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Six Good Innings: How One Small Town Became a Little League Giant

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

SIX GOOD INNINGS tells the tale and pretty much carries the flavor of how a small town little league team begins to learn and appreciate their game. Nicely constructed prose from author Kreidler, himself an ESPN guy shows that he knows the feel of a good bat, belting one perfectly on that sweet spot and the resonating sound of getting it right.

Toms River would produce a great group of kids who learn about winning and losing... and winning and losing all over again. The transition from youthful innocence to a wiser bunch of lads who learn how to keep going on is a compelling read, and so perfectly American that it deserves kudos and your time.

The bottom line is I loved it and couldn't put it down for too long. Let it break your heart a little because it certainly will. This is little league with clarity and soul.

Mark Braun
Executive Director
Old Timers' Baseball Association of Chicago
Since 1919

I am impressed with Six Good Innings, having spent time in Toms River and seeing the environment, it is amazing the work that goes into developing the next best Little League team. The timing of this book coming out at the beginnning of the Little League WS is great too. You hear about these young people putting in long hours to become the best in their age group, in their town. Some have historically gone on to the pros. Is this hard work any different than what goes into being a Child Prodigy in Piano or Violin? Great work and encouraging. Worth it for those who want to see their kids get involved in sports.

As the father of a Little Leaguer, I was able to connect easily with the stories and emotions portrayed in this book. It is a very quick read, as Kreidel captures the drama, the joys and failures of Little League players, families and communities, as they sometimes carry on their shoulders the weight of becoming the ultimate champions of America's pasttime at the Little League level.

Kreidel documents the 2007 Little League season for one of the Toms River All Star teams, a community that got on the map due to the improbable appearence of one of its Little League teams 3 out of 5 years in the 1990's, inclduing a Little League World Championship over perennial champion Japan. This victory came with its blessings and curses, both of which are dealt with in engaging form by Kriegel: the accolades, fame and influx of resources; the pressure to repeat that has been laid upon the shoulders of each Little League generation to come.

Kreidel covers the story mostly from the perspective of the team's coach, and includes substantial insights, introspection and commentary from the kids as well. A highly recommended insider's view on the heart and soul of a community that bulds its dreams on the baseball diamond.

As a native of the Jersey Shore now living in a Massachusetts town that recently sent a team to Williamsport, I was doubly interested in this book...but anyone with an interest in baseball should find Mark Kreidler's account worthwhile. My only criticism is that I was hoping for a bit more narrative along with the history. NJ has always lived in the shadow of NY, and you can only imagine how the media attention was welcome to Toms River, something to celebrate and bask in.

Kreidler takes a season-long look at a fascinating subject. He focuses on one team for one playoff season as they push to make the little league world series. These boys of little league are so young (12 and 13) but so determined to make it that they give more to training than most adults give to their full-time jobs. Kreidler does a great job of giving a balanced look at the situation, largely reserving judgment for the readers.

The book raises a number of great issues: Why are youth sports so competitive? Why do we push kids to achieve such specialization so early? Is it worth the potential cost in both injury and lost youth to have kids push this hard?

Overall, the book itself is written very well. It was entertaining enough that I read it within 24 hours of starting it. I was kind of annoyed by the numerous digressions and side stories (I wanted to find out what happened to the team!) but overall the book was very good and recommended to all baseball fans.

Six Good Innings: How One Small Town Became a Little League Giant is a story about little league baseball in Tom's River New Jersey from both the past and the present. The history of Tom's River little league looms large over the teams of today. As with most books, there are shortcomings. But the shortcomings should be put into proper context. For those willing to read through the slow parts, Mr. Kreidler has produced a good story of the present day team.

THE STORY

Toms River had profound Little League World Series success in the nineties under Coach Gaynor. That precedent meant that when the TRLL team of 2006 won their sectional and went on to the state championship, the 2007 team was already considered a favorite to return to Williamsport. Coach Puleo's 2007 team shows promise, but has to overcome high expectations as well as several bad breaks.

The first two chapters are meant to give insight into the rivalries between the various teams that have become collectively known as "Tom's River," even though the East teams of the 90s are very different from the Americans featured in the 2007 story. In that sense, Mr. Kreidler seems to be emphasizing that the perception of "Tom's River" as a baseball monolith is a misperception. He goes to great lengths to show that the high expectations are unrealistic given the luck needed to win in the current playoff format.

