Customer Reviews

You Never Forget Your First: Ballplayers Recall Their Big League Debuts

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When I checked this book out from my local library, I was expecting good things due to the interesting title and little-covered subject matter (a ballplayer's major league debut). Unfortunately, what I ended up with was an index of players, a whole bunch of box scores, some short biographies, and some usually uninteresting player commentary.

The book follows this basic formula: author Josh Lewin lists a bunch of ballplayers (250 pages worth, from past to present) in alphabetical order, gives a one-page biography of them, then a half-page of their comments about their major league debut. Each player synopsis ends with the box score of their respective debut.

While presented in an interesting and eye-catching format, the book fails on both levels of reader interest: "rookie" baseball fans will become bored with the repetitive formula, while hard-core fans (like myself) will find the content to be 98% biographical commentary from Lewin (featuring stats/stories we already known), and 2% of rather uninteresting commentary from players (they all recount basically the same story of getting told in the minors they were going up to the "Big Show").

I made it almost 100 pages into the book before getting antsy and starting to skip around, reading about the players from my hometown team or those I have a strong interest in. Otherwise, it would have been a struggle to get through.

I pretty much agree with what the first reviewer wrote, but here's why I'm a little disappointed with the book (I'm about 1/3 through it right now) - it seems a little repetitive, getting basically the same story from a number of players. Who told them they were going to the majors, who did they call (and how), how did they get to the city of their first game. All good stuff, but a little heavy on the logistics of the call-up and not as much emotion as I'd hoped for. There are some tidbits that are really cool (such as Josh Beckett once threw a pitch at the FATHER of an opponent because he thought the guy was giving away pitch locations).

What I think would make a more interesting book would be a slightly different look. Ask the players about how they were first scouted, signed, moved their way up through the minors. Did the great players always know they'd be great, or did they have their moments when they were ready to give up (as Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle both did early in their careers). Did marginal players also believe they'd have better careers than they wound up having? Also interview some highly touted prospects who never quite made it. Stuff like that.

Anyway, this is a great concept turned into a worthwhile read by one of baseball's better TV announcers.

This book covers over 100 players and for each in 2-3 pages tells you a biography of a player, the player describing their debut in the bigs and a box score from that game. My favourite element was the last element though a fact about something that also happened on that day and a second fact which links the first to the player being profiled. Certainly not a book to be read in one go and best read a few stories at a time. Most of the players are fairly modern but there are a few players from the 60's and the 70's.