vividly remembered by one of my friends, and then I, too, could recall it in detail at that point.

Mary from Houston: Have any of your own children inherited your passion for baseball?

Doris Kearns Goodwin: Yes. All of my sons have become involved with baseball, but my youngest, who is a sophomore at Harvard, is the most passionate of all. I'm afraid that he, like me, will live and die with the Red Sox.

Lisa from Massachusetts: If you could talk with one famous person in history, who would it be? Why?

Doris Kearns Goodwin: Well, I think at this moment I would probably choose Abraham Lincoln, because I just started a biography on him, and there are a thousand questions I would love to ask him about how he managed to keep his dignity and serenity through the worst days of the Civil War and how he was able to give such deep meaning to that war through the power of his language.

John from Southbury, CT: Your book is a blast from the past for us boomers. Bought it after your appearance on Imus. Robinson moved to Stamford when I was growing up, and yes, I believe you should write his bio as a historian.

Doris Kearns Goodwin: I'm delighted to hear your reaction, because my real hope in writing the book was to provoke memories and feelings in other people who experienced some of the same situations and incidents growing up. I will remember the phrase "blast from the past."

Walter Raab from Victoria, TX: Please give us your thoughts on winning the Pulitzer Prize. Thank you!

Doris Kearns Goodwin: There's probably nothing for a writer that compares with a sense of pride that comes with winning the Pulitzer Prize. The funniest moment came when I got a call that morning from a friend who had also won the Pulitzer Prize, a decade before, and he said, "Now at least you know the first line of your obituary."

Gene Sofie from Washougal, WA: It seems that every public person's private life is fair game for the news media. With this in mind, do you believe Franklin Roosevelt could have governed as effectively if he was the current president?

Doris Kearns Goodwin: That's a great question. In the old days, the private lives of our public figures were relevant only to the extent that they had an impact on their public leadership. And the media respected that line. If Roosevelt were president today and the media focused on the unconventional relationships that he had in the White House, which were essential for him to relax and replenish his energies during the war, it might have made it harder for him to sustain those private relationships and thus harder for him to govern as effectively as he did. Somehow we have to find a better balance between the kind of reporting about our public leaders and our curiosity about their private lives.

Michael from Philadelphia: Where do you get your inspirations from? Where do you get your ideas to write your books?

Doris Kearns Goodwin: Each one came from a somewhat different place. The idea to write about Lyndon Johnson grew from the experience of working with him in the White House, whereas the idea for the book on the Kennedys came from my husband's close relationship with the Kennedy family as a result of his having worked on the White House staff with John Kennedy. My desire to write about Roosevelt grew from a fascination with World War II and with the partnership between Franklin and Eleanor.

Joanie Arleth from Eugene, OR: Hi, Doris! Have you read Don DeLillo's new book yet, UNDERWORLD? I ask only because it begins with the "shot heard around the world" during the 1951 World Series. Do you talk about that moment in WAIT TILL NEXT YEAR? You must have been devastated when Thomson hit that ball. Why did they ever decide to go with Ralph Branca?

Doris Kearns Goodwin: You are obviously a soul mate. I have thought for years about why they brought Branca in at that fateful moment. It was the worst moment in my life as a fan, and yes, it does play an important role in my memoir. I have not yet read DeLillo's book, but my husband has, so I do know that it does start with Bobby Thomson's home run, and I'm anxious to read it.

Moderator: Ms. Goodwin, it was a pleasure for us to have you here in the Auditorium tonight. We hope you'll join us again in the future! Goodnight!

Doris Kearns Goodwin: Thank you. I'd be delighted to come back. Goodnight to you all.

