Customer Reviews

Stolen Season: A Journey Through America and Baseball's Minor Leagues

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David Lamb's summer through the minor leagues is one of the most outstanding baseball books I've ever read. He writes like a storyteller and really makes the reader care about every team and player he writes about. These players, particularly in the low minors, really play baseball for the love of the game and the chance they might make it big one day. Lamb also takes the time to make the local color of the towns he visited come alive. With all the problems of Major League Baseball now, this book will remind you why you care about baseball.

As I read this book, I was reminded a bit of Steinbeck's old book, "Travels with Charley." In both books, the reader is treated to a commentary of "life on the road." However, in this case it's following the author as he travels across country in his RV to watch numerous minor league baseball games. How many of us as baseball fans secretly wish we could do just that? How many of us however actually have the time and more importantly the finances to do this?

While the book is dated, it still is well worth a read. The author describes the dreams of numerous minor league ballplayers to make it to "the Show," but points out only one out of every fourteen actually makes it to the big leagues. And not only is this book about their stories, but the stories of numerous minor league towns, and the people the author encounters. He also gets to meet and talk with several of his boyhood idols, players from the 1957 Milwaukee Braves. Some of the stories of these people are sad, some hilarious, but all of them are quite entertaining. I've recommended this book to a friend with a son who aspires to be a "big leaguer" someday, because it entails some of the hardships involved in getting there. This book is a travelogue of places where time has seemingly stood still and the players are gods, even if they are only minor leaguers pursuiing a dream.

Stolen Season is a very enjoyable read that chronicles a Summer of writer David Lamb's life. Badly needing a break from his job as a foreign journalist, Lamb decides to fulfill a life long dream of driving accross the country visiting as many minor league baseball parks as he can. Although baseball games are the intended stops, his encounters with the people around the country are just as important, making this an enjoyable read whether you are a baseball fan or not. This book has inspired me to make an effort to visit more minor league parks where the game is still just a game. Make it a point to check this book out.

Mr. Lamb's use of baseball as the backdrop for this narrative of travel and rediscovery is entrancing. Though my enjoyment of Stolen Season was enhanced by my love of the game, I have passed this book around to friends who have no interest in the national pastime and they have enjoyed it as much as I. The vividly described scenes and characters are a delight - from the hills of West Virgina to the California Valley - from the aspiring pitcher Monson to Hurricane Bob Hazel, a player that lived the dream one fall many years ago. Outstanding!

David Lamb stole a season of his adult life in a gamble to strengthen his love affair with baseball. After spending an entire summer traveling across America in pursuit of minor league teams, owners, managers, bus drivers, fans, stadiums and, of course, players, it is obvious Lamb is all the more infatuated with America's game, in spite of the blemishes he very honestly reveals. And any reader who has the least bit of respect for baseball will find himself or herself falling in love again, with the game and with the people who make it up, people like David Lamb.

Simply, one of the best books I have read. This book is more about life than it is about baseball. The underlying theme is of young men chasing their dreams and the baseball diamond is the medium.

David Lamb has written a one-in-a-million work on minor league baseball. His unique writing style has a flair for capturing the reader at the beginning and leaving them breathless throughout the book. His work translates well to both blue-collar and white collar readers and will definitely inspire or rekindle a love of the game. "Stolen Season" is a must read for anyone who appreciates the struggles that minor league ballplayers go through both on and off the field in relentless pursuit of reaching "The Show".

This is one of my favorite books about traveling the back roads of America, going to minor league games and experiencing America.

a great book for a baseball lover - more than baseball it's a journey through a part of America. I bought it for my grandson, but I loved it and would not likely go to a baseball game.

Well, I was saddened but not surprised to see that this fantastic book only had eight reviews. Nonetheless, all the reviewers hit the nails on the head: this is a GREAT work of writing. Lamb tells these stories like a pro, which he is. The anecdotes, the quotes, the connections he's able to somehow obtain, are remarkable and informative.

I also want to commend Lamb for being one of the few journalists who is not arrogant, and thus, does not make his social or political views evident -- which is not easy to do when moving throughout our great nation and seeing all the glory and/or despair. Hopefully the media elites take a cue from him, but then again, this was 1989, not 2008 where NY Times "journalists" care more about Pulitzer and sharing our nation's secrets than honest journalism...

Anyway, even though I read this nearly two decades after the publication, nothing really seemed lost or out-of-date, sans the Red Sox winning the world series and the addition of a few new MLB teams. I was very glad to be able to pick this book up for a dollar at a used book store.