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Wait Till Next Year

3.97 of 5 stars 3.97 · rating details · 2,322 ratings · 351 reviews

Set in the suburbs of New York in the 1950s, Wait Till Next Year is Doris Kearns Goodwin's touching memoir of growing up in love with her family and baseball. She re-creates the postwar era, when the corner store was a place to share stories and neighborhoods were equally divided between Dodger, Giant, and Yankee fans. We meet the people who most influenced Goodwin's early...more

Paperback, 272 pages

Published June 2nd 1998 by Simon & Schuster (first published October 1st 1997)

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Jan 06, 2013 Steve aka Sckenda rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir, coming-of-age, new-york, fathers-and-daughters, baseball

Doris Kearns Goodwin, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning biographer of Lincoln and FDR, describes growing up as an Irish-Catholic in Long Island during the 1950’s. The slow death of Doris’ mother and the disappearance of her world destroyed her idyllic childhood. But an excellent father, community, church, and baseball consoled her and contributed to her achievement.

Goodwin credits her storytelling skill to baseball. Starting in 1949, young Doris would listen to Brooklyn Dodger games on the radio durin...more Doris Kearns Goodwin, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning biographer of Lincoln and FDR, describes growing up as an Irish-Catholic in Long Island during the 1950’s. The slow death of Doris’ mother and the disappearance of her world destroyed her idyllic childhood. But an excellent father, community, church, and baseball consoled her and contributed to her achievement.

Goodwin credits her storytelling skill to baseball. Starting in 1949, young Doris would listen to Brooklyn Dodger games on the radio during summer afternoons, and she would meticulously record each play, so she could then dramatize the entire game to her father as he sipped his ritual Manhattan cocktail in the evening.

Mr. Kearns, Doris’ father, stands out as a resilient saint. During his own childhood, Mr. Kearns lost both of his parents, two brothers, and a sister. He emerged from his traumatic childhood without relatives but also without self-pity or rancor. His misfortune continued with his wife’s long sickness and early death, but he was an optimistic and ebullient man--as well as a devoted and loving father to Doris. “He would write the story of his life himself, rather than let it be written for him by his tortured past.” (32)

Mrs. Kearns, Doris’ mother, suffered from premature aging, so, at the age of 30, she had the arteries and looks of a 70-year-old woman. An invalid who suffered ever more dramatic hospitalizations each year, Mrs. Kearns withered to 88 pounds and spent her confinement continually re-reading Tolstoy, Dickens, and the Brontes. Mother and daughter read aloud to each other from “David Copperfield,” and Doris summarized each chapter. Goodwin also credits this active reading with the development of her narrative prowess but admits that she became ashamed of and estranged from her sick mother and hoped that others would mistake her much older sister for her mother.

Otherwise, Doris’ childhood was “happily governed” by the dual calendars of the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Catholic Church. (84) She lovingly describes incense, Latin liturgy, soaring choral music, festivals, church bells, oak pews, stained glass, altars, gold vestments, candles, and the “serene darkness” of St. Agnes Catholic Church in Rockville Center. From her faith, Doris developed “a lasting appreciation for the role that pageantry, ritual and symbolism play in tying together the past and the present.” (87) She also memorized the Baltimore Catechism and appreciated how “the Catholic world was a stable place with an unambiguous line of authority and an absolute knowledge of right and wrong.”

Rather than race or religion, her neighborhood divided its loyalties among New York City baseball teams: Yankees; Giants; and Dodgers. “In each home, team affiliation was passed on from father to child, with the crucial moments of a team’s history repeated like the liturgy of a church service.” (61) Of course, Doris belonged to the Brooklyn Dodger tribe. Each year, during the playoffs, the Dodgers snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. She describes 1951’s “Shot Heard Round the World” (when Thompson swung against Branca and the Dodgers lost the pennant to the Giants) as one of the worst days of her life. This perennial disappointment with Brooklyn’s "bums" influenced the title of her memoir, “Wait Till Next Year.” “It was in October, that I first understood the pain, bravado and prayer woven into the simple slogan that became the Dodger’s anthem: “Wait till next year.” (83)

But despite defeats and near wins, Doris continued to worship “the boys of summer”(postwar players Jackie Robinson, Gil Hodges, Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reece, Duke Snider, and Roy Campanella). “Next Year” finally came for the scrappy Dodgers when they beat the Yanks in game seven of 1955 World Series. Events went downhill quickly for the Kearns family, as Doris witnesses changes in American life and the loss of community that correlated with the rise of television and with the spread of chain supermarkets, which replaced locally owned stores.