Reading Group Guide

Reading Group Discussion Points

Like millions of Americans, Doris was caught up in the glory days of baseball in the 1950s, exhilarated by the Dodgers' victories, and pained by each and every loss. Individual players became her heroes, as well-loved and respected as family and friends. How important is it for people — particularly children — to have such heroes to look up to? How can we feel such a strong kinship to people we have never met? Are sports figures the best role models? What lessons can athletes teach us about life?
Doris's parents each pass on their own special gifts to their daughter. Through baseball, Mr. Kearns teaches Doris the importance of telling a story slowly, building the drama to a powerful crescendo. Through reading, Mrs. Kearns demonstrates the beauty of a well-chosen word, and how a good book can take you away to places you might otherwise never go. Discuss how these gifts complement one another and how they came together to make Doris the historian and wordsmith she is today.
In the 1950s, most fathers did not take their little girls to baseball games. How did you respond to the female point of view in this book? Did you see Doris as the son her father never had? Or was she an extension of his sister, Marguerite? What does Mr. Kearns' relationship with Doris provide that he missed during his tragic childhood?
Although her childhood was marked by the untimely death of her mother, Doris paints a near-perfect picture of life in the suburbs. How does time affect our memories? Is it natural to "revise" our own personal history? Are we destined to recall the best times of our lives as rosier than they actually were?
Idolizing her team as only a child can, Doris was fortunate enough to have her childhood coincide with baseball's most glorious heyday. Discuss the sport's changing role in the American landscape through the second half of the 20th Century. Does regional team loyalty still mean the same thing in today's "global village," or has the technology that has made our country seem smaller altered the notion of the "home team?" What does baseball offer that other sports cannot? Is it still our true national pastime?
One of the most pleasant aspects of reading a well-written memoir is that it often helps you recall dim memories of your own. Did Wait Till Next Year spark any forgotten memories from your childhood? Did it remind you of special moments you shared with your parents, of family traditions that you enjoyed? Did this book inspire you to write down any of your own history to share with family members in years to come?
Doris says that her "early years were happily governed by the dual calendars of the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Catholic Church." In fact, Doris's careful calculations of baseball scores and batting averages charmingly mirror the manner in which she tallies up her nightly prayers. Discuss the mingled roles of baseball and religion in Doris's childhood. Was baseball a kind of secular worship for her? How are these different institutions similar to one another? What does each offer that the other does not?
Prior to television, Doris listens to baseball games on the radio, relying on her imagination for visual images to accompany the announcer's play-by-play. This changed when the Kearnses bought their first television set and Doris was able to watch the games in the comfort of her own home. How did the addition of television change the face of baseball for Doris and other fans? How did it add to her enjoyment of the game? What did it take away?
When Doris's sister, Jeanne, is selected co-captain of the "Blue Team" in a girls' athletic competition, Doris is able to witness first-hand the unification that results from competition. Jeanne serves as a role model for Doris, teaching her that sportsmanship and competition are not limited to the world of men. But these types of events for women were rare in the 1950s. What does this say about the culture of that time? Discuss the importance of women's sports and how our society's views on women's athletics have changed. Have they changed enough? What do women miss when they are discouraged from participating in sports?
The landscape of Doris's childhood remains intact through the first decade of her life, leaving her with a misguided notion that her world will never change. But by the time Doris reaches adolescence, everything that had seemed so permanent slowly begins to slip away. Longtime neighbors move, the Dodgers and the Giants leave New York, and, most important, Doris's mother passes away. How does Doris react to these changes? Has the strong foundation her loving parents provided during her early years prepared her for these sudden changes?
An important rite of passage for all children is the moment that they first see their parents as real people, not the all-knowing figures they appear to be when we are very young. Childhood is never the same after you see a parent in a moment of weakness. How does Mrs. Kearns' illness force Doris to grow up more quickly? How does it affect her childhood, her relationships with her parents? Can you recall the events that made you realize that your parents were, just like you, infallible and human?
In many ways, the Kearnses are a traditional, nuclear family of the 1950s, with the father playing the role of a breadwinner and the mother keeping house. Yet, in many ways the Kearnses are quite progressive, teaching their daughters to reach as high as they can to fulfill their dreams. How is Doris different from the other girls on her block? Does her independence and faith in her abilities have its roots in her love of baseball?
Doris pays tribute to many of her female teachers in junior high and high school. Many of these women rose to the top of their field during World War II — and then refused to "go back home" when the war was over. Did you have any teachers who stand out in your mind as particularly inspiring? Share your own recollections of an important educator who encouraged you to be your best.
Doris stands out as a child not only for her ability to realize when she is observing history-in-the-making, but for her ability to see herself as part of it. Is this the result of her early love of reading, where she actually inserted herself into the action of the stories she read? How does baseball play a role?
One of the most memorable scenes in Wait Till Next Year is when Doris and her young friends imitate the McCarthy hearings which have captivated the nation. What begins as fun and games ironically have the same result as the real hearings, driving neighborhood kids apart and provoking mean-spirited attacks. Discuss other important life lessons Doris learns through current events, such as the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement, the trial and execution of the Rosenbergs, the escalation of tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. How does her interest in these events prepare her for her role as an historian?

