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April 08, 2005
The Last Best League by Jim Collins
| I have a personal annual tradition. I read a baseball book every year just before the season starts, to get myself ready, remind me why I want to hang in through a 6-month, 162+ game season. Past years' standouts have included the encyclopedic ("Red Sox Century" by Glenn Stout and Richard Johnson), the romantic ("The Teammates" by David Halberstam), and the satiric ("The Great American Novel" by Philip Roth). |  |
This year, I went for the idyllic: "The Last Best League" by Jim Collins. This is a book examining one season with the Chatham A's in the Cape Cod Baseball League, which had the double benefit of getting me excited for not only the baseball season, but also my annual summer vacation to Cape Cod. Mr. Collins, a journalist by trade, spent a year following the team, and seems to have gained incredible access to the players and coaches. The payoff is that the author exhibits a true insider's knowledge of the events of that summer without falling into the trap of inserting himself needlessly into those events. Whether writing about players' inside jokes, coaches personal feelings towards players' attitudes, or scouts' professional opinions on players' prospects, this is the full fly-on-the-wall treatment.
As for the content of the book, Collins set out to describe the experience of the Cape Cod Baseball League, considered the best amateur baseball league in the world and the closest thing to professional baseball. These are the best college players in the country and many (examples: Nomar, Frank Thomas, Barry Zito) have gone on to become all-stars in the majors. Yet, despite the nearness to the millions of dollars in professional baseball, what Collins describes is an atmosphere closer to Little League, where players can have fun playing a game they love and fans can come out on a warm summer night to casually enjoy a game. (Descriptions of the playground just off the right field line teeming with children who tired of the game after 2 innings matched my experience with nephews and niece at Chatham A's games, and my memories of big brother's little league games in Hollis, NH.)
After a difficult off-season, during which I was made painfully aware that professional baseball is a business first and a game second, it was nice to read a book that showed a place where the opposite was true (for most participants). I ate up the passages about children asking for autographs from these college players they've never heard of and will probably not even remember the next summer. I loved the descriptions of Cape Cod life, specifically where baseball fit in among the locals and the tourists. Having seen it first-hand, I know that it is just as idyllic as Collins makes it seem.
Of course, the book would be twice as sappy as Field Of Dreams if that were all the author wrote about, so he does also include the facts of the season's games and the professional prospects for the various players involved. I'm sure the author was disappointed when the A's, perennial league contenders, had an uninspired, below-.500 season, providing little excitement for the game rerporting in his book. But he does a good job inserting a little tension, as the few players he focuses on fall under the watchful eyes (and radar guns) of the pro teams' scouts. Unfortunately, this leads to the inevitable epilogue, in which Collins relates the results of the college draft and how much money each player received in signing bonuses. This final insertion of the business side of pro baseball was an unwelcome ending to a book that otherwise had restored my faith in the National Pastime.
Posted by JoshHornik at April 8, 2005 08:47 AM
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