What I know about baseball is not a lot. I don't think I could fill the back of a postcard with my knowledge, even after reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's marvelous memoir Wait Till Next Year. But I will say I have a new appreciation for why the sport is much loved by so many. I can't list off the names of many famous players or tell you important games or explain batting averages, but DKG certainly made it all very exciting to read about. Her love of the sport is truly infectious and I can easily see why she has such warm, fuzzy memories of growing up as a Brooklyn Dodgers fan at just that time in history. Indeed it seems a very special moment. She makes me wish I was a baseball lover (though I think reading her book is more than satisfying for me at the moment).
The baseball bits were good, but for me, the other bits--about her family, growing up in New York in the Fifties, her love of reading and history and (yes) baseball were what made this such a pleasing and wholly engaging read. If she can have me on the edge of my seat as she writes about the Dodger/Giant/Yankee rivalries, and about those games that were such close calls (usually which resulted in the Dodger's ultimate defeat), that is a mark of a very good writer. There seems to be this myth about the Fifties. It's thought of as a happy, nostalgic time, but then you wonder if it really was so happy. In the case of Goodwin, she did have that kind of an upbringing. Of course bad things happened and there was sadness, but the childhood she writes about was a mostly very pleasant one.
Kearns had a very happy and affectionate relationship with her parents and two older sisters growing up. There was a gap in years between Doris and her sisters, so she and her parents formed a very close-knit family unit. They moved to the suburbs when she was young and from the way she writes she had a mostly idyllic upbringing. Her father, however, was orphaned young and her mother was plagued with health issues that required care and quiet, but her youth was very much as everyone imagines what growing up in the Fifties was like. They were a happy nuclear family unit that supported each other, loved being together and their lives were as much defined by middle class sensibilities as by being active members of larger communities--school, neighborhood and church. It was a mostly tightly structured world where people really looked out for one another. If you imagine the Fifties being a time of security and happiness, you certainly get that feeling about Doris and her family.
One of my favorite stories that Goodwin shares is how each and every evening when her father came home from work, he and her mother shared a cocktail on their front porch and would talk about their days with real interest. Even though her mother was a homemaker, her father always asked about her days, how she spent them, what was happening in the neighborhood and with their daughters. And she particularly seemed to come alive as she asked him about the City and his day. Doris would listen to them from another room and feel the tiniest tinge of jealousy for their nightly conversations. Apparently after her mother's death her father was so distraught about losing her he never had another cocktail as she was not there to share it with him. Her mother spent her time making a happy and nurturing home, helping Doris study. She would make regular visits to the local lending library, and they would talk about books and what was happening in the greater world. And they all loved baseball and were great Dodgers fans.
It seems as though some of Doris' fondest memories are of going to Dodger's games at Ebbets Field. He taught her how to fill in a score card (which she did religiously). It is impressive what a young girl could know about her favorite team, its members and history. I had to chuckle inwardly as she wrote about nail-biter games they listened to on the radio. She literally would have to leave the house and walk around the block at those tense moments as she was so anxious. She had her own friendly rivalry with her best friend who happened to live next door since Elaine was a Yankees fan (their bedrooms faced each other and they would communicate across the way) and listening to Dodger-Yankee games could be agony--especially when (and it happened all too frequently) the Dodgers lost. Always the maid of honor and never the bride seemed to be the refrain growing up, that, and 'wait till next year'.
Eventually the Dodgers had their moment, though by 1956 it was maybe a little bittersweet. By then Doris was a teenager and while she still loved baseball, there was more happening in the world and she was greatly aware of it--the many social injustices. And then friends and neighbors were moving further out into the suburbs and that sense of neighborhood was beginning to dwindle and fade away. Her older sisters were married and had careers as nurses. She began to be interested in boys, and then there were deaths of friends and family. When the Dodgers were sold and were to move to California (along with the Giants) it was truly the end of a era and the start of a very different world and lifestyle. But for those thrilling young years the world seems such a happy place and she conveys it exceptionally well.
Many thanks to LindaY for suggesting this title to me, it was the perfect fit for my June prompt ('Play Ball'), as it was a thoroughly entertaining read, one I can warmly recommend as well. July's prompt is 'Independence Day', which I am thinking about in terms of freedom/independence either from a historical (as in Colonial America) view or perhaps a personal one (likely from a woman's perspective). I have a list of books I am thinking about, so perhaps I will share them tomorrow. Choosing a book is always exciting but a bit of a dilemma, too.