;)
Reviews: Midwest League Field Guide
"Some of the happiest days of my entire life were spent in the baseball Minor Leagues. I was young and living the baseball life for the first time. I was meeting a whole new set of people and visiting towns that I had only read about...Dave Hoekstra touchesall the bases in this major Minor League hit. He writes with eloquence and passion, not just about the stars (though there’s that too), but about the umpires, mascots, fans, groundskeepers, bus drivers, and just about everything that makes this heart beat. Hop on the team bus and enjoy this fun-filled ride around the Midwest League."
-- Pat Hughes, play-by-play broadcaster, Chicago Cubs
"There is no better writer than Dave Hoekstra to tell the story of the Midwest League, where baseball still belongs to the heart and not corporate monoliths. In this affectionately rendered book, he paints indelible pictures of the players and their dreams, the fans and their passion, the ballparks and their magic. Minor league, you say? Pure Americana is more like it. Read Hoekstra and believe.”
--John Schulian, formerChicago Sun-Timescolumnistand author ofTwilight of the Long-ball Gods
"Dave Hoekstra is the Jack Kerouac of Minor League baseball. Nobody knows the ballparks, clubs, Route 66 better. And nobody has seen more of the heart and soul of the Midwest than the Johnny Appleseed of Minor League Baseball. I'm glad somebody gives a damn about Minor League Baseball."
--Mike Veeck, president and part owner of five Minor League baseball teams and consultant to another, as well as author ofFun is Good
"I love the Midwest League and I love this book. Dave Hoekstra is a great storyteller: the kind of guy you want to sit next to at the ballpark. This collection will remind readers why they fell in love with baseball in the first place."
--Jonathan Eig, best-selling author of Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrigand Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season.
"This book ranks with Panek'sWaterloo Diamondsas the best books ever written about Midwest League baseball. It's a book of roughly seventy essays on Midwest League topics.
Hoekstra, who writes for the ChicagoSun Times, has been writing essays, called "The Glove Compartment," for publication in the Kane County Cougars' gameday program for most of the team's history. About sixty of the essays here originated as Glove Compartment pieces; the others were newly composed for the book. The result is episodic, of course, but it's a reasonably thorough history and (as it says) field guide to the league. Moe Hill, Deacon Jones, and the 1951 Paris team are all profiled. Paul Molitor, Joey Meyer, and scores of Cubs are mentioned. The emphasis, though, is on the current teams and recent players.
Because of the book's origins, there's some repetition, but less than you'd expect. The essays are reprinted apparently as originally published, with notes at the end to establish what's gone obsolete since they appeared in the KC programs. There are, unsurprisingly, a handful of factual errors, but none are really glaring.
All in all an excellentbook. Highly recommended to all baseball fans, wherever you watch the game."
--Joel Dinda, MWLGuide.com
"This is a book that is as casual, pleasant, and completely mellow as watching a AA team whose players you don't know and whose place in the standings is irrelevant and whose mascots and vendors are as much a part of the team as the third baseman."