Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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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 […]

High fives all around!

A High Five For Glenn Burke by Phil Bildner

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Sixth grader Silas Wade adores baseball, and it adores him. Center fielder for his middle-school league and the heart of the team, Silas loves to boost morale with good-natured pranks, spreading love of The Sandlot (aka the greatest movie of all time), but most importantly winning games.  For his middle school biography project, Silas turns to baseball too, and knocks it out of the park with a presentation on Glenn Burke, five-tool talent of the L.A. Dodgers in the 1970s, who not only killed it […]

Now I Can (Also) Die in Peace

Now I Can Die in Peace by Bill Simmons

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I want to begin by acknowledging that I am writing a review of a book whose appeal starts out extremely limited to a specific region and demographic, and only becomes more so due to the incredible untimeliness of when I finally got around to reading it.  Yes, in the waning days of that black hole we called 2020, I finally got around to reading Now I Can Die in Peace, a collection of sports (specifically, New England Sports, and more specifically, Red Sox baseball) essays, […]

Adapt or Die

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis

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BINGO MONEY! I admit that I chose to read this book because I needed something for the Money! bingo square.  I could have used my “read whatever you want” option, but I figured I would save that just in case.  I really like baseball though, so I figured that this book might not be a bad choice.  I was right. Having just watched the World Series between the LA Dodgers (a very high payroll team which means they can afford to get top expensive players), […]

The Art of Fielding keeps moments real and beautiful

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

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Henry, Mike, Owen, Guert, and Pella are all apart of each other’s lives in ways that are wonderful and beautiful to watch unfold. Henry is a star shortstop who doesn’t know just how great of a player he is. Mike, captain of the football and baseball teams at Westish College, knows and recruits him to play for their Division III collegiate baseball team. Henry rooms with a star freshman, Owen, who is the recipient of multiple academic awards who has dreams of changing Westish College […]

Detroit in its Heyday

An October to Remember, 1968: The Tigers-Cardinals World Series as Told by the Men Who Played It by Brendan Donley

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1968 was a fascinating and turbulent year in America, rocked by assassinations, protests, and riots. Baseball, though frequently cited as a respite from the violence and fear, was also in the midst of a sea-change and was not so far removed from the outside world. The 1968 World Series was at the precipice of all these changes. It was the last so-called “true” World Series, where the two teams earned their way into the series by winning their league’s pennant. The next year divisional playoffs […]



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