Perfect, Once Removed: When Baseball Was All the World to Me - Hardcover

Hoose, Phillip

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802715370 ISBN 13: 9780802715371

Publisher: Walker Books, 2006

Synopsis

In the winter of 1956, Phillip Hoose was a gawky, uncoordinated 9-year-old boy just moved to a new town―Speedway, Indiana―and trying to fit into a new school and circle of friends. Baseball was his passion, even though he was terrible at it and constantly shamed by his lack of ability. But he had one thing going for him that his classmates could never have―his second cousin was a pitcher for the New York Yankees. Don Larsen wasn't a star, but he was in the Yankees' rotation. And on October 8, 1956, he pitched perhaps the greatest game that has ever been pitched: a perfect game (27 batters up, 27 out) against the Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series. It forever changed Phil's life. Perfect, Once Removed, recalls with pitch-perfect clarity the angst and jubilation of Phil Hoose's 9th year. To be published on the 50th anniversary of The Perfect Game, it will be one of the best baseball books of 2006.

About this title

About the Author

Phillip Hoose is the acclaimed author of Hoosiers, the story of basketball life in Indiana, as well as two highly-praised books for young adults: We Were There, Too and The Race to Save the Lord God Bird. He lives in Portland, Maine, and at the age of 59 still plays shortstop in his local softball league.

Reviews

Adult/High School–Hoose was eight years old and trying to make it in a new town when he discovered the importance of baseball. Unfortunately, he was such a poor ballplayer that he despaired of ever succeeding at either the game of baseball or the game of school. Then one day his mother told him he should ask for help from his cousin, a pitcher for the New York Yankees. Hoose wrote to him and began a long-distance relationship with Don Larsen, a man on the verge of greatness. He could have found no better fan than his young relative. Teens will appreciate this story of an ordinary boy and his brush with real superheroes. Hoose met Larsen and such Yankee greats as Yogi Berra and Casey Stengel; he saw the loner Mickey Mantle from across the room. In a satisfying close to this story, the author visits with his now 80-year-old cousin. Period photos help readers to visualize the times.–Will Marston, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Although sports journalist Hoose's memoir of a baseball-obsessed childhood has the potential for the usual suspended-in-amber nostalgia of supposedly more innocent times, his endearingly self-deprecating tone and refusal to trade in clichés gives his story a welcome snap. Growing up in Speedway, Ind., during the 1950s, Hoose (Hoosiers) was an ungainly kid prone to being bullied: "Mine was a toxic combination, weak and mouthy." Like many a bookish boy, Hoose found escape in an obsession: baseball. But unlike his peers, Hoose had a special connection—his cousin (once removed) was Don Larsen, pitcher for the New York Yankees. They corresponded occasionally, and Hoose even shared one thrilling ballpark visit with Larsen. Hoose received even more reflected glory from his famous relative in 1956, when Larsen pitched the first perfect game in the history of the World Series (against the Brooklyn Dodgers). The event was announced to the school by the principal and the normally unpopular author was surrounded by cheering, congratulatory classmates. Although the book drifts into less-interesting territory in its later sections as Hoose tries to find some closure to this (some would say unfairly) glorious childhood episode, it remains, all in all, a well-chiseled memento of one boy's love of the American pastime. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

*Starred Review* Baby boomers love to write about their childhood baseball experiences, and while it's arguable whether later generations feel similar joy when reading these heartfelt recollections, every now and then a nostalgia-soaked boomer steps up to the plate and connects. Hoose is one of those, and his story speaks to every baseball-loving kid whose talent on the field wasn't equal to his passion for the game. But Hoose had an ace in the hole: a cousin, Don Larsen, who happened to be a starting pitcher for the Yankees and who, in 1956, threw a perfect game in the World Series against the Dodgers. Paralleling his own less-than-stellar career as a Little Leaguer with the 1956 major-league season, Hoose describes his baseball mania and recounts his struggles as the new kid in Speedway, Indiana, where his parents had relocated earlier that year. His description of meeting Larsen, when the Yanks played in Chicago, captures perfectly that dreamed-of moment when the lives of kid and hero intersect, and his tortured, anticlimactic account of being able to watch only a few innings of the perfect game on his lunch hour (no radio in the classroom) will tug at the heartstrings of any boomer who remembers the agony of school getting in the way of the Fall Classic. No denying it, there was something special about baseball in the fifties, and Hoose nails it as surely as Larsen mowed down those 27 Dodgers. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Walker Books
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802715370
• ISBN 13: 9780802715371
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 176