These societal changes led to the two largest traumas of her childhood: the death of the Brooklyn Dodgers and the death of her mother. First, Jackie Robinson retired, and the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles and closed Ebbets Field in 1957. Within a few months, while still disconsolate over the loss of the Dodgers, Doris' mother died at home. Doris then witnessed Mr. Kearns sobbing, “my pal is gone; my pal is gone.” Goodwin describes how the pungent floral displays at her mother’s funeral still make her sick to this day.

The death of his wife sent the long-suffering Mr. Kearns into deep depression and drinking. Within the span of a year, Doris lost her mother, the spirit of her father, her team, and the only home she ever knew. At age 15, Goodwin’s childhood was over. She and her father moved to an apartment because her father could not bear to be surrounded by memories of his dead wife. Doris was forced to give away many of her keepsakes as she prepared for a pared down life.

Doris started to resent her father until she discovered a family secret(which I won't reveal) about her father’s tragic childhood:

My poor brave father. He had been such a little boy when it happened. What a powerful determination he had…. If I grieved for the loss of my mother, what must it mean to him, whose whole life had been drowned in death? My self-pity, my trivial resentments at disruptions to my own life, drained away. I would be strong. I would help him. I loved him so very much.

She and her father resolve to embrace each other and resolve to “wait till next year.”

I was very moved by this memoir because I had much in common with Goodwin: a love of history, pageantry, baseball, the slow death of a parent during the most vulnerable age, and a yearning to get back the womb of the past from which childhood is untimely ripped.

This is not a celebrity puff-book but rather a serious memoir that re-creates an era that was very rewarding for white, middle-class Americans like the Kearnses. That era is now vanished-- lost, (like Blade Runner’s) “tears in the rain.” Goodwin’s loss gave her a yearning to reconstruct the past for us (like she did baseball games for her father) and to connect us with our heritage, our tears, and our hopes.(less)

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Jul 23, 2011 Teresa rated it 3 of 5 stars

Goodwin is an enthusiastic 'voice' that I remember quite well from Ken Burns' "Baseball" documentary. Not for nothing did her dad nickname her 'Bubbles,' as she relates in this book. My dad taught me how to keep score when I was very young, as did hers, and I also felt that baseball connection with my dad that she had with hers.

As far as memoirs goes, this book is okay, especially if you have no idea what it was like to be a Catholic child growing up in the '50s in the U.S., or perhaps if you a...more

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Apr 11, 2009 Ron rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a great book for anyone who loves baseball and grew up in the 40's and 50's when the Dodgers and Giants were still in Brooklyn and New York and were winning world series titles. It is also the memoirs of Doris Gearns Goodwin when she was a kid growing up in Long Island in the 50's with a very nostalgic look back at a less complicated America of that time.

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Mar 04, 2008 Suzanne rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography, summer-read

I love Doris Kearns Goodwin's style of writing. This is a baseball lover's book in a memoir format. Doris recounts her childhood growing up in Brooklyn and the role baseball, and the Dodgers, had on her relationships with her dad and her friends. Baseball was a way to communicate in an era when many kids were seen but not heard. It also was an escape, from the daily stresses we all face in life. Certainly it was a simpler time.
So many of us have fond memories of summer nights listening to base...more

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Jul 02, 2011 Robert rated it 3 of 5 stars

Lots of fun, even if you come from a family of Yankees fans.

Doris Kearns Goodwin is better known for her presidential histories. I've enjoyed her The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys and Team of Rivals. In this memoir we get to learn more about her own life and upbringing.

She grew up in Rockville Centre, Long Island, in the late '40s and '50s. The important themes of her childhood seem to be [A] Catholicism and [B] the Brooklyn Dodgers, not necessarily in that order.

