Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

It’s about being there for your team

Just Show Up: And Other Enduring Values from Baseball's Iron Man by Cal Ripkin, Jr.

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When I was a kid, I loved baseball. I played it, I collected cards, I watched the games on tv and at the Astrodome, I read about it in magazines, I prepped my glove like it was Excalibur. You name it. The early 90s MLB strike ruined the game for me and I haven’t really been back. However, even as an outsider, I was aware of Cal Ripken, Jr.’s amazing streak of playing in over 2,600 games. Can you imagine doing anything 2,600 times in a row? I […]

84, Charing Cross Road for baseball fans

Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger

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Last Days of Summer tells the story of a friendship between Joey Margolis, a Jewish kid growing up in 1940s Brooklyn, and Charlie Banks, a third-baseman for the New York Giants. Joey’s father is completely absent from his life, and it ain’t easy being the Jewish kid at school without a dad (he gets beat up a lot). As a result, Joey acts out, gets himself thrown into juvie for peeing in the reservoir, and embarks on a relentless campaign to get the attention of […]

“Love. Family. To be who you are. The things we don’t always get in this life.”

Unwritten Rules by KD Casey

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I think I learned more about baseball from this book than I have ever in my life. Given that I have actively avoided absorbing any knowledge about baseball, the true testament to the quality of K.D. Casey’s debut romance, Unwritten Rules, is that I enjoyed learning about baseball. Unwritten Rules is a leisurely paced second chance romance between two professional baseball players. Casey moves between the past and the present, giving the reader the end, the beginning, the middle, and the renewal all from Zach […]

Ready, Set, B-I-N-GO start this off with a splash

Shark Summer by Ira Marcks

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  cbr13bingo  HOME  The journey I took to read the book Shark Summer: I heard we were having the author (Ira Marcks) for a virtual event. I found the reader copy. I did not read it until after the event, which I also forgot was happening. Therefore, I was unable to partake of the knowledge, information and questions asked of him/passed down by him. However, that was a good thing as one should not go into this book knowing too much about it. Those spoils […]

If the dino hits the ball with its tail is that a strike or ball?

Fuzzy Baseball V04 Di-No Hitter by John Steven Gurney

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I loved the first book in the series Fuzzy Baseball by John Steven Gurney (illustrator of the A to Z Mysteries). And while I liked the second (Ninja Baseball Blast) as well, it was more of the same (the local baseball team plays baseball and learns lessons in sportsmanship, being good people and the game). I did not realize there was a third (R.B.I. Robots) out last spring, and I just received an e-book galley of number four, Di-No Hitter (due in mid-June 2021). This […]

In Plain Sight

I Had A Hammer: The Hank Aaron Story by Hank Aaron

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Years ago, I used to watch the painfully obnoxious sports commentary show Around the Horn while waiting for Tony and Mike to duke it out on Pardon the Interruption. ATH has since incorporated much better guests, and host Tony Reali is a prince of a guy, but at the time, it was just a bunch of white guys whining about Barry Bonds and tongue bathing Brett Favre. During yet another Bonds session, one of the guys, I think it was Bill Plaschke, contrasted Bonds with Hank Aaron, the man […]



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