The story of John Puleo's team from 2006 and 2007 begins to take hold more in chapters three through seven and the epilogue. Those chapters are shorter, easier to digest and flow much better. We get to learn the fire and determination of Johnny and the good heart of Chris. This is the story that many readers probably were hoping would have started with chapter 1.

Baseball strategy is only lightly mentioned when it was relevant to the drama of a specific game. This is more of a human interest story about the players and their families.

ESPN is actually key to the story of Little League baseball and its worldwide spotlight. Till ESPN became a household name, there was no outlet to give Little League baseball such exposure. Tom's River managed to succeed in the early years of that new coverage. To criticize Mr. Kreidler for being an ESPN contributor is unfair. It's akin to criticizing a photographer for having pictures submitted to the Associated Press. ESPN's coverage is clearly the reason for little league baseball's visibility.

Kreidler makes it clear that Toms River's successes were due to good luck and good timing. No doubt, good players and coaches helped. But advancing far in the little league tournament essentially adds up to getting the right breaks as well as playing well.

THE CRITICISMS

I must admit that this book was NOT an easy read for me. In fact, I found that while I sometimes read quickly, this book took me almost a month to read 10 to 20 pages at a time. The book starts slow and the early narrative seems to switch between time periods in a disjointed way. Telling the story in chronological order would have made the key elements easier to communicate and understand.

The book also tends to over-document the successes of the past teams to give context to the 2007 team. The first two chapters approach 100 pages of very dense dialogue and repetitious background stories about the Tom's River teams that put the Jersey Shore town on the world's baseball map. It feels dry and lends to confusion because of the early jumping of the timeline from present to past.

The story also goes off on tangents that are not always very enjoyable reading, such as lengthy explanations of the structures and rules of various tournaments. I could somewhat accept it but I knew some readers would be alienated.

Overall these flaws are minor relative to the book's positives.

CONCLUSION

By the end the book very much redeemed itself. Many others may not reach that finish line and thus may not get to some of the better sections. But if you can power through the slow parts, there is actually a really great story here.

I would actually recommend that those who already know about the Little League Baseball format and the history of Tom's River baseball might want to read chapters three through seven before chapters one and two. Those with no basic understanding will just have to power through those dense foundational chapters first.

If you love baseball and want to learn about the past and present of Tom's River Little League, this book may be for you.

Enjoy!

I thoroughly enjoyed Kreidler's last book about Iowa's passion for the sport of wrestling. But when I read the premise of Kreidler's latest offering - New Jersey town's obsession with Little League baseball - I confess I was a little skeptical. The images that came to mind were of overbearing, "helicopter" parents living their dreams through their kids' sports success, and boys who were so driven to succeed at the game of baseball that they sacrificed an important part of their childhood. But with Kreidler's story-telling skills and his astute character portraits, he thoroughly humanizes the coaches, parents, and kids of this town. To be sure, these kids are playing baseball at an elite level. But they are still kids after all. In one poignant scene, at a team swim party after one tough game, the boys seem to have put behind them the heartache baseball inevitably causes while plainly maintaining their love of the game. A great read if you love baseball, and especially if you have kids in Little League.

In the late 1980's- early 1990's Toms River, New Jersey was just another town between New York and Atlantic City. Then in the late 1990's Toms River had one of the greatest runs of Little League success of any American community. Reaching the Little League World Series three times (1995, 1998, and 1999) the Toms River All Stars set a standard any community would envy and any team would dread trying to match.

Fast forward to 2007. A new group of kids from Toms River have developed into one of the favorites to make the Series. Mark Kreidler tells their story as part of a dual narrative-the story of the team vs. the story of the towns love affair with baseball. He covers the good (great baseball, good kids, committed coaches and parents) and the bad (lunatics wanting special coaching for their five year old T-Ball player because he only hit .500 or parents living their fantasies thru their children)

Perhaps best of all the book reminds us of why we love baseball-the beauty of the game, the camaraderie of the team, the quest for excellence. From unrolling the picture of the field at Williamsport to swimming in the pool when the season is over the reader gets a real sense of the season and its effect on everyone involved.

The book has its flaws. While well written, it sometimes feels more like reading a newspaper account than telling a story. The language never takes off and becomes poetry the way the best sportswriting does. Yet, it is a great story and an excellent read, and I recommend it without reservation.

