Say It's So: Papa, Dad, Me, and 2005 White Sox Championship Season

by Ben Shapiro, David Shapiro

Since 1917, no fan of the Chicago White Sox had seen their team win a World Series. Three generations. A lifetime. In the Shapiro household, the White Sox were lifeblood, passed along with the family from Nate to David, from David to Ben. Then, in 2005, the White Sox finally made a run. In "Say It's So," David and Ben Shapiro document that glorious year from the perspective of a father and son rooting for the team -- and rooting for each other. "I read a lot of books on baseball, but it's a rare one that can take me back to the summer of 1967, when I sat on the front porch with my father listening to radio broadcasts of the Impossible Dream Boston Red Sox. David and Ben Shapiro are loyal to a different brand of Sox, but their collaboration reflects the same passion for baseball that unites generations. This book is written with insight, humor and -- most important -- a love of the game that should resonate with fathers and sons regardless of their team allegiance.'' -- Jerry Crasnick, ESPN.com and Baseball America "Ben and David Shapiro's 'Say It's So' beautifully captures the special relationship between fathers and sons that's so closely linked to our national pastime. Wonderful, moving, and uplifting." -- Dana Perino, co-host of Fox News' The Five and New York Times bestselling author of Let Me Tell You About Jaspar "Baseball brings people together like no other sport, and in Ben and David Shapiro's new book, they show just why -- why fathers and sons will forever be playing catch together, and forever rooting together for teams to which they pledge their faith, even if it takes a century to be fulfilled." -- Mark Levin, nationally syndicated talk show host and New York Times bestselling author of Rescuing Sprite

Genres: Baseball

442 pages, Paperback

Published May 17, 2017

About the author

Benjamin Shapiro was born in 1984 and entered UCLA at the age of 16, graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in June 2004 with a BA in Political Science. He graduated Harvard Law School cum laude in June 2007. Shapiro was hired by Creators Syndicate at age 17 to become the youngest nationally syndicated columnist in the U.S.

His columns are printed in major newspapers and websites including Townhall, ABCNews, WorldNet Daily, Human Events, FrontPage Mag, Family Security Matters, the Riverside Press-Enterprise and the Conservative Chronicle. His columns have also appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, Chicago Sun-Times, Orlando Sentinel, Honolulu Star-Advertiser, RealClearPolitics.com, Arizona Republic, and Claremont Review of Books, among others. He has been the subject of articles in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Associated Press, and Christian Science Monitor; he has been quoted on "The Rush Limbaugh Show," "The Dr. Laura Show," at CBS News, in the New York Press, in the Washington Times, and in The American Conservative magazine, among many others.

The author of the national bestsellers, Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth (WND Books, May 2004), Porn Generation: How Social Liberalism Is Corrupting Our Future (Regnery, June 2005), and Project President: Bad Hair and Botox on the Road to the White House (Thomas Nelson, 2008), Shapiro has appeared on hundreds of radio and television shows around the nation, including "The O'Reilly Factor" (Fox News), "Fox and Friends" (Fox News), "In the Money" (CNN Financial), "DaySide with Linda Vester" (Fox News), "Scarborough Country" (MSNBC), "The Dennis Miller Show" (CNBC), "Fox News Live" (Fox News Channel), "Glenn Beck Show" (CNN), "Your World with Neil Cavuto" (Fox News) and "700 Club" (Christian Broadcasting Network), "The Laura Ingraham Show," "The Michael Medved Show," "The G. Gordon Liddy Show," "The Rusty Humphries Show," "The Lars Larson Show" (nationally syndicated), "The Larry Elder Show," The Hugh Hewitt Show," "The Dennis Prager Show," among others.

Reviews

[Gerry McCaffrey]

At over 400 pages it is far too long. Who is interested in what happened in individual games 15 years ago. A good editor could have made something of a 250 page effort!

[Gerry O'Malley]

This book is a lot like a 433 page sports section. Page after page of descriptions of baseball games, the players and individual innings. I had hoped for a little more human interest. The sections where the authors (David Shapiro and his son Ben) describe how baseball is a metaphor for life and how the lessons learned by playing baseball can be applied to everyday situations and family and societal dynamics are really intriguing and well-written. The anecdotes from growing up in a baseball-crazy house are endearing - the most interesting character is the grandfather who was an early civil rights champion in the 1950’s and 60s and who provided the authors with their approach to life and appreciation for the sport. The stories of the family members and their relationship with each other and with baseball really ARE the book but altogether, they comprise perhaps 50 pages in total. All the rest of the book is endless descriptions of every at-bat, fly-out and stolen base from (unless you are a die-hard White Sox fan) an entirely irrelevant and largely forgettable season. The authors write with glee and honest abandon about pitching duels and batting line-ups and tend to stay away from the more esoteric statistical analyses of baseball. Ben Shapiro in particular never runs out of colorful, and often very funny ways to describe the game of baseball and the men who play it. I was reading this book on a plane and another passenger asked me about it and asked to take a picture of it so he could order it himself - he was a Cubs fan. I told him “You know, they beat up the Cubs pretty good in this book.” He smiled and said “Yeah, it’s a Chicago thing.” Maybe it wasn’t an irrelevant season.

[Chelsie Leffelman]

It was sold as more of a father/son story with some baseball, but it's 95% the other way around. I love Ben's books, but this one I ended up skimming a lot of to find the lessons and/or moments.