And I have to say, her childhood...more

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Jun 25, 2011 Mary Anne rated it 4 of 5 stars

I may not have chosen this book to read if someone had not recommended it to me. It was an interesting story - basically a memoir of Doris growing up as a Brooklyn Dodger fan in the late 1940's and early 1950's. The story was about baseball & the strong bond it forged between Doris and her father. But it was also about growing up in a simpler time where everyone knew their neighbors and kids freely moved between houses. It was poignant to me since I also grew up in a house with a Dad who was...more

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Aug 31, 2010 Mark Ahrens rated it 5 of 5 stars

I have seen Presedential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin appear many times on TV political talk shows. I have also heard her speak on several occasions about her love for the Brooklyn Dodgers. You can imagine mydelight when I came across a copy of her 1997 book Wait Till Next Year: A Memoir at a used book sale. A favorite topic of mine--The Brooklyn Dodgers-- by a favorite writer. This memoir recounts Doris' childhood in the 40s and 50s in Brooklyn and later in Rockville Center, NY.

Goodwin uses t...more

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Mar 25, 2010 John and Kris rated it 4 of 5 stars

Each spring I try to read a book about baseball to get me excited for the upcoming season. In the recent past I’ve read Opening Day, Voices of Summer, The Bad Guys Won, Cobb, The Boys of Summer, The Soul of Baseball, Moneyball, Joe DiMaggio, and For The Love of the Game. I decided upon Doris Kearns Goodwin’s memoir after reading an excellent piece by Diana Schaub in National Affairs titled, “America at the Bat” http://www.nationalaffairs.com/public...

Full disclosure, I read this book as a "how t...more

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Oct 08, 2012 Lanny Carlson rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

As soon as I finished reading this book,
I immediately started reading it again, it's that good.

Doris Kearns Goodwin is a Pulitzer Prize winning historian,
the author of the superb book, "Team of Rivals: The Political genius of Abraham Lincoln," and frequently appears on a variety of news programs.

She also appeared in Ken Burns' PBS special, "Baseball,"
and it was this which led to the writing of this book.

Though it centers around baseball,
and especially the baseball of the Brooklyn Dodgers,
it is...more

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Jun 06, 2013 Globug rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, memoir

A poignant memoir, Wait Till Next Year recounts the childhood of noted historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. She recounts her life of innocence while growing up in a suburb of New York City during the 1950's and her passionate love for the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team. Throughout the novel, she recounts her reactions to national events through the eyes of a child.

Toward the end of the book, Kearns Goodwin discusses her adolescent reactions to the plight of the Little Rock Nine and her frustration w...more

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Mar 01, 2013 Linda rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: baseball, non-fiction-memoir, audio

I read this a few years ago. It was my introduction to Goodwin. I knew she was a historian. This book provides a look at a period of history from a very personal point of view. By the time I started following baseball, the Dodgers were already in Los Angelos and the Giants in San Francisco (although they had not been there long!). As a kid I loved baseball. As a girl, I my organized playing was restricted to softball but pickup games could be baseball or softball, depending on the ball that was...more

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Sep 11, 2011 Rickyjez rated it 5 of 5 stars

I can't wait until the next time I see Goodwin on Meet the Press . . . I'll feel like I'm watching an old friend. She shares an intimate account of her childhood in this memoir that is laughable, nostalgic, and tragic--but always filled with optimism. Today Goodwin is a renowned presidential historian, academic scholar, best selling author, and die hard Red Sox fan. She bubbles over when she talks to audiences and you can always envision the little girl in her, because of her overt enthusiasm fo...more

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Jul 21, 2008 monica rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Red Sox fans and baby boomers

Touching coming of age memoir from the fifties. Women of a certain age will remember many of the same scenarios, from studying the Baltimore catechism while preparing for first Communion, to swapping baseball cards, riding far beyond the neighborhood on our bicycles, and being welcome in any family's house or seeing our mothers ironing in front of the television.

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Mar 04, 2013 Ruth rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Baseball fans, history buffs

