Customer Reviews

The Final Season: Fathers, Sons, and One Last Season in a Classic American Ballpark (Honoring a Detroit Legend)

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a great book about family and the emotional pull that a sports stadium can have on a lifelong fan. I can identify with Mr. Stanton's emotions because I went through the closing of my baseball cathedral last year - Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Certainly Three Rivers didn't have the rich history and longevity of Tiger Stadium. Nor did it have the charm. But the best memories I have of my dad are going to Pirates games with him and cheering for the Battlin' Bucs.

I've read 10 to 15 baseball books this year and I have to rank this number one. The strength of this book is that it's never sappy or maudlin. Mr. Stanton perfectly captures the essence of why millions of adults care so much about this great game.

I attended dozens of ballgames at Tiger Stadium, mostly in the late 70s and early 80s. I saw my first ever major league game at Tiger Stadium in 1972, with my father and grandfather (the first and likely the only time I will have attended a ballgame with three generations of family represented) and was instantly in awe of the place. It struck me as being an enchanting world unto itself.
Tom Stanton's book captures brilliantly the atmosphere of this grand old ballpark -- the people who worked and played there, the eccentric, asymmetrical features of the field and the stadium, the crumbling neighborhood around Michigan and Trumble, and the eternal voice of the Tigers, Ernie Harwell. Mr. Stanton cares a lot about the game of baseball, the Tigers, and the Stadium; he is also quite conscious of the value that baseball, and attending games, can have on members of a family. The book holds recollections that are sometimes joyous, sometimes melancholy and bittersweet; I am certain that Mr. Stanton has portrayed his own family story as it relates to Tiger Stadium with honesty and compassion.
Anyone who ever had a chance to see a game at the ballpark will want to read this book. Those of us who spent many happy hours at Tiger Stadium really miss the place. Mr. Stanton's book helps to keep its memories alive.

As a child growing up in the Detroit area, Tom Stanton dreamed about attending every home game of his beloved Tigers. When the dreaded news game that 1999 would be the team's final season in historic Tiger stadium, he decided to make that dream come true. What emerged was much more than just a game-by-game chronicle of what was, on the field anyway, a rather dreary season.

This book celebrates the stadium as a place that spanned the generations for countless players and fans. It's about the traditions that tie family and friends together; it's about life, love, loss...all the things in life that truly matter. You'll share this season with Tom, his aging father, and a cast of wonderful people he encounters during that summer, including Al Kaline, Ernie Harwell, Alice Cooper, Al the Usher and dozens more.

"The Final Season" won an award as best baseball book of the year. I hope you'll open these pages and learn why.

After many years of going to Tiger Stadium with my brothers, father, and friends I truly miss it. Tom Stanton does a wonderful job writing about Tiger Stadium, the stories behind it, and the people who love it. If you have many memories of Tiger Stadium and fell in love with the ballpark, the sun in the bleachers, the chiped paint, the right field seating, the beams that support the stadium, or Ernie Harwell I suggest you buy this book.

A must of a Tiger Fan!!

Growing up in Detroit, I was raised to be a Tigers fan. My dad taught me about baseball, and took me to games at "The Corner." It was there that my love of the game grew. The thing about Tiger Stadium is that you were so close to the action. Sitting in upper deck behind Ernie Harwell's booth, you would be closer to home plate than the first basemen. Tom Stanton seems to have a love for the game like so many of us do. His memories from his childhood remind me of mine, the stories of his father's childhood as the son of Polish immigrants is much like my father's. I find the book reminding me of family stories long forgotten, and will remind every male raised to love sports of going to the old ballpark, playing catch with dad, and what sports WERE about, not money, but a love of the game. It is a great tribute to baseball.

This is a wonderful book from a small-town journalist who can still be star-struck around his heroes. It's just what the title says. The author went to all 81 games of the last season (1999) at Tiger Stadium. (My wife -- one of his college journalism instructors -- and I were also at the last opener -- top row, upper deck near third base). But the book is about memories, not the games themselves -- of the author and his father and brothers and uncles and sons at the ballpark and playing ball in general. And he talks to everyone from Ernie Harwell to peanut vendors, from ballplayers to fans. Perfect for sons to recall memories of going to ball games with their dads. And a perfect gift for Father's Day. Highly recommended.

My son, my husband and I read this book over the weekend, mostly aloud, as part of a school joint project. It was recommended by someone at the bookstore. He is 14 and a true lover of baseball, as is his father. He generally is not a big reader, but all of us enjoyed this book tremendously. Each of us on different levels, and for different reasons. I found it enlightening as a mom, not quite getting the whole baseball thing completely. My husband and son really enjoyed the
accounts of the game and the baseball history. I thought the writing was easy to read, and the reminiscing about his dad and family related to Tiger Stadium and baseball very touching and insightful. I hope to read it again, by myself. It was a great book!

