Mood:
caffeinatedTopic: Comic Book History
TODAY'S FEATURE - Blog #3166: Today I am blogging a review on a book that has NOTHING to do with comics! What?! Nothing to do with comics?! Well, not directly, but indirectly, at least for me! You see, I used to be a big baseball fan. Went to a lot of baseball games here in San Diego after moving back here from Los Angeles. Actually I moved back to San Diego from the Los Angeles Metro Area the same year that Steve Garvey left the LA Dodgers and played for the San Diego Padres back in 1983! And then the Padres went to the World Series in 1984 thanks to Garvey and so many others that jelled into a Championship Team! But I get ahead of my self. Back when I was a kid, we moved a lot due to my Dad serving in the US Navy. So the only 'stable' thing was baseball. I liked the NY Yankees, who had won the American League Pennant almost every year from 1947 - 1964, with the exceptions of 1948, 1954, & 1959. So 15 out of 18 Seasons wasn't bad at all! So of course I wanted to 'collect' baseball cards. Unfortunately there wasn't enough allowance to collect both comics and baseball cards, so I ended up 'collecting' the baseball cards off the backs of cereal boxes that my folks bought at the Navy Exchange. Yeah, really! I would carefully cut them off of the back of the boxes. Some of them are actually worth a little bit of money today due to kids not cutting most of them carefully! One of the teams that I also would listen to or follow the scores in the newspaper were the Brooklyn Dodgers, who in 1958 became the Los Angeles Dodgers. Years later, after I had grown up, I found myself moving to Los Angeles Metro Area to work after college. I of course found myself listening to the LA Dodgers games, catching them on TV, and several home games in person. It was just coincidence that Steve Garvey and I left LA the same year to go San Diego, when he went to play for the Padres. So this book that I found by Steve Garvey, Candace Garvey, and Ken Gurnik caught my attention real quick when I saw it on the shelves! Here is the promo blurb about the book:
60,000 first printing.
Cover Price USA: $21.00 Canada $24.50 Length: 149 pages So what's 'My Take' on this book and why am I blogging about this here? Well, I have been blogging about a recent comic con I attended in Anaheim recently. That was the Wizard World Anaheim Comic Con. That comic con is more like a 'pop culture con', which several conventions have evolved into. I missed seeing Steve Garvey on Saturday when he was there signing autographs. I had a couple of these books along with me in case I was there at the same time he was. So besides all of the Batman TV Show Stars that I've been blogging about here, (Yvonne Craig, Malachi Throne, etc.),plus more to follow, I had hoped to see Steve in person. Why? Because this book was a Great Read! Of course I knew that Steve had been a bat boy before breaking into the Big Leagues years later. But I didn't how or what it did for him in his formative years. He chose nine baseball stars to talk about. Several of whom have had comic book issues or even comic book series published about them! I've already posted comic book covers of three of them at the above left of this blog post. What this book was about Steve's personal experiences knowing these ball players, and what "Lessons I learned from the Boys of Summer".
Steve wrote about Roy Campanella's "Compassion". He wrote about Jackie Robinson's "Passion". It was Mickey Mantle's "Fortitude" that Steve wrote his chapter about this NY Yankee great. Pee Wee Reese's "Leadership" was what struck Steve the most, and what that chapter was about. The chapter of Gil Hodges was about "Dignity", which is what I remember of Gil when he was playing. Carl Erskine's "Honesty" is the topic of the chapter that Steve wrote about him. Duke Snider's "Persistence" was the topic about Duke. Al Kaline's "Perfection" was written about. Hey, it just doesn't get any better than this! A 'bat boy' who got to know these baseball stars during their playing days, and who then went on to become the 'Iron Man' of Baseball, playing for 1,207 consecutive games in the National League, setting a new record! (Couldn't resist mentioning the 'Iron Man' connection, LOL!) Talking about comic books again, here's just one link in the Grand Comics Database that shows you just some of the many comics that have published about baseball stars over the decades!Back to the book, I would grade this book as a 'Near Mint' (NM) 9.4 out of a 10.0 grading scale using the Overstreet Comic Book Grading Guide. Normally I would next list the publisher's link for you to obtain this book, but since I purchased several copies for resale, here is the link to where YOU can buy a copy for yourself at our own ComicBooksCircus.com web site for a LOT LESS than the book's cover price! (Even including the shipping charge!) My thanks to Steve Garvey who has given me many hours of entertainment when he was playing both for the LA Dodgers, and then later the SD Padres! And to Candace Garvey and Ken Gurnik for assisting in getting this book written. It was definitely worth the effort! AND My thanks again to all of YOU reading this blog and our archived blog posts, now over the 3,165 total posts in number! ~ Michael D Hamersky @ ComicBookCollectorsBlog.com
http://www.comicbookscircus.com/
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"An uplifting chronicle of the author's years as a bat boy under such players as Jackie Robinson, Sandy Koufax, and Mickey Mantle imparts the life lessons he learned from them about the virtues of leadership, dignity, fortitude, compassion, faith, and honesty.
It was Sandy Koufax's "Faith" that struck Steve as his standout quality.
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