Every boy who plays baseball has dreams of hitting the big home run and emulating his favorite major league player. For author Gary Kaschak, as well as many other kids during the 1950’s and 1960’s, that player was Mickey Mantle. In this memoir, Kaschak writes about his days of playing baseball and not only imitating but also believing he WAS Mantle.

The book will take the reader back to times when playing baseball outside was THE summer activity. Whether pickup games in the street, the “minor leagues” for kids who were not ready for Little League action, the Little League competition or organized baseball for older boys, including high school, Kaschak describes his playing days by writing about the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Some of them made me laugh, some of them made me sad, but all of them made for entertaining reading.

Whether it was the utter disappointment when the star pitcher for another team was chosen to be promoted over Kaschak to Little League, the joy of scoring the winning run in a crucial game, or the embarrassment of his mother repairing his ripped pants with safety pins in the middle of a game, baseball fans will enjoy reading these stories of the innocence of youthful thinking and how it did eventually help shape his adult life.

The last stories in the book, in which Kaschak describes his trips to Yankee Stadium to try to see Mantle in person and a trip to Cooperstown where he walks the field at Doubleday Park, are the ones that will tug at the heartstrings the most with readers. Those stories were the ones in which I felt I could truly see the strong connection Mantle had with the author and the point in the book where I really felt I was reading a memoir. The stories of his youth, while never doubting that they were true, read more like a novel than a non-fiction book and I had to stop a few times to remember that this wasn’t fiction.

Anyone who played baseball as a youngster will enjoy this book at it will make the reader want to remember those days when the most important results in life were whether or not their team won or lost that day’s game. An enjoyable read that should be added to a baseball bookshelf.

I wish to thank Black Rose Writing for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review