Brooklyn Was Mine by Valerie Steiker

Author:Valerie Steiker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2010-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

ONCE a boy is on a travel team, many of which play not only in Long Island, Queens, and Staten Island, but also in tournaments up and down the Eastern seaboard, players and their parents start dreaming about college scholarships, getting into the minor leagues, or even, yes, getting that mystical bid at the majors. No matter the statistical absurdity of such a notion, there are fathers who dream this for their sons, perhaps because they know, deep within themselves, that their ability to project their sons forward into the world is quite limited. The dream becomes the thing that solves both the insufficient past and the risky future and it is protected at all costs. There is a certain kind of father who presents himself before the game as an affable yet knowledgeable bystander but who has begun to chew at the coach or ump or even his own son by the second inning. These are the fathers who yank their kids from team to team, who form cabals with other parents to undermine a coach, who seem intent on being a player in the game outside the game itself.

There are also the fathers who tell themselves that they are being realistic about their sons’ chances of making the majors, who throw around terms like statistical absurdity as if that proves anything, and who yet, privately, have been known to wonder what it would be like to watch one’s broad-shouldered son trot gloriously onto the sun-drenched field of Yankee Stadium. Yes, there are fathers like that, and I know one quite well.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.