For the past 15 year or so there's been a small but unmistakable conflict in my mind when it comes to professional baseball. The game today, though one that I still love, is speckled with disappointment and resentment. Every time I go to a game at Ranger's Ballpark (I'm a devoted Cleveland Indians fan living in the heart of Texas) and pay $20 for parking, $30 for a decent seat and over $100 for food/souvenirs, I'm again reminded how these inflated prices now pay for the players inflated salaries. Even the magnanimous attempts of the owners at dissuading us "old-timers" with the many new "retro" ballparks (Ranger's Ballpark being one of them) are disillusioning as these are generally too antiseptic to mirror the bygone era stadiums. I've been to the original Yankee Stadium, Fenway Park, Shea Stadium and Cleveland's Municipal Stadium and still remember the smell, the simplistic entrances and exits, the obstructed seats and the notable lack of luxury boxes...all things that cultivated a certain sensibility in me for the purity and innocence of the game. This book then by Tom Stanton, in my opinion, strives to understand and hopefully capture this elusive sentiment while eulogizing the end of the Detroit Tigers occupancy of Tiger Stadium. Along with it, I hoped it would be cathartic and restore in me some of that lost affection.

Vowing to attend all the home games in the Tigers final season at Tiger Stadium in 1999, Stanton chronicles his observations at these games and by doing so has scribed a testimonial not only to the loss of a family heirloom, but, as he states, "the sense of mortality". He writes about his family memories and notable milestones in his life celebrated at the stadium (most of these involving his father), while searching for that missing "sensibility" that I mentioned above that will make the loss of the stadium less melancholy and easier to understand. And I think he finds it in the end...clearly it's the acceptance of the inevitable and the sense of moving on. Stanton is truly erudite in describing the end: "This season has helped me realize that my life is becoming like the stories of my father and uncles, set in places that exist only in memory...We live on through our attachments to people, through our relationships with the ones we love."

A necessary closure for Stanton has him, of course, attending some early games in 2000 at the new Comerica Park. Comparisons are inevitable and he admits to liking much about the new place: it "feels a part of downtown and after games the streets show life; people linger, intrigued by the exterior...it's not Tiger Stadium but it has much to recommend it." For me, this book succeeds thoroughly in capturing that elusory bygone passion which is succinctly stated Angell-esque in the closing: "my favorite spot takes me away from the action behind the upper deck near right field. There's a wide walkway where you can stand in the breeze and look down Columbia Street. And on the horizon you can see the top of Tiger Stadium, it's darkened light towers silhouetted by the setting sun. And if you listen with your heart, you can hear all sorts of things. You can hear your childhood, you can hear your dad and your uncles, you can hear Kaline connecting, you can hear the muted cheers distant, ghost crowds, and you can hear your grandpa calling out from the bleachers. It's a beautiful sound and it echos across the decades."

After many attempts by local philanthropists and historical societies to save the site, the remnants of the stadium were finally demolished in September 2009.

This is a moving look at Tiger Stadium (1912-1999) and the vital father-son-family ties of baseball fans. Attending every home game that final season, author Tom Stanton captures the feel of this venerable arena, introducing us to those that played, worked, or watched games there, including four generations of his baseball-loving family. Readers feel as if we are sitting in the close-by upper deck watching Babe Ruth, Hank Greenberg, and Bob Feller. It was here that a stricken Lou Gherig ended his playing streak in 1939, Ted Williams (1941) and Reggie Jackson (1971) hit famous All-Star game homers, Ernie Harwell called the action (1960-2002), and the Tigers four World Series (1935, 1945, 1968, 1984). Readers learn about Stanton's immigrant grandfather cheering on Ty Cobb from the grandstands, then father, author and son arrived to root for guys like Gehringer, Newhouser, Kaline, Freehan, Gibson, Trammel, and Whitaker. I'd have liked better photos and more attention on the economics (urban decline, no skyboxes) leading to the park's abandonment, but this remains an excellent narrative.

We traveled to Detroit to see this inspiring if imperfect ballpark, and found it similar but superior to our city's Comiskey Park (1910-1990). Sadly, they are now tearing it down except for a section of infield grandstands. At least we have this moving narrative as testament to baseball at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull.

As a huge baseball fan, I have read many, many baseball books. Even though all of them were either entertaining or informative in their own way I have not yet rounded out a Top Ten. What qualifies my Top Ten is a sense of sadness when the book is finished. The Final Season is such a book and now joins the likes of A Stolen Season, The Celebrant, Men At Work, Eight Men Out and Shoeless Joe on my list of favorites. I was lucky enough to see a game at Tiger Stadium and can understand the emotional attachment. It is a poignant book and had me fully expecting to see the ghosts of Tigers past coming out of the dugout.