The Dad Report: Fathers, Sons, and Baseball Families

Having already explored the parent-child sports dynamic in Driven: Teen Phenoms, Mad Parents, Swing Science and the Future of Golf, Cook turns his attention closer to home as he shares the story of his father, Art, and how baseball lived at the center of their relationship. By juxtaposing his father's days as a high school star, minor leaguer, coach, and gambler/bookie with the up-and-down tales of major league fathers and sons like the Boones, Griffeys, Bells, and Davises (as well as Babe Ruth and his daughter), Cook creates a narrative that shows how sports can connect one generation to the next. What makes Cook special as a sportswriter is that he is able to balance the joy and pain of being a fan with the investigative and analytical skill of a professional journalist%E2%80%94which is especially important when featuring a polarizing figure like Barry Bonds, or when his own son's baseball field is destroyed on 9/11. The book's title comes from the nightly phone calls father and son shared discussing their fantasy baseball teams (and nothing else). Cook's prose has the perfect conversational style for combining baseball's childlike dreams and grown-up realities into a satisfying narrative. [em](June) [/em]