A one-of-a-kind slugger keeps his uniform clean in this chronicle of his days in baseball.
The ups and downs of a legendary baseball career.
In an introduction that covers his early years in the Dominican Republic, Ortiz, who co-authored this book with sportswriter and radio host Holley, notes that he defied heavy odds just to survive, much less become a successful professional player. No one who follows baseball will deny that he was an imposing presence or that he was one of the finest clutch hitters of all time. He was a major contributor to the reversal of the historical misfortunes of the Boston Red Sox, beginning with their World Series victory in 2004 and continuing with another in 2007. After the 2013 Patriot’s Day Marathon bombing, Ortiz became one of the voices of “Boston Strong” and helped the team, and the city, to a therapeutic World Series victory. Along the way, there were, of course, bumps in the road. Ortiz feels he was underestimated by his first big league manager, Tom Kelly of the Minnesota Twins, and that his uneven start in the majors was primarily due to this. In 2009, Ortiz was accused of using performance-enhancing drugs and suffered a slump that had many observers suggesting he was finished. His marriage fractured, though he does not say exactly why, and he had more troubles with a manager, this time Bobby Valentine, in 2012, and recurring contract issues. Ortiz describes a few of his teammates, most notably Manny Ramirez, who was both “a hitting genius” and unpredictable and “rude,” and Jon Lester, a pitcher who recovered from cancer to return to the big leagues. Ortiz appears positive, constructive, and determined to succeed, and though he deploys a few vulgarities for effect, nothing upsets his cheerful optimism. There are a few intriguing behind-the-scenes anecdotes, but Ortiz offers little self-critical thought. Readers who have already canonized Big Papi will be reassured, but those who hoped to meet a more rounded, multidimensional human will struggle to find him here.
A one-of-a-kind slugger keeps his uniform clean in this chronicle of his days in baseball.Pub Date: May 16, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-544-81461-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2017
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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