Customer Reviews

Our Tribe: A Baseball Memoir

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If you're reading this, you or someone you know is a fan of the Cleveland Indians. As if he's nodding to another person wearing Chief Wahoo, Pluto's book is by a Tribe fan, about the Tribe and Tribe fans, for Tribe fans. Old-timers will remember the exuberance of the Cleveland teams of the '40's through the mid-50's, while for younger readers, it is a good primer on the old names and places you've only heard about in passing. ANY Tribe fan will enjoy this book; it's not just about our Indians, but it is all about our Indians. You'll see what I mean when you read it. The real reason this book exists is as a salute to Pluto's father, and it is a touching, poignant, and entertaining read. I think we all can remember Game Seven, and the other agonies of seasons gone by. It's great to read a well-written book that reflects our feelings about the Indians.

If you went to the baseball game with your Father, this book will strike a chord in your heart. Beside reactivating some old memories (fortunately they become better with time), this book also illustrates why Indians fans are Indians fans, by birth-right. We are fans becouse most of us were born near Cleveland and went to the stadium with our dad's, neighborhood friends, college friends, clients, and yes our kids.

This book reminds you why Indians fans are so special. We didn't pick the Indians, they were given to us. In a day where the team was yours for life. When every spring you got excited at the chance that a miracle just might happen this year. When you didn't dare like the Yankees even if it seamed to be an easy way out to happiness. Being an Indians is more valuable than that. Thanks Terry.

Pluto's book captures the essence of what it has been like to root for a real loser for so many years, then to be rewarded with a great team for the mid and late 90s. He rightfully dismisses the foolish crying of Red Sox fans, who at least had good teams, good players, and a modicum of hope. Pluto is extremely touching when he writes about how his dad introduced him to the game and how the game held their relationship together, especially in his dad's last years.

As for the baseball, he is so right when he notes that real Tribe fans, when the team was 2 outs from a world title in '97, had real doubts even about the POSSIBILITY of the team coming out on top....which they did not! We'll get 'em this year, however.

This book is as much a story about a son and his relationship with his father as it is about baseball, and tells each of those stories wonderfully. For basball fans it is an entertaining history of the Cleveland Indians and is full of colorful players, managers, and even owners. From the perspective of this one baseball team, the reader has a ring side seat on how much our country, society, and professional sports have changed and grown over the last 75 plus years. Just from the standpoint of the baseball Terry Puto is as good as Ken Burns or George Will.

But the story within the story is really about the author and his father. That relationship is one that is full of joy and sadness, wonderful memories and yet regrets. The author comes to better understand and appreciate his father after a stroke makes it impossible to talk to his father. In a cruel irony, when the time came that the author was ready and wanted to share stories and talk to his father, he was not able to.
All fathers and sons should read this book.

A final comment on Terry Pluto's writing style. I have read three of Mr Pluto's books and appreciate the way he writes in a clean, no non-sense style and yet fills his books with so much detail and color.

This is a fantastic book for any Indians fan who grew up watching games at the old Stadium. It's for all of us who grew up rooting for a sad team who had never won anything before and was never likely to do so in the future. It helps us to remember those days when the important thing wasn't how good the team was or if they had a chance at the Series, but rather spending time with our fathers watching the game. Maybe, just maybe, this book will help us to remember what is really important once again.

Absolutely wonderful weaving of an at times diffcult father-son relationship (congrats for telling it like it was!) and the history of the Cleveland Indians. Never gets bogged down in year-to-year stats and his way of comparing Shoeless Joe and Manny Ramirez's careers was brilliant. The stories about Manny are priceless.

Like all his other sports books, Terry Pluto is easily the best sportswriter on the planet.

This is a superb book because it goes beyond being a great sports book. Terry Pluto's weaving of his relationship with his father into his lifetime love of the Cleveland Indians makes it a book that readers will think about long after they've finished reading it. It's not necessary to be a Tribe fan to enjoy this book. I'd even go as far to say that a reader need not be a baseball fan to feel empathy and self-reflection on his or her parent-child relationship, regardless of whether the person is the parent or the child. I've also read the author's "Loose Balls", a wonderful look back at the American Basketball Association, and recommend that to those who remember the ABA (go Oakland Oaks!) and to those who weren't around to enjoy those years.

I am definitely not a fan of the Indians,but I loved the book. If you are a fan of any team, you should enjoy this. Pluto drops fun anecdotes of Indians history and trivia throughout Our Tribe. He also comes to grips with his relationship with his father. An enjoyable read.

Terry Pluto has written an excellent book and as an Indians fan for 70 years I can easily relate to his personal story and to the history given of the Cleveland Indians. It is an excellent history for the most part, written as only a sports writer can, though he contradicts a couple other writers a few times. I espeically like the emphasis on the heroes of my childhood, Lou Boudreau, Bob Feller, Larry Doby and others on the famous 1948 team. I disagree with his contention that the l948 championship team was not one of the greatest championship teams ever and this is disproved in the detailed book An Epic Season by David Kaiser. Also for a really complete history of the Indians before and leading to 1948, Franklin Lewis wrote a book titled Clevland Indians published in 1949. Sadly, I don't know if that one can still be found or not, even through Amazon. It is more a history. Nonetheless, Our Tribe: A Baseball Memoir is a very good read and brings back the agony of the countless opportunities that former owners of the Indians let get by them. And the new owners may be doing that again today. :( As a personal story it is superb.

Yes, Terry Pluto writes about his family, particularly his father, but he also writes _for_ family -- i.e., for Clevelanders who feel bonded to each other by their love of the Indians. What he refers to in the title as "our Tribe" is, of course, the Cleveland Indians. But "our Tribe" is his immediate family as well. At the same time, it's also this extended family of lifelong Tribe fans, whose zealous attachment to the baseball team that represents Cleveland is out of all proportion to the team's place in the conventional history of baseball.

Pluto's narrative works on two levels. His description of what it felt like to root for the Tribe in old Municipal Stadium will resonate with anyone who has spent time in any ballpark rooting for the hometown team. But it strikes a special chord that can be heard only by someone who has spent time with _this_ team in _that_ stadium. He manages to speak to the larger audience of baseball fans in general while at the same time singling out his "family" and exchanging with them the familiar handshake.