Born to Play - Hardcover

Davis, Eric; Wiley, Ralph

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670885118 ISBN 13: 9780670885114

Publisher: Viking Adult, 1999

Synopsis

The baseball star offers an account of his life and explains how strong faith, a loving family, and powerful optimism have led him to overcome poverty, injuries, the violent death of his brother, and cancer

About this title

Review

The motivation behind most sports biographies is more inspiration than revelation, but in Davis's case the two fit like hand in the outsized fielder's glove he's wielded so brilliantly in Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Detroit, Baltimore, and now St. Louis. Indeed, each chapter is a mixture of memoir and pep talk divided under the subheads of "Adversity/Blessing" and "Strategy/Life Lesson."

The real surprise is how compelling Davis's life and life lessons have been even beyond his storied battle with and return from colon cancer, an odyssey that arced from doubt and despair to Comeback Player of the Year. Like his great buddy Darryl Strawberry, he managed to survive growing up in the gang country of Los Angeles--a feat in itself--fueling his big dreams with enormous talent. An extraordinary junction of faith, speed, power, and dedication took him to the Majors with a "Can't Miss" weight on his shoulders, but injuries detoured the great promise. Davis, doggedly persistent, shares what he's drawn from that with insight and humility instead of bitterness or regret. "It's important to see things as they are as well as how you wish they could be," he writes simply. It's a most valuable reminder in any pursuit. --Jeff Silverman

From Kirkus Reviews

A gritty and witty look under the batting helmet of star player Davis, whose heart is a big red machine. Although Wiley, who served with Sports Illustrated and ESPN, and also coauthored Spike Lees Best Seat in the House (1997), is listed as coauthor, another coauthor here is clearly Jesus, evident in phrases like Gods will is in baseball too. The Lord saves Davis from many perils, including a World Series injury in 1990, when this fiercely proud and competitive slugging outfielder ruptured his kidney almost making an impossible diving catch. Typically, Davis didnt display any pain until he collapsed on the way to the batters box. He urinated enough blood to fill a beer cup and was rushed to the hospital. Every split second of this drama, from what he was thinking as he attempted the catch to the traffic lights on the ambulance drive, is given in great detailfine reading. Its great fun to hear Davis talk about only hitting a buck seventy-eight (.178) and hitting a granny (grand-slam home run). While his favorite years may have been as a Cincinnati Red, the real plot revolves around his rare ability to play hurt. One key injury happened after he was traded from the Dodgers to the Tigers and crashed into Fenway Parks notoriously short center-field wall. His hardest and highest wall, of course, was the colon cancer he courageously fought off to return to a troubled Baltimore club last season. To the books credit, it remains about balls and strikes, dugouts and stadiums, rather than hospitals and chemotherapy treatments. Yankee Darryl Strawberry, Daviss old high school friend and rival, who also got much publicity fighting colon cancer last year, writes in the Afterword, Knowing what he went through probably saved my life. Davis comes off as a picture of consistency, morality, and heroism. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking Adult
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0670885118
• ISBN 13: 9780670885114
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 278