false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172090813m/137787.jpg 137787 4 "At a point in life when one is through with boyhood, but has not yet discovered how to be a man, it was my fortune to travel with the most marvelously appealing of teams." Sentimental because it holds such promise, and bittersweet because that promise is past, the first sentence of this masterpiece of sporting literature, first published in the early '70s, sets its tone. What follows only gets better, deeper, more sentimental, and more bittersweet. The team, of course, is the mid-20th-century Brooklyn Dodgers, the team of Robinson and Snyder and Hodges and Reese, a team of great triumph and historical import composed of men whose fragile lives were filled with dignity and pathos. Roger Kahn, who covered that team for the New York Herald Tribune, makes understandable humans of his heroes as he chronicles the dreams and exploits of their young lives, beautifully intertwining them with his own, then recounts how so many of those sweet dreams curdled as the body of these once shining stars grew rusty with age and battered by experience. It is the rare sports book that cannot be contained by the limitations of its genre; it is equal parts journalism, memoir, social history, and poetry. 531334 1972 The Boys of Summer total:343|5:133|4:127|3:70|2:10|1:3| 343 1406 544 48 4 0 false false Mon Sep 14 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 28 08:19:13 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 14 06:22:40 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Wed Aug 29 08:35:33 -0700 2007 Fri Jun 05 15:44:26 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu Mar 22 23:27:09 -0700 2007 Thu Apr 19 00:03:10 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue Jun 17 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 16 12:33:11 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 16 12:48:16 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1975 Sat Dec 13 23:58:01 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 14 15:40:33 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Oct 05 17:46:43 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 05 17:53:17 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1993 Tue Sep 15 21:02:21 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 15 21:04:03 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Sun Oct 19 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Mar 24 09:37:36 -0700 2009 Tue Mar 24 09:40:03 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Sat Jun 14 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Apr 16 20:01:35 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 16 16:36:49 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Sun Jun 15 20:04:02 -0700 2008 Sun Jun 15 20:12:10 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Aug 22 07:47:08 -0700 2007 Wed Aug 22 07:54:59 -0700 2007 Kahn writes from a bygone era of American journalism, for that bygone paper, the Herald Tribune. In 1952, as the beat reporter for the Brooklyn Dodgers, he follows the team all around the country, getting to know the players far mor...more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Wed Jun 03 16:17:14 -0700 2009 Wed Jun 03 16:18:06 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Tue May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Mar 26 16:30:34 -0700 2007 Wed May 09 18:25:58 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed Apr 16 20:37:45 -0700 2008 Wed Apr 16 20:37:45 -0700 2008 4 I See the Boys of Summer in Their Ruin and I just realized how homoerotic that poem is--I don't remember discussing that aspect in class. I digress. This is one of my favorite books, one I reread every few years. Again I am reminded that death is inhere...more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1985 Thu Nov 05 15:34:32 -0800 2009 Thu Nov 05 15:35:14 -0800 2009 5 0 false false Fri Oct 16 16:07:24 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 16 16:07:48 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Tue Jan 20 19:31:05 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 21 06:05:14 -0800 2009 5 0 false false Fri Jan 16 05:02:22 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 16 05:02:46 -0800 2009 5 0 false false Fri Apr 10 19:34:21 -0700 2009 Fri Apr 10 20:03:21 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Fri Jan 23 07:45:31 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 23 07:49:45 -0800 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=137787