A Player for a Moment: Notes from Fenway Park

Rating:
Summary: Ladies and gentlemen... the 1987 Boston Red Sox!
Review: I read this book directly after finishing Rob Neyer's "Feeding the Green Monster". Both books were written by writers-as-fans, jumping on the Red Sox bandwagon a year after the team made the playoffs (Neyer in 2000, Hough in 1987). The books' approaches have nothing to do with each other, but the results are similar.

Hough's book occurs almost entirely during batting practice. Using a season-long press pass, he went to the Fenway clubhouse and dugout during home games to interview the players and coaches, and find out how these players turned their childhood baseball fantasies into reality, when the author couldn't. There's a lot of breathless descriptions of the sun setting behind the right-field bleachers, or the moon climbing over the stadium. Fenway is almost always empty, save for autograph-hounds above the dugout. Compare to Neyer, who sat in the stands for 81 home games and never met a single player.

The interviews, instead of providing the background for detailed player biographies, are printed verbatim in the book. Hough, over 40 at the time of writing, found it easier to speak with coaches: former Sox star Johnny Pesky, and future Sox manager Joe Morgan (not the blowhard ESPN announcer). These two appear most often and are the funniest characters in the book.

Also fascinating is the glimpse at the Red Sox in transition, in between the aging playoff club of 1986, and the young powerhouse that won the A.L. East in '88 and '90. It's nice to know that Roger Clemens and Ellis Burks, seen here as kids, are still star players today.

The most poignant stories in the book involve aging players who've lost their ability entirely -- Robin Roberts, struggling in the low minors at the end of his career, and Mel Parnell, unable to pitch on Old-Timers' Day. The rest is made up of Hough's junior-high baseball stories. You may feel more charitable about those than I. Recommended in general, if you like the Red Sox.

Rating:
Summary: Ladies and gentlemen... the 1987 Boston Red Sox!
Review: I read this book directly after finishing Rob Neyer's "Feeding the Green Monster". Both books were written by writers-as-fans, jumping on the Red Sox bandwagon a year after the team made the playoffs (Neyer in 2000, Hough in 1987). The books' approaches have nothing to do with each other, but the results are similar.

Hough's book occurs almost entirely during batting practice. Using a season-long press pass, he went to the Fenway clubhouse and dugout during home games to interview the players and coaches, and find out how these players turned their childhood baseball fantasies into reality, when the author couldn't. There's a lot of breathless descriptions of the sun setting behind the right-field bleachers, or the moon climbing over the stadium. Fenway is almost always empty, save for autograph-hounds above the dugout. Compare to Neyer, who sat in the stands for 81 home games and never met a single player.

The interviews, instead of providing the background for detailed player biographies, are printed verbatim in the book. Hough, over 40 at the time of writing, found it easier to speak with coaches: former Sox star Johnny Pesky, and future Sox manager Joe Morgan (not the blowhard ESPN announcer). These two appear most often and are the funniest characters in the book.

Also fascinating is the glimpse at the Red Sox in transition, in between the aging playoff club of 1986, and the young powerhouse that won the A.L. East in '88 and '90. It's nice to know that Roger Clemens and Ellis Burks, seen here as kids, are still star players today.

The most poignant stories in the book involve aging players who've lost their ability entirely -- Robin Roberts, struggling in the low minors at the end of his career, and Mel Parnell, unable to pitch on Old-Timers' Day. The rest is made up of Hough's junior-high baseball stories. You may feel more charitable about those than I. Recommended in general, if you like the Red Sox.