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Anonymous

Posted January 8, 2012

Absolutely 5 stars!!

I actually recently purchased this book for a gift. I have my own copy, but love this one so much that I like to share it. If you love baseball and you were a kid --- this book will be one of your favorites, too.
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BooksonBaseball

Posted August 31, 2010

Great Team, Great Writer, Great Book!

I have seen Presedential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin appear many times on TV political talk shows. I have also heard her speak on several occasions about her love for the Brooklyn Dodgers. You can imagine mydelight when I came across a copy of her 1997 book Wait Till Next Year: A Memoir at a used book sale. A favorite topic of mine--The Brooklyn Dodgers-- by a favorite writer. This memoir recounts Doris' childhood in the 40s and 50s in Brooklyn and later in Rockville Center, NY.

Goodwin uses the season-to-season rhythms of baseball to create the arch of her formative years. She uses this baseball canvass to weave several distinct plot lines, involving family, community, catholicism, and world events. The book is about baseball, but baseball is not its central theme, far from it.

Doris has nothing but wonderful memories of her parents; each somewhat flawed, her mother dying at the age of 51 and being sick for most of Doris¡¯ early life. Her father had experienced the death of two siblings and both parents, the last from suicide as a boy and was shipped off to a foster home. Neither parents' situation seemed to negatively impact Doris' relationship with her parents. On the contrary, it helped broaden her appreciation of her parents; an unusual trait for a youngster.

Doris grew up the youngest of three sisters by a number of years which thrust her into adult-type conversations. This experience gave her the traits of inquisitiveness and precociousness. This familial experience also seemed to have left her with an indomitably positive person¨Ca trait which comes across throughout her book.

Even during the apparent idyllic time of the 50s, many unsettling historical events took place, the polio epidemic, McCarthyism, Little Rock School integration, and nuclear air raid drills being among them.

Doris writes about both the Dodgers and the Giants leaving New York city for the West Coast and uses that incident to talk about how the old neighborhood had changed as well, many families moved out to further their careers and status in life as well as the demise of the corner drug store and local butcher shop--both closed down. It seems the end of her childhood perfectly coincided with this dramatic move of two of NYC's homegrown treasures and the disappearance of her beloved neighborhood.

Wait contains many wonderful stories from her childhood.

--How she and best friend Elaine shared a blanket during the Summer with dueling radios, Doris¡¯ with Red Barber announcing for the Dodgers while Elaine's radio was tuned to Mel Allen broadcasting for the arch enemies, the Yankees.

--Doris had a running friendly rivalry with a local butcher shop who owners were rabid fans of the Giants. After Bobby Thomson's historic home run in 1951, Doris couldn¡¯t get herself to visit the butcher shop until they sent her a bouquet of flowers.

--How Doris was nervous during her first Catholic confession because she had to admit to the Priest that she wished ill of the opposing teams' players.
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Anonymous

Posted August 29, 2009

Don't wait till next year.

