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It is tough being the new kid in school. Your new classmates measure you, each quickly calculating how this 'new kid' might change their place in the classroom pecking order.

Third grade, new school (fourth in three years), same old 'you'. Sometimes life just deals you a bad hand ...and sometimes you have an unknown 'ace in the hole.'


Phillip Hoose ( "It's pronounced hose, even though it's spelled like it should rhyme with moose. Don't ask me why." ) found himself the 'new kid' in the middle-America and middle-class town of Speedway, Indiana. The mid-1950s was a time when kids still played ball on the school playground. Baseball was the game of choice at Carl G. Fisher Elementary School.


Perfect, Once Removed: When Baseball Was All the World to Me is the story of a young man buoyed up by a love of the game of baseball and his blood connection to a player who made the game perfect, if only for one day.

Faced with the challenges of fitting in and finding his place among his classmates, Hoose tells the story of learning he is a cousin to Don Larsen, the New York Yankees pitcher who would soon throw a perfect Game Five in the 1956 World Series. Learning of this simple biological fact and connection, sparks an interest in the game, in playing it, in meeting his cousin and following his career. That same interest fuels his own boyish dreams (and daydreams) of playing professional baseball.


Perfect Once Removed is very similar in style to the film A Christmas Story. The same types of daydreams recounted and personal family stories found in that film dominate this book. This book deserves a screenplay and the subsequent full-blown Hollywood treatment.


Hoose recalls his learning about his famous cousin, NY Yankees pitcher Don Larsen. He recounts stories of his play on the local Little League team, of traveling with his parents to Chicago and Comiskey Park to meet his cousin and the rest of the New York Yankees. After a brief exchange with Yankee Manager Casey Stengel he imagines the Yankees worrying about him and how his baseball career in Speedway is going. He even tells of using the same soap (Lifebuoy) that Mickey Mantle touted in newspaper ads.

This book is a real page-turner. It is just fun to read. Hoose draws you into his childhood world and you relive with him the unique moments of that summer, that year. You root with him for his Yankees and his cousin Don as they surge to their World Series victory.


Near the end of the book Hoose reconnects with his cousin. They had remained in touch over the years, with Larsen occasionally autographing charity auction items for Hoose. But they had not met for over forty years. Before the visit he tried to find old film of the perfect game. But none was available. Apparently not much value was attached to these visual records back in the day. He is able to listen to the radio broadcast of the game and tells the story to the reader.

An epilogue covers Hoose's life over the years and how he has remained physically active, still playing softball fifty years later. He also weaves in the story of his youngest daughter being swept up by Red Sox, and baseball, fever present in their New England lives.


The Bottom Line
Phillip Hoose is an amazing, award-winning writer who shares a fantastic story in a warm and rich voice. You get a real taste of the game and the boys and men who played it then and play it to this day. The grass is always green and freshly clipped, the sun always shines warmly overhead, and the home team always wins.

If you are a fan of baseball, or ever been an underdog in any situation, sports-related or not, Perfect, Once Removed: When Baseball Was All the World to Me will richly reward you for your time spent reading.



Other 'Baseball and diamond dust' reviews by sleeper54


Certified 'lean-n-mean' review
 
 

Recommended: Yes