Good Enough to Dream

Rating:
Summary: truly captures the life of the young ballplayer
Review: Having played for Coach Gattis in college I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. Ten years may have mellowed the man some, but, I could feel the same intensity from the book that he brought to the field. The book really captures the essence of what it is to be a ballplayer that is a border-line "pro". Or, as the title aptly states "Good Enough to Dream".

Rating:
Summary: A Major League Book About Minor League Baseball
Review: In 1983 Roger Kahn went in search of a minor league baseball team to buy. After his first choices fell through, he ended up owner and president of the Class A Utica Blue Sox in the New York-Penn League. Lacking a major league affiliation, he put together a rag tag group of players who had been dropped by various major league club's minor league affiliates or who were never drafted. This book establishes Kahn's life long love of baseball and then follows the Blue Sox from opening day to the final game of the 1983 season. Many books on baseball have used this inside the clubhouse format. Jim Bouton's "Ball Four" and Pat Jordan's "A False Spring" come readily to mind. "Good Enough to Dream" is different from the others in that it is told from the perspective of the front office.

The machinations of the front office, the relationships among the players and the manager, the descriptions of the long bus rides, the dreams and hopes of the players, and the hardships that all involved are willing to withstand for the love of the game are all interesting and well told. The one area which failed to hold my attention was the long narrative of the Blue Sox's run for the league title. Kahn attempted to heighten the drama with repeated illustrations of why the team felt that the league office was working against their success and he left no doubt about the strong will to succeed that drove everyone in the organization, but in the final analysis I just couldn't seem to care enough about who won the 1983 New York-Penn League championship to do more than skim through the last one hundred or so pages. That having been stated, this is a very good book about a part of baseball that few fans ever get a chance to see.