Recommended to Ruth by: Book Club

A wonderfully refreshing story telling the life of a young girl growing up in the post World War II era when life was pretty simple, and the most important news of the day was whether the Dodgers , Giants or Yankees were winning the baseball game that day. Names like Reese, Barber, Campenella, Hodges, and Robinson were bandied about like old friends.. Our country was thriving, recovering from the hardships and fears of the war, and children were safe and felt free to play kickball in the streets...more A wonderfully refreshing story telling the life of a young girl growing up in the post World War II era when life was pretty simple, and the most important news of the day was whether the Dodgers , Giants or Yankees were winning the baseball game that day. Names like Reese, Barber, Campenella, Hodges, and Robinson were bandied about like old friends.. Our country was thriving, recovering from the hardships and fears of the war, and children were safe and felt free to play kickball in the streets until dark. Neighbors were friends and everyone was aware of what went on in their community. When a baby was born or a young man arrived home from the service, everyone celebrated as if the event was their own.
Doris Goodwin shared a passion for baseball with her father from the age of six . He taught her how to chart the actions of players, took her to games and encouraged her love of the sport in many ways. She could recite the stats of the pros as readily as her father. Her intention in writing the book was that of reciting the history of baseball but as she began to write she became aware that her real life and her baseball life were so intermingled that she had to write her own story as well.
There were many events that sometimes destroyed the peaceful world of her young years. The reality of Polio which affected so many, the threat of a new war with Russia, the atomic bomb. The sixties were shaken with the Hippie “drop-out movement, the throes of Little Rock and the struggle for black equality. Life began to change for everyone. Ms. Goodwin recalls going to the Fantasy theater every Saturday to see the latest film and of sharing heartbroken tears with her best friend when Jimmy Dean was killed. Much of her childhood was spent in an innocent time, not only for her generation, but the nation itself. I can’t do justice to this story by my words but it is a lovely look at life as it was and as we sometimes wish it would be again. I recommend this book highly.
(less)

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May 09, 2009 Allison rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was recommended to me by my parents. My Dad is a fan of Goodwin because of her nonfiction history books. He discovered this memoir and loved it because she grew up around the same time as him and they both love baseball! My mom listened to the book on my Dad's recommendation. She loved it too. Both of them talked about the baseball parts of the book a lot which had me swithering about whether or not I wanted to read it, but in the end I decided to go for it, mostly because my Dad said it ma...more

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Apr 19, 2010 Catherine rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010-audiobooks, 2010-reads

I've heard of Doris Kearns Goodwin, but I've never read one of her books. My reading challenge for this quarter included a task to read a book about baseball. I wasn't really interested in reading a player biography and I actually wanted to read Alyssa Milano's memoir about her family's love of baseball. But, my library didn't have it. So, I started browsing around for other baseball books here on Goodreads. Boy am I glad I found this one.

In 1949, six-year-old Doris Kearns receives her first bas...more

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May 28, 2013 LA Carlson rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to LA by: found at the library

Shelves: historial-memoir

Do you like baseball? Do you enjoy the feeling of nostalgia? Even if you don't something tells me you'll enjoy the voice of Doris Kearns Goodwin. Kearns is currently receiving praise for her book regarding Lincoln but if you want to know the woman behind the words read this. You'll be captivated by the cover shot, motivated to hear how this woman's life revolved around baseball and be impressed by her admiration for one of the greats; No 42 Jackie Robinson. There is simply nothing not to fall ro...more

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Mar 18, 2010 Jan C rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: baseball fans, people who grew up in the '50s

Recommended to Jan C by: my father

Shelves: sport, biography, ny

I started this with my Dad's copy of this book. So, of course I had to pick it up as soon as I came home.

I think I thought it was going to be about the Cubs. "Wait Till Next Year" that's what Cubs fans always say - since about 1908.

Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin goes back over her own life and growing up loving the losing Dodgers. They were almost as pathetic as the Cubs. Fans of both teams (and others as well, I am sure!) know well the phrase - Wait Till Next Year. Next year finally came in Dor...more

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Feb 14, 2009 Jaclyn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Goodwin's book Wait Till Next Year is a nostalgic memoir flavored with her love of baseball and her family. Goodwin is known to most people as the Pulitzer Prize winning author and expert on Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. In this book though she is just the girl next door who grew up idolizing her father and Jackie Robinson, and dreaming of the year when the Dodgers would win the pennant. If you don't have some appreciation for baseball, her details on the classic New York falls might grow tedi...more

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Mar 20, 2013 Patricia rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Doris Kearns Goodwin is best known as a scholar and presidential historian and her book Team of Rivals influenced the 2012 film Lincoln.

But there's another facet to consider -- she's an avid baseball fan! Her touching memoir of life in the 1950s and her love of the Brooklyn Dodgers reveals the important influences in her growing up years. Her mother taught her to love books and her father taught her to love baseball. She listened to games, took notes, and scored the game so she could tell he fat...more

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Jul 06, 2011 Amy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, adult, audio, non-fiction, non-fiction-2011, memoir

9/10
A couple of years ago, I attempted to listen to Team of Rivals (also written by Doris Kearns Goodwin). I hate to not finish books (especially good ones), but it was so long, and I couldn't finish it before it was due, and then there was a massive hold list...and so I gave up.

