Wait Till Next Year - A Memoir

Doris Kearns Goodwin is a superb writer, no ifs or buts about it. She could write a washing machine manual and I’d probably still gobble it up. She has a gift of conjuring up the past so vividly, so real, so believable, that you feel as if you’re right there with her as it’s happening. You can feel the excitement as she’s waiting for her father to come home from work so she can read him the baseball stats she painstakingly put together from that day’s game on the radio, you can hear the cheers in the ballpark as she gets to go to her very first Brooklyn Dodgers game, you are holding your breath with her when it comes down to the final strike and the final out in the last game of the season, you simply become that little girl with all her dreams and hopes and sometimes disappointments of growing up in 1950s America. I don’t think you have to be a baseball fan to love this book. It’s simply a good memoir all around. But if you love baseball, especially in the glory days of Jackie Robinson (who is Goodwin’s hero) you’re in for a particular treat. I don’t know what it is about that era, but it always has an especially strong pull on me. There were parallels to John Grisham’s A Painted House – an atypical Grisham novel set in 1950s Arkansas that in my opinion is among Grisham’s best – in that it also has the fate of a beloved baseball team as its central thread, together with the outsize role played by radio broadcasts of the games. We might have many more modern conveniences today, we might be better off in so many ways, but being transported back into this golden era of baseball by the magic of Goodwin’s storytelling will leave you with an almost painful yearning for a simpler, more wholesome world.

I am not a baseball fan. However, having said that, this was a wonderful read. I couldn't put it down. Doris Kearns Goodwin captures the essence of the 1940s and 50s in her richly-written memoir. In her deceptively simple narrative, she integrates her excitement about the Brooklyn Dodgers with all the relationships and experiences in her life, evidencing her great skill as a storyteller. She draws us in, and we are there with her. Her detailed description of various baseball plays is riveting even to non-fans. We feel her excitement entering Ebbets Field. We understand her anger at fans of the "enemy" team, and her conflict over her negative emotions. Besides baseball, the introduction of television is another major factor in her life. When the McCarthy hearings are televised. Doris and her friends innocently begin to role-play the hearings and discover the toxicity of the hearings infiltrating their play activity. Over time, they find themselves cruelly turning on each other, and wisely, decide to end the game. This is a powerful life lesson. As the 50s moves into the 60s, life for Doris, and everyone, changes in many ways. The cocoon in which she had lived begins to disappear and reveal some difficult truths. We feel her disillusion at the commercial aspect of baseball, the social inequities which existed in the world around her, and discovering the family issues from which she had been sheltered. While there were areas of difficulty in her life, the two constants were the constancy of her family relationships and baseball. The phrase associated with the Brooklyn Dodgers - "Wait till next year" becomes a philosophy of life. Don't be fooled by the title. This is a highly recommended book even for those who couldn't care less about baseball.

Here we have a coming of age tale about a real kid, a real place and a real childhood and a snapshot of nineteen fifties America that somehow manages to be unsentimental and steeped in historical recollection. Goodwin is a Pulitzer-winning historian who has captured the essence of an American childhood in a way not typically shown, that is from the standpoint of a girl's love of a baseball team, and the connection she shares with her father to that team. Doris and her father, Michael Aloysius Kearns, were perhaps the Brooklyn Dodgers' biggest father/daughter team of fans. Kearns' life revolved around Dem Bums, and a separate connection with her fragile mother who instilled a love of books and reading in her youngest daughter. As the seasons come and go, so do the Dodgers and the hypnotic rhythm of baseball, ordering lives and defining the hopes and dreams of Brooklynites, always hoping this will be `the year,' the holy grail will be found and Brooklyn will win the World Series. Finally, in 1955, the Dodgers behind iconic baseball names like Robinson, Campanella, Reese, Newcombe, Furillo, Labine, Podres and Dressen do win the Series, and Brooklyn goes wild. But of course the ecstasy doesn't last. Walter O'Malley takes the team to Los Angeles, the organizing principle of life in Brooklyn dissolves and life goes on. Kearns writes as well as any non-fiction writer today, despite using an awkward kind of passive voice construction at times, with lots of `to be' verbs and would be seen's, would find their place to's etc. The story is engaging and highly readable, especially including as it does insights to many historic events like the Rosenberg trial and execution, the death of James Dean, a horrendous train wreck on the LIRR and references to popular culture in mid-century America. It's also a heartwarming tale about a father's belief in a daughter's opportunity to succeed at whatever she chooses in life when that belief was not popular or widespread. Wait Till Next Year is more than a baseball book; it's a picture of who we once were, through the eyes of young American girl with her whole life ahead. If you enjoyed Team of Rivals, No Ordinary Time or The Bully Pulpit, you'll find a lot to like in Wait Till Next Year as well. Byron Edgington, author of The Sky Behind Me: A Memoir of Flying & Life

This is a beautifully told story of Kearns-Goodwin's own Brooklyn immigrant family and the role that baseball played in their lives. This absolutely delightful book is as much a social history of urban America in the fifties and sixties as it is a history of the Brooklyn Dodgers. This is a gift I give to anyone who is visiting America for the first time.

I enjoyed it, finding it brought back memories of my own childhood and my initiation to baseball. It was emotional for me at times since I am of a similar age and also have recollections of a comparably pleasant childhood in a simpler era. Reading brought a continuous smile and even the odd tear. Be warned. It's a memoire of the author's childhood with an undercurrent of baseball running through it as a continuing unifying thread. It is not primarily a baseball book with endless descriptions of games, teams etc. As such, it may not appeal to everyone as much as it did to me. Very well written and flows nicely. The sad moments are a realistic counterpoint to the generally cheerful narrative.

If you like baseball, you’ll love this book! PS, she writes like a charm. I loaned mine to my son a couple of years ago, and I haven’t gotten it back yet!

Went to Doris Kearns Goodwin lecture in London and wanted to get books not in collection. Service was excellent.

Great book highly recommended