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Once Upon a Fastball | 
 enlarge | Author: Bob Mitchell
Publisher: Kensington
Category: Book
List Price: $20.00
Buy New: $5.49
You Save: $14.51 (73%)
New (32) Used (11) from $5.49
Avg. Customer Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 285821
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.7 x 0.9
ISBN: 075822687X
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780758226877
ASIN: 075822687X
Publication Date: May 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Brand New, Never Read.
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Book Description
Your legacy is in the Attic. The words leap from the cryptic poem left for Harvard professor Seth Stein by his Papa Sol, the doting grandfather who vanished without a trace four years earlier. It was Papa Sol who instilled an unquenchable passion for baseball in Seth's soul; it was Sol who also ignited Seth's obsession with history, spinning fabulous tales of times and people long gone. And when Papa Sol disappeared, it was Seth who stepped up to the plate, caring for Sol's bewildered wife as she clung to her cherished memories. Seth is still searching for answers when the poem--"For Setharoo, on his fiftieth birthday"--appears in his grandmother's home. It leads him to a scuffed, yellowed baseball, resting in a box handmade by his grandfather. Without warning, a single touch of the rough leather thrusts Seth through the swirling vortex of history onto the streets of 1950s New York and then to the greatest baseball game ever played, the Bobby Thomson "Shot Heard `Round the World" playoff classic. It is in this surreal, sepia-toned site of past glory that historian Seth begins a wondrous, life-changing odyssey that allows him to find the answers he so desperately seeks. Suspenseful, thought-provoking, funny, and poignant , this beautifully crafted novel is a joyous tribute to our inspiring and timeless national pastime, and a rare treasure for all those who love baseball.
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| Customer Reviews:
Bob Mitchell is great! June 23, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Once Upon A fastball is the second of Bob Mitchell's books I have read. I enjoyed this one every bit as much as I did the first one. Bob has tremendous knowledge of the subjects about which he writes, but the most important thing for me is the message of the book. The ending of this very great, sweet story left me with many tears in my eyes -- a sign of my having enjoyed it thoroughly! I look forward to reading many more of Bob Mitchell's books. He's definitely my kind of author.
 If you love Baseball... June 9, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
...you will enjoy this book. From the introduction, when Bob Mitchell describes basball cards and players from the 50's and 60's to the journeys back in time to The Polo Grounds, Candlestick, the Buckner Blunder and the Red Sox finally breaking the curse, you will find yourself thoroughly engrossed in a tale of what America's Pastime means to so many of us,especially those of us who grew up in the 50's and 60's,
and also meant to our parents and grandparents.
This is a book with a lot of heart and one that easily takes the reader on a jouney of remembrance of both baseball and the relationships we shared with parents and grandparents.
A Baseball Book Not About Baseball May 30, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is an interesting book, albeit one with a myriad of directions. While it is entertaining, it is also complex, challenging, and quizzical.
The author weaves a very neat story with true compassion, but landscapes the pages with numerous historical, poetic, and mythical references which often overpower the reader.In the end, it is a baseball book that is not really about baseball. Instead, the author uses some intriguing key historical baseball moments to both enrich his story, as well as comment on the meaning of history.
Indeed the talented author seems to be fixated by both words and numbers. In fact, he notes that there are 616,500 words in the English language and it seems like nearly every one of them appears in this effort. For the squeamish who may not feel comfortable with 157 word sentences or a distracting hard narrative transition from third person to first person, perhaps this book is not for you. For others that crave something different, something unusual, and something written from the heart, please note this recommendation.
Brilliant book from a brilliant writer May 17, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
As an ex-marketing director of a major American corporation, I understand the fundamentals of markets, customer segments and consumer demographics. But Bob Mitchell's books are not about such things. This book should not be read by people because they fit a 'demographic'. Anyone and everyone can read this book and get something out of it.
Mitchell is a true artist. He has produced another book which is totally different from anything else I have ever read, including his amazing first novel "Match Made in Heaven".
