Its Where You Played the Game: How Youth Baseball Determines the Personality of the American Male - Hardcover

Ryan, Mike; Ryan, Luke

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805046615 ISBN 13: 9780805046618

Publisher: Henry Holt & Co, 1996

Synopsis

Each year two million youngsters play youth baseball, unwittingly stepping into an arena where their characters will be set in concrete, where their roles in life will be unequivocally fixed. Nothing a kid has ever experienced will be as traumatic or pivotal, and the consequences are as predictable as high tides, sunsets, and Red Sox disasters. Each of the nine positions produces a unique personality type. Take the shortstop, for example. Half the team's spirit is crammed into the scrawny, scrappy spitfire who stakes out the dirt between second and third base. Shortstops are scary people. Given a choice of enemies between the IRS and the Navy Seals on one hand or an eight-year-old shortstop on the other, take your chances with the feds. These character traits stick, and in this book you'll see why the best FBI agents are former catchers; why third basemen drive pickup trucks; and why guys who never played baseball as kids open sports bars.

About this title

Reviews

The father-and-son author team-Mike is a judge in Mass., Luke a paralegal in Manhattan-here present a tongue-in-cheek theory which holds that youngsters should not be allowed to play baseball. The reason? The positions they play will determine their adult personalities and hence the course of their lives. Pitcher: proud, vain; first base: conventional, condescending; shortstop: tough, fearless; second base: loyal, helpful (both Ryans, not so incidentally, played second base); catcher: persistent, tenacious; third base: stupid, primitive; center field: responsible but insecure; left field: intelligent, self-sufficient; right field: shy, indecisive, nerdy. The Ryans also consider the position in the batting order and even provide a quiz so readers can tell which positions their friends played. This delightful analysis will provoke plenty of laughter until the reader begins to realize that much truth is spoken in jest.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

It's where on the sandlot you, as a kid, first essayed the national pastime that determines your lot in life, according to the comic proponents of the Ryan Theory of Adolescent Development in American Males. The Ryans, pŠre et fils, can convince any real American male that position is of even more consequence in baseball than it is in the Kamasutra. Baseball sets character more firmly than nature or nurture. Better than Costello coached by Abbott, the kids know who's on first. First base is occupied by a tall athlete who, in manhood, seethes because he didn't pitch. On the pitcher's mound is the best-looking lad (since the audience will focus mostly on him) who also happens to be the coach's kid. The center fielder ``will never lose the aura of space about him.'' Look out for the shortstop, and don't ask about the left fielder. The incumbents in each of the nine positions are described in terms of raw ingredients, the game's imprint, and the finished product--which, the Ryans claim, explains a lot about the state of the nation. Benedict Arnold never played, but Nathan Hale, we are told, played second. Nonplayers, substitutes, and batboys (who are there to be killed by flung bats) are not neglected, and the Ryans offer a learned discussion of the lasting importance of one's place in the batting order. Full of what passes for statistics and references to bogus studies (surely derived from too much time spent in sports bars during the baseball strike), the text will perfectly suit the True American Guy, who, after all, is (1) a great ball player, and (2) a Guy with a great sense of humor. Gender-specific and possibly dangerous to right fielders, the light text will easily tickle the fans just in time for another season, -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

This seems like it might have been written by a couple of myopic Ivy League professors determined to transform baseball into a metaphor for human experience. The Ryans--dad Mike and son Luke--aren't Ivy Leaguers, but they do walk a thin line between imitating the baseball philosophers (George Will et al.) and satirizing them. The book's premise is that the position a boy plays in Little League determines his personality. (No mention is made of how position affects the new era of female Little Leaguers.) Shortstops are feisty, courageous, admirable, and make good demolition-derby drivers. Catchers gravitate toward military careers, may become trial lawyers, and are stern taskmasters as fathers. The Ryans take this version of baseball phrenology around the field, and though it often seems ridiculous, anyone who has spent anytime around baseball players will swear to you it's true, at least sometimes. Both a parody of serious baseball literature and a heartwarming ode to those who truly love the game, this silly yet charming book is certain to find an appreciative audience. Wes Lukowsky

Edition details

• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0805046615
• ISBN 13: 9780805046618
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 152