It's Good to Be Alive [Paperback]

Roy Campanella (Author), Jules Tygiel (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1995

Three-time winner of the National League’s Most Valuable Player award, Roy Campanella was catcher for the Brooklyn (soon to be Los Angeles) Dodgers in January 1958, when a car accident left him permanently paralyzed. It’s Good to Be Alive describes his determination to rally from helplessness and help other quadriplegics. It looks back to a famous career and to a childhood on the sandlots of Philadelphia.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

If Jackie Robinson was the heart of the Dodger teams of the late 1940s and early 1950s, Roy Campanella, the Brooklyn backstop, was its backbone. A powerful man with a powerful will, he won a trio of National League MVP honors in the 10 seasons before his Major League career, which began late because of his skin color, ended early as a result of a car crash. Campy's autobiography, originally published in 1959, is as gritty as the Hall of Famer was. It weaves its way from the Negro Leagues to the Majors, then digs in to detail the catcher's post-crash rehabilitation with honest inspiration.

From Publishers Weekly

Originally published in 1959, the year after the automobile accident that transformed him from a Hall-of-Fame baseball player to a quadriplegic, Campanella's long out-of-print autobiography nonetheless packs more uplift than any inspirational sports bio (the title says it all). Campy's refusal to succumb in to self-pity is an apt demonstration of the grittiness and self-determination that took him from 15-year-old Negro League catcher to color-barrier pioneer to bona fide major-league star. And yet, read against the backdrop of baseball's current labor unrest, his sunny outlook and unshakable faith seem naive. Campanella was, for example, used by his team's management to infiltrate the Negro Leauges to make sure black players they signed weren't too "risky" (something that had nothing to do with their on-field talent) and to break the color line in the American Association, at a time when he could have been playing in the major leagues. Although admitting "confusion" about his standing as a black man in the Dodgers' organization, he nonetheless is gushingly grateful toward his employers-an attitude both irritating and, as when he seeks advice from Al Campanis, deeply ironic (Campanis was the Dodger exec who said on Nightline that he truly believed blacks lack "certain necessities" to hold management jobs in baseball). Campanella's descriptions of his efforts to rebound from the accident-circumstances that might have crushed a lesser spirit-are far better, rescuing the book from the realm of sports cliche.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 314 pages
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press (March 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803263635
• ISBN-13: 978-0803263635
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,627,438 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A VERY MOVING NOVEL, December 21, 2003

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: It's Good to Be Alive (Hardcover)

THIS IS THE STORY OF ROY CAMPANELLA OF THE BROOKLYN DODGERS. HE TELLS HIS LIFE STORY ABOUT BASEBALL AND THE CAR ACCIDENT THAT LEFT HIM ALMOST TOTALLY PARALYZED. HE WAS A VERY GRATEFUL AND INSPIRING INDIVIDUAL. I REALLY ENJOYED THIS BOOK. HIS DESCRIPITION OF HIS STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE AND ALL HE HAD TO ENDURE TO HAVE A PRODUCTIVE LIFE AFTER HIS ACCIDENT IS TRUELY INSPIRING. ANYONE WHO READS THIS WILL TRULY APPRECIATE THE MIRACLE MAN ROY CAMPANELLA. VERY RECOMMENDED.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars touching and moving, September 4, 2003

By 

"22royaldiadem" (sherman oaks, ca. United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: It's Good to Be Alive (Paperback)

In this autobiography Roy Campanella takes you through his life as a child all the way through his debilatating car accident which left him quadripilegic. He asks the reader to please not feel sorry for him. Although at first thats hard, you later see that his life was rich with experinces and love. The book is very moving and I guarentee you will shed tears several times. You really get insight to Roy and find he is very much a lovable gentleman. The book surprising has quite a few mistakes, such as names of people (eg. instead of William Wrigley he writes Phil Wrigley. Also it's grammer isnt perfect. But this is easily forgiven. At the end of the book you feel you got to know Roy,and wished you could have met him.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well known by his generation, but not as anAmerican hero, June 18, 2000

By 

Dayton S. Ely, Jr. (Dewy Rose, GA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: It's Good to Be Alive (Paperback)

Campy was one of my boyhood heroes. I was devestated when I heard of the crash that cut short a great career for this quiet man. As much as he was a star in baseball, he was more so as a human being. Still aqlive when he had no chance to live, he was an inspiration to so many. No longer possessing the great physical ability that carried him to baseball stardom, he rose to stardom as a role-model, something blatantly missing in many celebrities today.

Join Campy in the struggles as a youth of mixed parantage, as a star in the Negro Leagues, a pioneer in organized baseball, but even more so as an unsung hero to manypersons with and without physical limitations