My Bat Boy Days: Lessons I Learned from the Boys of Summer by Steve Garvey
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Book Reviews of My Bat Boy Days: Lessons I Learned from the Boys of Summer
Book Review: Boy's Eye View of Baseball Greats and lessons learned
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a delight.
I didn't know from 1956 to 1961, that Dodger great Steve Garvey was a bat boy for the Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Yankees and Detroit Tigers.
He tells stories about the following showing these virtues.
Pee Wee Reese leadership
Gil Hodges dignity
Carl Erskine honesty
Jackie Robinson passion
Duke Snider persistence
Roy Campanella compassion
Sandy Koufax faith
Mickey Mantle fortitude
Al Kaline perfection
It captures the excitement of baseball and would be good to read to kids.
Book Review: My Bat Boy Days
Summary: 4 Stars
What a fun little book!
What we've got here is a short tale from Steve Garvey about how he worked as a bat boy for a few major league teams while he and his parents lived in Florida. His father drove a bus and was hired to drive around some big leaguers during spring training. The first team he ran into was the Brooklyn Dodgers from the Boys of Summer era of the team.
After this short tale of being asked to be the bat boy for a day, how much it meant to him as a boy, and how it has stuck with him ever since, Garvey speaks about a few individuals from the Boys of Summer teams as well as Mickey Mantle and Al Kaline. They are his heroes, pure and simple, and the story is presented in a pure in simple fashion.
Garvey chooses a certain superlative to describe each of the players he idolizes and talks about his experience with them that illustrate the descriptive word he's chosen. Also contained within the passages are biographical stats of the players which illustrate their statistical dominance as well as the more personal qualities that made them heroes to the Garv.
The prose is easy to read and relate to. For anyone that doesn't know the story of Roy Campanella or why Koufax had to retire at 31, these are also presented as part of the illustration of the virtues Garvey holds in such high esteem. It's a very short read but very much worth the time to take a peek into the idols of a man who was an idol for many youngsters once upon a time.