Mitchell's creativity is quite unique and his writing is both challenging and thought provoking while being comfortable and enjoyable all at the same time. He confesses to be a sports nut. I thought I was a sports nut until I read this book. He has made me think completely differently about my own experiences in sports and my enjoyment of them. Mitchell sees and writes about Sports as a metaphor for life and this book intertwines the story of the characters and their lives both past and present with the pivotal events of historic baseball games.
I am not going to reveal anything else. Go and read it. It is a brilliant book by a brilliant writer. I loved it.
 RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "AUTHOR NEEDS TO DECIDE WHICH AUDIENCE HE WANTS TO TARGET." May 3, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
When I read what this book was about on the inside of the book cover I was very excited to read the book. The story is of a Harvard professor Seth Stein who was raised by his grandparents. His doting baseball loving Grandfather Papa Sol raised his grandson with the same ravenous passion for baseball that he had, built around the New York (then San Francisco) Giants and the Boston Red Sox. The author Bob Mitchell is a real life Harvard PhD and self-proclaimed sports nut. If you combine the information about the author listed on the book cover along with the author's acknowledgements at the end of the book, it makes it very hard to not immediately feel a kinship with the author if you're a baseball fanatic like I am. So, with that being said; it is very hard for me to give the level of rating that I do. But, I pride myself on giving integrity driven reviews. So in advance I counsel the prospective reader: "PLEASE DO NOT SHOOT THE MESSENGER. (REVIEWER)"
The story starts off as if its target demographic is kids from twelve years of age on up. That doesn't mean an adult like myself couldn't enjoy it, as I recently read just such a book by Mike Lupica entitled "THE BIG FIELD" and loved it and gave it a FIVE-STAR rating. Lupica's book kept the same intellectual level all the way through the terrific tale. And herein lies the problem with this book. It starts off like a wonderful account of a young boy and his grandfather memorizing names and statistics of old baseball cards, memorizing all the players on their favorite teams, growing older together but always being connected by the lovable magical bond of baseball. Then all of a sudden Papa Sol just disappears with no word, no warning, and no clues. Two years later a birthday gift left behind in a drawer by Papa Sol for his now thirtyish grandson Seth, contains a magical baseball that leads Seth to mystical trips back in time to the 1951 "shot-hear-round-the-world" playoff game between the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers, to the 1962 World Series between the New York Yankees and San Francisco Giants, the 1986 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and New York Mets and the 2004 American League Championship Series between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees. All this mystical baseball magic told in a way enjoyable to both youngsters and baseball crazy adults like me. But intermixed throughout the writing are quotations and references such as: "The face he now observes appears not to be Elsie's at all, but Eve's in Masaccio's unsettling 1427 "The Expulsion from Paradise"... "Seth injects the harrowing word with a dose of "ONOMATOPOEIC" fun..."Irregular lines that look, curiously, like the right half of VULCAN'S anvil and read like a vers libre poem."... A movie or a sepia daguerreotype."... "A tear wells up in the corner of his right eye and desiccates before it can descend"... "Positions herself in a supine pose reminiscent of Goya's La Maja Vestida."... "The television, a twelve-inch-screen, antediluvian beaut"... "He can feel the collective weltschmerz of it all"... "Feels to him like that scene on the beach in Camus's L'Etranger where the merciless, glaring sun strikes the forehead of absurdist hero Meursault like a knife."... "Like the one surrounding the angel's face in Duccio's painting "Annunciation of the Death of the Virgin." Ad Nauseam.
What started out as a sweet story that seemed to be created perfectly to a Father and Son demographic becomes at times so intellectually challenging that the youth audience is gone and a very minute part of the fanatical baseball adult market will be able to hold on to the original enthusiasm. The ending is so contrived and NON-BASEBALL historically solved that I actually felt sorry for the author who so obviously loves baseball, but lets his PHD get in the way of what could have been a wonderfully sweet baseball fable.
p.s. As of the date of this review 5/3/08 Amazon lists the number of pages in this book as 288 when it is actually 215.
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