Wait Till Next Year

Goodwin, Doris Kearns. Wait Till Next Year. New York: Touchstone. 1997. Print

First Sentences:

When I was six, my father gave me a bright-red scorebook that opened my heart to the game of baseball.

After dinner on long summer nights, he would sit beside me in our small enclosed porch to hear my account of that day;s Brooklyn Dodger game.


Description:

With the pandemic-shortened baseball season and World Series over, those still thirsting for opportunities to absorb more about the sport should check out Doris Kearns Goodwin's Wait Till Next Year. Goodwin, the renowned author of carefully-researched history books such as Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln and Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, turns her attention to her own early years as a huge Brooklyn Dodgers fan.

Interestingly, she decided to research this memoir as she did her other history books: by returning to her original childhood locations, interviewing the people who played significant roles in her life, and digging up relevant photos for important events. In this manner, she was able to be both the opinionated narrator as well as the fact-seeking observer through the eyes and thoughts of others.

Goodwin became a fan in 1949 at age six, listening to every Brooklyn Dodger game on the radio and recording the stats in her red scorebook.

As the Dodgers came to bat, I would walk around the room, talking to the players as if they were standing in front of me. At critical junctures, I tried to make a bargain..."Please, please, get a hit. If you get a hit now, I'll make my bed every day for a week."

When her father returned home from work, she would tell him about the game. It was then that she learned the art of storytelling. Early on, she would just blurt out the score and a few exciting details. Later, she learned how fun and gripping it was to her audience father to build up the suspense, act out the exciting plays, and cheer or cry for certain results.

So many wonderful stories she relates! Like when Roy Campenella came to Brooklyn and spoke in a local Episcopal church. After Goodwin attended Campenella's talk, she felt it necessary to go to her first Catholic confession in order to repent the sin of setting foot inside a church of another denomination. She also confessed that she had "wished harm to others several times."

I wished harm to Allie Reynolds. [Goodwin]

The Yankee pitcher?... [Priest]

 I wanted him to break his arm. [Goodwin]

I loved her friendship and arguments with Elaine, a neighbor girl, who loved Goodwin's hated rival New York Yankees; her visits to Jones Beach and the Polo Tower which she heard "was a prison where little kids were held if they did not obey heir elders at the beach." At the beach, six year old Doris made friends with a boy name Johnny, talking for hours about the Dodgers ... the first boy she had ever talked with. "And it was my passion for baseball that made it possible."

Trips to Ebbets Field with her father to watch games in person, the excitement and devastation of Dodger successes and failures, and the pain of the Dodgers move from Brooklyn to the West Coast are all recounted in loving detail, using her red scorebook and personal memories and those of others from that era.

Wait Till Next Year is a wonderful reminiscent journey back to a age of passion for a sport in its heyday, and how that sport affected a young girl's early and future life. Highly recommended both for baseball fans and those who enjoy an autobiography that transports readers to a different age.

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Tye, Larry. Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend.   

The definitive biography of Satchel Paige, the brilliant Negro Leagues superstar pitcher. Author Tye has painstakingly researched old score cards, news clippings, and even survivors of that era to present a brilliant depiction of the best, quirkiest, most unpredictable player in baseball history. (previously reviewed here)