Well, I'm a day late, but I finished the last book of my first checkout. Yay!! Whew!!! The Last Hero A Life of Henry Aaron was my first book from the 921 section of the Victorville City Library. It took the longest time to read (4 days, I read Plum Lucky in the middle of it), due mostly to the technical and unfamiliar material I was trying to absorb.
To the book...
The first thing I was struck by was that as unfamiliar as I am with baseball statistics, its technical aspects and just baseball in general, there was a lot that was familiar and bell ringing to me; it was a reminder of how certain events, people and places permeate our national conscience and culture. I do not follow baseball, or any sport for that matter, and yet names beyond Aaron, Ruth, Mays, DiMaggio and Robinson were bell ringers. Names like Selig, Mantilla, Spahn, which I know are famous to those in the baseball know, but to me were just names I knew but couldn't put an immediate finger on why I knew them. Pafko (I learned his name first from watching Cop Out, very funny movie by the way) made me feel like an insider since I already knew a fact about him (again, from the paranthesis above).
The second thing that struck me was how exciting Mr. Bryant made baseball. I admit that there were times I got a little lost in the play by plays, not knowing baseball was something of a hamper when I was trying to place who was on which team, but there was always a tidy finisher that let know how it ended. His enthusiasm for the sport was infectious and would catch anyone, maybe especially a fan. It seemed that a baseball person would be even more caught up; either reliving the play they watched or seeing it for the first time because it wasn't on TV for a younger generation to catch on the classic channel.
The Last Hero captured several things. It captured baseball, the challenges posed by segregation and integration and Henry Aaron. This biography took a close look at America not just in the time of Henry Aaron, but also of his grandfather and father. It allowed you to understand why he behaved as he did, even if you didn't agree with it. Mr. Aaron came through as a whole person; you were able to see him as others, both friends and outsiders, saw him as well as how he saw himself in an open and clear way.
Favorite Quotes:
"He especially softened for the impatient, uncomprehending children born three decades after he'd swung his last bat, all of them unsure why their wistful and dutiful fathers were pushing them in front of this grayed, unfamiliar man, and even more bewildered why they spoke with reverence in their creaking voices instead of displaying unbending fatherly authority."
"The boys from Whistler would ride their bikes (the ones who had bikes) over to Toulminville for weekend epics that would last on the Carver Park dirt for hours and in memory forever."
" 'See, that's what you needed to survive. You needed the good ones, the ones who understood you were a person just like them. They had to go along with it all, because that's the way things were, but they didn't put their knee in your back, either.' "
"Above the fold, adjacent to the photograph of Henry, was a news story, dateline Little Rock, Arkansas, detailing a white mob beating several black students attempting to enter Central High School."
"Two on, nobody out, and the tying run at the plate, and Fred Haney about as motionless as a cigar store Indian."
"As you entered the Braves clubhouse, an oversized refrigerator loomed to the right, a frosty glass door revealing shelves of Fanta grape and orange soda distributed by the Coca-Cola Bottling Company. Next to the fridge sat the cigarette machine and a tub filled with ice and Piels beer. A side table housed assorted sundries-sunflower seeds, tobacco, bubble gum-and a jar, about ten inches high, brimming with amphetamines."
Overall Opinion:
I can't say that I think I'll become an ardent baseball fan now, but I did walk away with an urge to watch some of the moments I read about. And, perhaps, to eat a box of Crackerjacks (which I don't actually like, and were not mentioned in the book) and a hot dog during the seven inning stretch.
Rating:
Baseball Fan or Not, Read the Book
Links to: Hard Call Great Decisions and the Extraordinary People Who Made Them by John McCain with Mark Salter
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