Should the little leaguers playing ball in your neighborhood playground show up on ESPN some sunny afternoon representing your town and country in the championship title, it would be a rare cause for celebration. To advance to the Little League World Series is a sports fantasy come true that very few of the two million little leaguers across the globe have realized. The seemingly indiscriminate small town of Toms River, New Jersey, incredibly managed to make three appearances in five years at the Series, winning the title over Japan in 1998. Residents of Toms River explain their knack for spawning baseball talent by joking, "it's in the water".

Author and ESPN contributor Mark Kreidler chronicles Toms River's astouding days of glory and subsequent attempts to retrieve the championship title in, "Six Good Innings", a book which owes more to the statistical drama of a scoreboard that it does to a warm field of dreams. With a sportswriter's eye for the game and it's psychological detail, Kreidler offers an illustrious play-by-play account of a small suburban town, its young players, dedicated coaches, and spectator parents, all caught up in the joy and frenzy of Little League, from the hot dogs on the grill small town atmosphere of a baseball game in the park, to the unflinching and reserved awareness of stressed players, dreams shattered, over eager coaches and parents, and corporate interest lurking for a winning team. Upon leaving to play the World Series game in 1995, the Toms River team received an offer from Regis Philbin to appear on his program. Upon return, with a failed attempt at the title, the team was greeted with a note from Philbin: "maybe next year boys".

While politics and complexities seep into this children's game, the simple 'thunk' sound of a bat hitting the ball, and all the virtuous qualities America's favorite pastime represents is the impression author Kreidler leaves us with. The glory here is exhuberant but short-lived, as is the agony of defeat. The boys go on to play more baseball elsewhere, the coaches stay close to the playing field, and more generations of kids advance from T-ball into the little leagues and beyond. The book is baseball talk, pure and simple without resorting to sentiment. We thankfully never learn that Johnny's father is a drunk or that Billy's parents can't afford to keep him in little league. It's a playground of dreams.

In the mid-1990's a city in New Jersey named Toms River sent three Little League All Star teams to the Little League World Series, with one of them winning it all. This was both a great thing - in that the athletes, coaches, children, and parents in the town learned that anything is possible - and also terrible in that people started putting very unrealistic expectations upon the shoulders of children.

While it takes a great team to make it to the world championships, it takes every bit as much luck as skill. And while you can work as hard as humanly possible on the skills, no one can control outside factors like scheduling, weather, or injuries to the kids.

And so we come to the Toms River Americans in the summer of 2007. In the previous year, in 2006, this Little League All Star team finished third in the state championships. So then...for their twelve year old summer, when it is possible to go to the Little League World Series, expectations from parents, fans, coaches, and the children themselves were very very high.

The children described in the book are obviously good kids with (for the most part) supportive families. They are also extremely hard workers and elite athletes. After their 2006 season many of them gave up on their other sports to concentrate on baseball year round - as is so often the case in these days with gifted athletes (as I know, having one former child athlete finished with high school and another, who competed in his sport on a national level in middle school now in high school - I can report that yes, the coaches do expect year round committment and practice for each and every sport).

These children - and they ARE children - worked on their baseball skills as hard as they could for that intervening year. In the fall they had travel baseball. In the winter they worked out in an indoor baseball facility. In the spring they had regular Little League. And in the summer, All Star Little League began again, with two a day practices - four hours of hard work every day for more than fifty days. And with the dream and goal of making it to the Little League World Series.

How many adults could go for more than fifty days in a row without a day off?

How many adults could deal with that much internal and external pressure?

Needless to say, all of this work showed not only in the high level of skill these kids showed - but also in physical and emotional strain.

As the parent of an elite athlete, who was scouted by university coaches in middle school, I know some of the sacrifices to family time and endless hard work on the part of the child that goes into the glory of aiming at a national or state championship. I also find myself constantly questioning myself and my husband and my children's coaches about putting undue expectations and pressure - both emotional and physical - upon that child.

This book goes right into the heart of that debate - is the potential athletic glory and possible rewards down the line like college athletic scholarships worth the family sacrifices and near insanity of scheduling?

Well researched and well written, this is the story of an elite Little League All Star team with big dreams, and even bigger pressure put upon them by their community, rivals, parents, coaches - and themselves.