Rating: 
Summary: Why death and nostalgia make a great Red Sox story
Review: ...P>This is a little book-- really a long magazine piece set between hard covers-- which is sufficiently compelling to make it seem, in retrospect, considerably larger than it is: a big story told with truly enviable economy. What Halberstam does, in sum, is present an overview of the unusual and unusually long friendship (lasting something over of sixty years) among four members of the Boston Red Sox of the late 1940's and early 50's: Ted Williams, Bobby Doerr, Dom DiMaggio and Johnny Pesky. Everyone has heard of the first, and most people who follow baseball even casually know something of the other three-- but no one before Halberstam had cast these known entities in this particular context, that of members of a club-within-a-club. It was a job clearly worth doing, at all events, as one finds oneself drawn into both the individual stories and the fate of the "collective" with equal curiosity and mounting expectation. But not expectation in the traditional sense. There is no great denouement here, nor do we expect such: we know from the outset that the reason for reuniting (most of) the group in the fall of 2001 is that Williams is dying. And he dies, as expected-- with no "Rosebud", and certainly no Ty Cobb-ish regrets ("Y'know, I wish I'd made more friends.") But getting us to the point that this death means a great deal more than what we recall from the actual event (and its hoopla aftermath), as these were reported last year in the press-- this, I think, is the real measure of the book's success. We have somehow come, through the course of the narrative, to expect that we will feel something different-- something new and more significant-- for both Ted and "his gang" after Williams dies, on cue. And this expectation is met. The narrative journey does have a payoff, then, and it's a big one. Different readers will react in different measure, of course. But I challenge anyone in or out of baseball to come away from this account of aging, dying and friendship unmoved. Among the various nuggets of baseball history (and mythology) to be enjoyed here, the one I most appreciated, I think, was Halberstam's sober deconstruction of what might be called the "Red Sox 1946 Buckner"-- the play which, in effect, cost the Red Sox the first post-war World Series: the Cardinals' Enos "Country" Slaughter somehow scored from first on a "single", allegedly because Johnny Pesky "held the ball." (Guess what: it wasn't a single; and Pesky didn't hold the ball.) [Oh, and a minor cavil over Halberstam's account of the characters in this particular mini-Greek tragedy: why, one wonders, does he stint on reporting Slaughter's notorious dark side(s)? Having given us a commendable warts-and-all portrait of Williams, why does Halberstam let the oh-so-"colorful" Enos skate? This guy was an ugly brawler and outspoken racist, later to achieve lasting infamy for trying to organize a players' boycott rather than compete man-to-man against the first black player in the league, Jackie Robinson; and as if that weren't enough, Slaughter later resurfaced before the baseball public as a tireless, self-pitying whiner after each of his multiple rejections by the Hall of Fame voting committee (whose sound evaluation of ol' "Country" was inexplicably overturned some years later by the back-door Veterans Committee). And by the way, did anyone ever figure out exactly which country Slaughter's epithet was supposed to refer to? Was it National Socialist Germany? In any case, none of the rich Slaughter lode gets mined in this otherwise detail-rich account, which seems all the stranger given the several references Halberstam makes to the injustice of the Hall's subsequent (and continuing) exclusion of another key figure in the 1946 Series-- and key figure 'in absentia' in The Play-- the admirable team player, seven-time All Star center fielder and all around decent fellow Dom DiMaggio.] All told, "The Teammates" represents about as much fun (in fun's wistful and nostalgic sub-category) as one can expect from a baseball book. And it's a classic baseball book: larger than the genre, yet inconceivable without the baseball.
Rating:
Summary: To Be So Lucky
Review: There are several reasons to endorse TEAMMATES, as a glance at the readers' reviews will attest. It is one of those books that possesses the ability to strike an emotional chord with each reader. It conveys the humanity of these four friends and defines friendship for all of us. No matter how great they were, the bond they developed shows us what really matters. Oh, to be so lucky as to have friends such as those.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Read!!!
Review: David Halberstam needs to write more baseball books!!!. This is a very entertaining, insightful and fascinating book about four good friends and ballplayers. The anecdotes are fabulous and are put into a context that magnifies their impact...Teddy Ballgame signed a ball for rookie Pedro Ramos after Ramos struck out the greatest hitter that ever lived, but his magnanimity lasted only until their next encounter...great stuff, read about it!!!
Rating:
Summary: baseball and friendship
Review: I knew that this book would be a great read for no other reason than David Halberstram's storytelling skills and his passion for making baseball so much more than a bunch of statistics. My only criticism of this book is that it ended too soon The wonderful story of these players and how they rose from humble means to become the stars that they eventually became was just so enjoyable. In particular, the heroics and tragedy of Ted Williams --the years he lost to baseball serving as a combat pilot , his inabilities as both hsuband and father...serve as the core of this book. I wondered whether it was the times, the particular situation of being Red Sox stars or the fact that they played with Ted Williams that made this story so enticing or could you take ANY four major league players and create the same story as is presented in this book? I somehow doubt it. In any event , it is a great read and reinforces my theory that baseball is the sport that translates best to the written page.
Rating:
Summary: Great Players, Better Men
Review: Halberstam is a great writer. This narrative takes you inside the personal relationships forged between four great Red Sox teammates - Johnny Pesky, Bobby Doerr, Dom DiMaggio and Ted Williams. This tribute to long-term, selfless friendships makes one yearn for an earlier era of baseball, even America, where mutual respect stood ahead of everything else. Halberstam has given us a rare glimpse into the personalities of these great stars and their integrity stands out throughout the pages.
A great writer, writing about great men, with a great story.
