The Road to Cooperstown
A Father, Two Sons, and the Journey of a Lifetime
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
As he did with his award-winning book, The Final Season, Tom Stanton again tells a magical tale of fathers, brothers, and baseball heroes certain to resonate with sports fans everywhere.
Every true baseball fan dreams of visiting Cooperstown. Some make the trip as boys, when the promise of a spot in the lineup with the Yankees or Red Sox or Tigers glows on the horizon, as certain as the sunrise. Some go later in life, long after their Little League years, to glimpse the past, not the future. And still others talk of somedays and of pilgrimages that await.
For Tom Stanton, the trip took nearly three decades.
The dream first grabbed hold of him in 1972, in the era of Vietnam and Watergate and Johnny Bench and the Oakland Athletics. Stanton, then an eleven-year-old Michigan boy who lived for the game, became fascinated by the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the sport's spiritual home, the place to which great players aspire. He plotted ways to convince his father to take him to the famous village along Lake Otsego.
But his plans for that season never materialized. They disappeared in the turmoil caused by his mother's life-threatening illness and his brother's antiwar activities. Still, the dream lingered through the summers that followed. Twenty-nine years later, he invited the two men who had introduced him to the sport, his elderly father and his older brother, to join him on a trip to the Hall. Finally, they embarked on their long-delayed adventure.
The Road to Cooperstown is a true story populated with colorful characters: a philanthropic family that launched the museum and uses its wealth to, among other things, ensure that McDonald's stays out of the turn-of-the-century downtown; the devoted fan who wrote a book to get his hero into the Hall of Fame; the Guyana native who grew up without baseball but comes to the induction ceremony every year; the librarian on a mission to preserve his great-grandfather's memory; the baseball legends who appear suddenly along Main Street; and the dying man who fulfills one of his last wishes on a warm day in spring.
This adventure, though brief, provides a true bonding experience that is the heart of a sweet, one-of-a-kind book about baseball, family, the Hall of Fame, and the town with which it shares a rich heritage.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this heartfelt effort, journalist and author Stanton examines family, fatherhood, life and, of course, baseball while on a road trip that was a lifetime in the making. As a boy, the baseball-obsessed Stanton dreamed of visiting the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. a dream that was continually deferred while his mother suffered through a series of brain surgeries. Nearly 30 years later, the dream is realized when Stanton (The Final Season) is invited to speak at the Hall of Fame. Sensing the magnitude of the invitation, the 40-year-old author gathers his 81-year-old father and 47-year-old brother, and the three embark upon a sentimental journey to baseball mecca. Unfortunately, Stanton's road to Cooperstown is littered with so many reverential, saccharine moments that it becomes nearly impassable at times. Alongside the voluminous backdrop of baseball history in Cooperstown, from Ty Cobb's diaries to Doubleday Stadium, flows an unending deluge of personal recollections, all tied to key baseball memories. Stanton does succeed in rendering a loving homage to his father for a childhood "empty of horrors," even comparing his father to one of his favorite Detroit Tigers, Mickey Lolich: "dependable, consistent, capable, seldom flashy, successful more often than not." But such touching observations sometimes drown amid the ceaseless baseball-as-life theme. Nevertheless, given the millions of fathers and sons who've bonded over baseball and visit the Baseball Hall of Fame (and its gift shop) every year, this book should find an eager audience.
Customer Reviews
Stanton can't miss
As in his first memoir, Stanton takes an interesting event and weaves his own family history and creates an emotional journey that engrossed the reader.