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What's Carla Reading?
“Wait Till Next Year,” by Doris Kearns Goodwin (1997) As a Chicago Cubs fan, how can one resist a book with the title, “Wait Till Next Year”? I couldn’t. It was a nice way to really put this tragic Cubs’ baseball season to rest. I’ve had this on my shelf for a few months, borrowed from my mother, who is an especially inspiring baseball enthusiast. She is six stadiums away from attending a game in every National and American League ballpark. Can you believe it? Anyway, back to the book. “Wait Till Next Year” is written by Doris Kearns Goodwin, a Pulitzer prize winner for her book “No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II.” She also wrote the bestsellers, “The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys” and “Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream.” “Wait Till Next Year” is a memoir and came as a result of Ken Burns wanting to include a “passionate female fan” in his documentary on baseball a few years ago. Burns picked Goodwin. She writes in the preface that “the reaction was startling. Almost everywhere, as I traveled the lecture circuit, I encountered people less anxious to hear my talks of Lyndon Johnson, the Kennedys, or the Roosevelts than they were to share memories of those wondrous days when baseball almost ruled the world.” The result was “a story of my own coming of age as a Brooklyn Dodger fan, a story that would be peopled not by leaders of the nation, but by Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Gil Hodges, Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, Sandy Amoros, and the infamous Bobby Thompson.” Goodwin does just this in “Wait Till Next Year.” And what a story! Thousands of folks probably have similar tales of growing up in the late ’40s and ’50s, but surely there can’t be many – especially women – who have a childhood so intertwined with a professional baseball team. At minimum, I would say Goodwin has a memory like an elephant and a great ability to make connections with her childhood friends and neighbors. Her qualities as a good writer make every story she tells radiate with life, as if her childhood was happening in my own living room as I was reading her story. I can’t tell you all the wonderful experiences Goodwin tells of growing up on Southward Avenue in Rockville Centre, just outside Brooklyn, New York. But she doesn’t miss a beat. I will tell you that Goodwin started her life as a baseball fan at the age of six. This is when her father gave her a “bright red scorebook” and taught her how to keep score for the games being broadcast over the radio. As she writes, “By the time I had mastered the art of scorekeeping, a lasting bond had been forged among my father, baseball, and me.” Thus, “Wait Till Next Year” becomes a childhood story about baseball that borders on obsessive, and a father/daughter relationship that goes beyond heartwarming. The combination is transfixing. Goodwin keeps score for every summer afternoon game and then gives her father a play-by-play account – including the batting averages she had figured – in the living room each evening. She did this for years. And she kept every single one of her “bright red scorebooks.” Sure there’s more than baseball in her story, but every thing seems to center around the three teams that were in New York at the time of Goodwin’s childhood – the Brooklyn Dodges, the New York Giants, and yes, the New York Yankees. Indeed, it appears that perhaps life in general centered on baseball! Can you believe that during the many Dodger-Yankee World Series games Goodwin had to endure, kids were allowed to listen to radios at school? Most often this was a teacher’s radio! One scene that had me in stitches was Goodwin describing her First Confession immediately before her First Communion in her Catholic church. The priest asks, “What else child?” Goodwin gives a quick rundown of talking in church, disobeying her mother, telling a fib, talking back to a teacher, and “wishing harm on others.” The priest picked up on the wishing harm on others, asking for names and circumstances. And Goodwin held her breath as she began whispering the names of baseball players from opposing teams. To give you a flavor of how funny this was, her answer to the priest began like this: “I wished harm to Allie Reynolds.” “The Yankee pitcher?” he asked, surprise and concern in his voice. “And how did you wish to harm him?” “I wanted him to break his arm.” “And how often did you make this wish?” “Every night,” she admitted, “before going to bed, in my prayers.” “And were there others?” “Oh, yes,” she admitted. And she goes on with her list. It was hilarious! Goodwin was serious about her baseball. When most kids her age probably hadn’t discovered reading the newspaper, Goodwin “would race downstairs to read the newspaper account of the Dodger victory.” Of course, if you know your baseball, you know that Goodwin experienced devastating defeats year after year. In fact, she writes, “No other team had come so close so many times without winning.” She also gives her reader the years with wins and losses, but I don’t want to spoil the story. Goodwin doesn’t neglect other national and world issues that were going on while she was growing up. She covers the completion of World War II, the polio outbreaks, the start of the Korean war, the McCarthy trials, and the desegregation of the Little Rock, Arkansas high school. In fact, all of the above were given prominent conversational attention in Goodwin’s childhood home, and she tells them like the true political historian she has become. And that adds a dimension to the book that speaks to more than the baseball fan. As Goodwin’s childhood begins to come to a close, of course there is tragedy in her family and her neighborhood. Tragedy hit the world of baseball, too. Goodwin writes, “After fifty years of stability, during which fans could depend on seeing the same terms in the same cities, three major-league franchises, one after another, picked up and moved elsewhere, abandoning their fans in the hopes of securing increased revenues.” She continues, “Though each owner was able to justify his move on economic grounds, the transactions signaled the ever-increasing intrusions of business considerations into the national pastime.” I really liked this book. And it probably helped that I didn’t know enough baseball history to know the outcome of many of her Dodger-Yankee Series games. Regardless, there’s enough in this book for everyone to enjoy. It’s a book for baseball fans as well as history fans – and it’s suitable for the young adult reader, too. Don’t miss this post-season winner! – Carla Offenburger Now reading “Getting Mother’s Body,” by Suzan-Lori Parks (2003) Most recently reviewed “What Should I Do With My Life?” by Po Bronson (2003). I’m still trying to figure out my own answer! “Horse, Follow Closely,” by GaWaNi Pony Boy (1998). It is hard to describe it, but it was a peaceful read. “Understood Betsy,” by Dorothy Canfield-Fisher (1917). “Cultivating Delight: A Natural History of My Garden,” (Autumn section) by Diane Ackerman. It’s time to put the garden to “bed.” And Ackerman does this honestly and gracefully. “Our Lady of the Lost and Found,” by Diane Schoemperlen. The more I think about this book, the better it gets. Comments from you readers Cindy Jones, of Mount Pleasant and Des Moines, after reading my review of “Horse, Follow Closely,” by GaWaNi Pony Boy: “I am glad I am not the only one who doesn''t really care for horses. I always feel a little guilty, but the only thing I can think about when they are around is how much I don’t want them to bite me or step on my feet.” Send your book comments to carla@Offenburger.com
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