A Summer Up North: Henry Aaron and the Legend of Eau Claire Baseball (Paperback)

by Jerry Poling (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
June 12, 1952-only a local sportswriter showed up at the Eau Claire airport to greet a newly signed eighteen-year-old shortstop from Alabama toting a cardboard suitcase. "I was scared as hell," said Henry Aaron, recalling his arrival as the new recruit on the city's Class C minor league baseball team.

Forty-two years later, as Aaron approached the stadium where the Eau Claire Bears once played, an estimated five thousand people surrounded a newly raised bronze statue of a young "Hank" Aaron at bat. "I had goosebumps," he said later. "A lot of things happened to me in my twenty-three years as a ballplayer, but nothing touched me more than that day in Eau Claire." For the people of Eau Claire, Aaron's summer two years before his Major League debut with the Milwaukee Braves symbolizes a magical time, when baseball fans in a small city in northern Wisconsin could live a part of the dream.

From the Back Cover
"Poling's knowledge of Eau Claire, and his personal involvement with the story, add to the book's vividness and charm. He's uncovered terrific material about that first year, about Henry Aaron, and the story that ends the book is simply stunning. Poling is a fine journalist, an excellent writer, and a gifted storyteller."-Warren Goldstein, author of Playing for Keeps: A History of Early Baseball.

"Jerry Poling's very informative book about Aaron's first year in the minors in Eau Claire-a great baseball training ground for many Braves players-helped me understand how Henry Aaron bridged the cultural divide between growing up in the segregated South and playing in the North. Henry Aaron was one of the most disciplined athletes, mentally and physically, I ever knew. He also is one of the greatest people I have ever had the good fortune to know. A Summer Up North will help you appreciate why."-Allan H. (Bud) Selig, Commissioner of Baseball

Foreword by Allan H. (Bud) Selig --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press; 1 edition (October 2, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0299181847
• ISBN-13: 978-0299181840
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,291,987 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderfully well-written addition to baseball history, January 8, 2003

By	Jennifer M. Stolpa (Peshtigo, Wisconsin USA) - See all my reviews

This book is incredibly well written and offers the reader insight into an early part of Hank Aaron's life, but the book is so much more than that. It also vividly describes minor league baseball and its impact on one community. It delves into race relations in one Wisconsin city in the 1950s and today. It offers story after story, engagingly told, of how baseball affected lives of individuals and how individuals had an impact on the world of baseball, often through simply accepting someone like Aaron into their homes in an era where racial tension led too many to stare rather than welcome him. Poling's book is one of the most well-written sports histories I've read; I read the book in a day as I couldn't put it down. Granted, partly I was interested in it because I went to college in Eau Claire and lived in Duluth, Minnesota, for a couple of years (another city in the Northern League he discusses). However, I really believe that even those with no ties to Wisconsin but rather a love of baseball or an admiration for Aaron as a person and a baseball player will enjoy this book.