But this book was different. For one thing, is was about 600 pages shorter. And because I love reading about the lives of other people, memoirs almost always hold my interest. But unlike other memoirs, this one sometimes...more

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Feb 09, 2011 Jennifer rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir, tfpl-book-club

Kearns Goodwin's account is a memoir of childhood, framed by her relationship with the Brooklyn Dodgers. You don't have to love baseball to enjoy this book (though it definitely enhances your experience). The unique circumstances of her connection to the Dodgers - sharing their trials and triumphs with her family and friends - is the draw of the book, but readers come away with more. The historian in her is able to tie together the incredible moments of history from the mid 40s through the late...more

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Apr 03, 2009 Susan rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a 3 1/2. The writing is at least a 4, but right after reading The Glass Castle with its shock factor on nearly every page, I found the memories and stories to be very mundane, and therefore a 3, (as I wouldn't say I *really* liked it.)
But that is what this book is supposed to be: a perfect example of a perfect childhood in the perfect 50's. The author goes from about age 6 when her father teaches her how to keep track of baseball in her little score books. It is a great story what life w...more

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May 01, 2012 Frances Kelly rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: owned

One of my favorite books, ever. It's a touching, well written memoir of a childhood strongly influenced by the author's father, baseball, and the Catholic church. Having grown up in Cincinnati, the birthplace of professional baseball where Opening Day is a holiday on a level with Christmas and Thanksgiving, I related strongly to her story - the peaks and valleys of the annual pennant race, the heartbreak of your favorite player being traded, the nostalgic recollection in later years of the old b...more

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Aug 09, 2009 Cheryl S. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: swap, 2009, historical-info, memoir, sports

Before reading this book I only knew Doris Kearns Goodwin as an historical author and was afraid her memoir might be a tad dry. I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed the book as I am not a huge baseball fan. However, I found myself identifying with her a great deal. We grew up in the same era, both with mothers in ill health for as long as we could remember, and families obsessed with sports. She recounts listening to games on the radio with her father and I remember sprawling on th...more

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May 06, 2013 Catawsumb rated it 4 of 5 stars

I just love her writing- she has an interesting combination of aggressive curiosity and essential niceness that comes through in everything she writes. Fantasy dinner party guest! This is a quick read- it uses her love of baseball as a window into the culture of her suburban growing up in the 50's, but also touches on the wider world (McCarthy hearings, civil rights) as seen by an inquisitive young girl. Also love that she writes about Vin Scully who was then the broadcaster for the Brooklyn Dod...more

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Apr 15, 2012 Rick rated it 4 of 5 stars

A really good account of growing up in the 1950's and the role that being a Brooklyn Dodger fan played in her relationships with her friends and family. Doris Kearns Goodwin has gone on of course, to become one of our most popular historians. But this book gives us a really nice insight into her childhood, with all its ups and downs. her devotion to her beloved Brooklyn Dodgers seemed to be a kind of metaphor for her life as well. A really good read, and while she is a few years older than i am,...more

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Mar 30, 2013 Elly Sands rated it 4 of 5 stars

I've been on a real winning streak with good books lately. Talk about good timing! Baseball's opening day is Monday (yippee!) and this was a great lead in. The author is a true baseball fan starting at age seven right up to the present day. We are about the same age so it was easy to relate to all of her childhood games and antics with kids in her neighborhood. She takes the reader as far as her high school years and it would be great if she would extend this memoir into another book. She can re...more

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Apr 24, 2009 Dick rated it 5 of 5 stars

If you grew up in the 50's and early 60's and enjoy baseball, you'll love this book! Kearns Goodwin shares what it was like growing up in Brooklyn when da Brooklyn bums ... er, Dodgers ... were trying to win a World Series. She describes listening to the games on the radio and keeping score in her scorebook so she could sit with her father after dinner and give him a blow-by-blow description of the game. (She didn't realize until later that box scores were published in the newspapers!). Goodwin...more

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Mar 07, 2008 Kathy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Kathy by: Baseball swap

The story of a young girl's love of baseball, by a master storyteller.

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“For your penance, say two Hail Marys, three our Fathers, and," he added, with a chuckle, "say a special prayer for the Dodgers.” — 2 people liked it

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