Don't put off reading a truly delightful, moving, and entertaining book. Doris Kearns Goodwin brings back memories of childhood that makes me think she lived my childhood, except I was a Yankees fan. This is laugh out loud funny, covering A-bombs, fall out shelters, family and friends, and baseball, Brooklyn Dodger baseball. You don't have to be a baseball fan to love this one.
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Anonymous

Posted June 30, 2005

Daddy and the Dodgers

Daddy and the Dodgers - what a combination, especially in the all-too-capable hands of Doris Kearns Goodwin. What differentiates this book most from others in the genre is the way in which we also see the emergence of the historian, and the ways in which her upbringing brought out her gift in the area. Wonderful book, not at all sappy.
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Anonymous

Posted December 31, 2002

A wonderful memoir

Wait Till Next Year is a touching and humorous memoir of life as both a Dodger fan and a young girl in the 1950s. I'm not a huge fan of baseball, but Goodwin's enthusiasm for the game is compelling. I especially love her touching tales of Robinson, Reese, and Labine.
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Anonymous

Posted August 27, 2002

Awesome Book

'Wait Till Next Year' was my required summer reading book. I'm not intrested in reading, but once I began the book I couldn't put it down. Being a teenage girl and loving baseball, I could relate SOOO much to the book. This would be a great book for those die hard baseball fans!!
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Anonymous

Posted July 26, 2001

Autobiographical Perfection...

There is simply something magical about this extremely touching and wonderfully readable memoir by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Poignant, entertaining, insightful and informative, this is a refreshing retrospective look into our country in the 1950's and the world of a young girl...a world primarily comprised - as she sees it - of those seemingly endless 'Summer Afternoons with [Her] Father and Baseball.' For those of us born into the 'great' technological boom which has effectively engulfed (and I might also argue smothered) American pop 'culture,' the profoundly simple life which Ms. Goodwin depicts in her autobiography is one that I find really fascinating. I also found enormous historical value among Ms. Goodwin's anecdotal recollections; her story is not confined to her personal life and the family and friends who played a part in it. Her memories and perceptions of historical and societal happenings of her day are abundant throughout the memoir. The reader is presented with McCarthyism, for example, through the eyes of a ten year old, and the great Commuter Train crash of 1950 related by a little girl who believed her father might have been in it. These are invaluable historical accounts, offering us wonderfully original and exciting perspectives. And then, of course, there is the phenonemon from which the book gets its title: the Brooklyn Dodgers not quite ever winning the World Series... In 'Wait Till Next Year, ' Ms. Goodwin offers us an enchanting glimpse back into and era that can only be labelled as golden. Historically comprehensive, extremely enjoyable, and a charming piece of Americana, this memoir ranks near the top of my all-time favorite reads. **I would also like to add a brief note regarding the book's author, Doris Kearns Goodwin. Having read her work and seen her speak in person, I find her to be someone worthy of every American's utmost respect and admiration. She is most definitely a woman of extremely impressive intelligence and capability - as well as inherent dignity - and we are very fortunate to have her accomplishments documented in her books, from which we can all learn so much.**
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Anonymous

Posted April 19, 2001

A MUST READ

Wait Till Next Year was one of the best pieces of non fiction writing I have ever read. Even though I personally love baseball, you don't have to be a baseball fan to enjoy this book. It is a book that many will be able to relate to about growing up. A must read.
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Anonymous

Posted October 15, 2000

A WONDERFUL book!!

What a WONDERFUL read!!! I absolutely LOVED this book. Ms. Goodwin tells a wonderful story of her childhood in Brooklyn during the 50's. The initial plot line is about the Brooklyn Dodgers, Goodwin's favorite team, as she roots for the hero's of her time. Though, this book is about so much more: her families relationship, her friends, growing up, and most of all change. What a wonderful description of suburban New York during a wonderful time in history.
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Anonymous

Posted April 28, 2000

Heartwarming story....I couldn't put it down.

Since purchasing this book early this year I have purchased three more to give as gifts. Kearns is a wonderful storyteller. The story brings back memories of my childhood and Kearns made me feel as though I were reliving it!
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Absolutely 5 stars!!

Great Team, Great Writer, Great Book!

Don't wait till next year.

Daddy and the Dodgers

A wonderful memoir

Awesome Book

Autobiographical Perfection...

A MUST READ

A WONDERFUL book!!

Heartwarming story....I couldn't put it down.