Rating:
Summary: A Testament to Friendship
Review: When Williams and Pesky and Dimaggio and Doerr were beginning to form the bonds of a friendship that lasted their lifetimes, I was learning to walk and get toilet trained. Yet, as soon as I began to learn of the game of baseball and the Boston Red Sox they became a part of my enjoyment of the game. After my first trip to Fenway to see the Sox play the PHILADELPHIA ATHLETCS, I returned home with an envelope of 8 x 10 pictures of each player on the team whom I arranged on my bedroom wall in the order in which they batted. Pitchers had their own spot and the subs were rotated in and out of the lineup. But the above four were almost always in the starting lineup. So for one who has been a member of Red Sox Nation from the time he learned about baseball, these men have been a part of my life and memory. What a treat it was to have the author explore their memories of the beginning of their friendship and explain how it has endured for all time. Those were different times. So different that the bond that these men forged could never happen now in today's free agent, designated hitter, over expanded game. They came from humble beginnings; they were joined by fate as much as anything else and yet they cared for one another, not just while playing baseball, but for the rest of their lives. The glue that held them together was Ted Williams. "The greatest hitter that ever lived" was a man you either understood and loved or a man you could not get away from fast enough. He did not suffer fools or people who did not understand the game, but in his own way he understood the importance of friends and that friendship is not for convenience, but for life. So, thanks to the author, I got to know more about my childhood heroes, but more importantly I got reminded about what is important about how we live our lives, caring for those we love and remembering to take the time to smell the roses.
Rating:
Summary: A Testimony to Friendship
Review: This is a delightful chronicle of the friendship of men who played baseball together years ago and remained true and devoted friends thereafter. David Halberstam has written a marvelous story about baseball, character, integrity and friendship. Unlike Mr. Halberstam's other books, this one is short at just over 200 pages, but still conveys a descriptive account of the four Red Sox players as they move through the various stages of life. The author has written of those in baseball before, but this one presents the characters, all confronting their waning years, in a slightly different light. It is a fine summertime pleasure.
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Summary: evocative "Teammates" belongs in friendship Hall of Fame
Review: As a youngster growing up in Seattle in the early 1960s, I was a rabid Seattle Rainiers baseball fan. Their manager, Johnny Pesky, was a favorite of my father, a former batboy of the Atlanta Crackers and an impressive ballplayer in his own right. One night, a leather-lunged idiot started in on Pesky, ridiculing him for a grievous mistake made in the 1946 World Series, held some three years before I was born. In a rare show of public anger, my father shouted him down: "You couldn't carry Pesky's jock, fathead." My dad then told me what he considered to be the truth behind the Cardinals' dramatic win over Pesky's Red Sox, now confirmed by one of America's great authors. David Halberstam's loving tribute to the four men who composed the cornerstone of the majestic Boston teams of the 1940s, "The Teammates," is a lyrical exploration of far more than baseball. It is a fully-rendered celebration of friendship and commitment to excellence. The genesis of this slim volume derives from the demise of Ted Williams and the determination of Dominic DiMaggio and Johnny Pesky, two of his beloved teammates, to visit the ailing giant one final time. The fourth star in this unique constellation of friends, Bobby Doerr, would have joined them but for his tender and loving decision to remain in Oregon, caring for his stricken wife. Halberstam is a masterful storyteller, and he marshalls his considerable biographer's skills in painting four compelling portraits. His subjects share a common history of transcendence in the game; each brought a particular passion and grace to the game. Dom DiMaggio emerges as a complete human being. Earnest and aware of his own physical limitations, conscious of not even being the best ballplayer in his own family, Dom transforms intelligence and desire into not only a successful major league career, but a fully-formed adult life. Johnny Pesky, who once shined minor leaguers' shoes in Portland, Oregon, embodies the essence of how baseball survives as one of America's symbolic agents for cultural assimilation and upwards social mobility. Never forgetting his roots and remaining true to his own identity, Pesky is the moral hero of the book. Of the four, he had to bear the onus of being labeled a "goat," responsible for the loss of the World Series. Exuding strength, he never points a finger in any other direction, stoically accepting a wrongful reputation. With a love of baseball so consuming, Pesky continued to actively coach his Sox in his eighties. Graceful, reserved and balanced, Bobby Doerr has a moral center and balance so pure that his athletic prowess almost seemed predetermined. This quiet, consistet man ironically becomes the closest friend to Ted Williams, the best hitter the sport has produced. Profane and argumentative, Williams pontificates on every issue and invariably wins; this "man child," Halberstam points out, may not have hit in 56 consecutive games, but he "won 33,277 arguments in a row...the undisputed champion of contentiousness." Williams, in Halberstam's sure hands, emanates energy and a zest for life; "outside the bounds of contemporary society," Teddy Ballgame approaches being an American archtype, a genuine self-defined man. Thrughout "The Teammates," a delight courses: in baseball and friendship, in passion and performance, in dignity and endurance. David Halberstam not only pays tribute to four men; more significantly, he gracefully shares with us the lessons they could still teach today.
Rating:
Summary: Halbertsam has done it again! Another hit!
Review: A poignant tale of deep friendship with baseball as a backdrop. Four men discover their love of the game is second to each other in this excellent account of the friendship between Williams, Pesky, DiMaggio, and Doerr. Halberstam provides a great deal of insight into how each of these individuals played the game and how they competed for the Red Sox amidst hope and disappointment. The reader learns how each man led his life during his career in baseball and after their playing days ended. But even more so, this book is one of human frailty and strength, courage and weakness, and most of all loyalty to life long friends. Joyous and sad, this book has the depth to become a classic.
Rating:
Summary: A SUPER BOOK BUT SAD
Review: Todays players will never have what these 4 players shared. They will not have the relationship because the good ones on the teams never stay with the same team they are jump ship for the money, and I doubt there are any 4 players on todays teams that would do what these 4 did and cared for each other after their playing days are over. The book is informative about the early days 1940s-1950 baseball
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