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Class A: Baseball In The Middle Of Everywhere (2013)

by Lucas Mann(Favorite Author)

3.12 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0307907546 (ISBN13: 9780307907547)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Pantheon

review 1: At the very core, this is a book about a Single A (low-level) minor league baseball team in a struggling town dominated by a huge, possibly evil factory. At times the stories about the mostly young players holding on to their dream are interesting, but the author is way too in love with sharing his own somewhat disturbing search for a big brother figure or a hero to idolize. The focus bounces around from subject to subject and, with little warning, a year into the future in another hemisphere. There's some good stuff here, but the author has difficulty separating himself from the material. The book is supposed to be about the Lumberkings and not him, but that doesn't really end up being the case as he inserts himself and his feeeeelllzzzzz into every situa... moretion.
review 2: Plenty of people have written The Great American Novel plenty of times (Philip Roth included), and plenty more people will write The Great American Novel plenty of more times. Lucas Mann will be among those candidates.His nonfiction book Class A is basically practice for that future. Mann moves to Clinton, Iowa, to follow the Clinton LumberKings baseball team for a season. Though this book is ostensibly about baseball, less than 10% of the book's actions actually take place on the ball diamond. Mann instead tells the tale of the LumberKing fans who have been following the team for decades; of the team's players, both promising-future prospects and past-their-baseball-prime hangers-on; of the coaches; of the town of Clinton itself, once an up-and-comer but now a gloomy one-factory town emblematic of America's damaged economy.Mann has a lot to say about all of it. He's at his best when writing about individuals, sparing nothing in describing the intricacies of their lives, good or bad. There's Joyce, a 50ish single woman who for years has collected mementos of the team and written simple stories about the players. She puts signed baseballs in a one-room shrine in her small house, a Cooperstown of Clinton. She's both a sad and cherished figure. I can see Mann at work on creating a character for a future Great American Novel in the way he handles Joyce.There's also the dichotomy between the future and past in dealing with the players. Mann spends time driving players around, hanging out with them, even sleeping on their spare couches or floors when they've been out drinking. He profiles Nick Franklin, and up-and-comer who made his debut with the big-league Seattle Mariners not long after Class A was published and captures the youngster's undeniable charisma and self-confidence as well as the naivete which he mostly hides. Contrast him with Welington Dotel, already too old for Class A baseball at 24, who carries himself with dignity and pride while slowly gliding to a future that doesn't include playing baseball.Mann also mixes in a small bit of memoir, touching on a brother who died of a drug overdose -- in fact, Mann's working on a book about his brother -- and how baseball helped shape his own relationship with his father growing up. Class A is the real top prospect of the 2010 Clinton baseball season. Look for Lucas Mann on the All-Star lists for years to come. less

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