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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.3570922
EAN num: 9780786888672
ISBN number: 0786888679
Label: Hyperion
Manufacturer: Hyperion
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 224
Printing Date: May 05, 2004
Publishing house: Hyperion
Release Date: April 28, 2004
Sale Popularity Level: 28407
Studio: Hyperion
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
As baseball legend Ted Williams lay dying in Florida, his old Boston Red Sox teammates Johnny Pesky and Dom DiMaggio piled into a car and drove 1,300 miles to see their friend. Another member of the close-knit group, Bobby Doerr, remained in Oregon to tend to his wife who had suffered a stroke. Besides providing a poignant travelogue of the elderly Pesky and DiMaggio's trip, David Halberstam's The Teammates goes back in time to profile the men as young ballplayers. Although it is enlightening to learn about Doerr, Pesky, and DiMaggio, the leader of the group and star of the book is Williams. Halberstam portrays the notoriously moody and difficult Williams as a complex man: driven by a rough childhood and a fiercely competitive nature to become perhaps the greatest pure hitter of all time while also being a magnetic personality and loving friend. While there is nothing exceptionally unusual about old men who have stayed friends (plenty of people stay friends, after all), baseball gives this particular relationship a unique makeup. Unlike most friendships, that of Williams, Doerr, Pesky, and DiMaggio was viewed all summer long by hooting, hollering Red Sox fans. As such, their bond is forged both of individual accomplishment, win-loss records, numerous road trips, and, since they played for the Red Sox, annual doses of disappointment. Halberstam, author of Summer of '49 and October 1964 is the ideal writer to tell two equally intriguing stories, both rich in America's pastime. Although he occasionally drops himself into the narrative, one expects that of Halberstam and gladly accepts it in exchange for the highly readable exposition infused with poetic majesty that has become his trademark. --John Moe
Amazon.com:
As baseball legend Ted Williams lay dying in Florida, his old Boston Red Sox teammates Johnny Pesky and Dom DiMaggio piled into a car and drove 1,300 miles to see their friend. Another member of the close-knit group, Bobby Doerr, remained in Oregon to tend to his wife who had suffered a stroke. Besides providing a poignant travelogue of the elderly Pesky and DiMaggio's trip, David Halberstam's The Teammates goes back in time to profile the men as young ballplayers. Although it is enlightening to learn about Doerr, Pesky, and DiMaggio, the leader of the group and star of the book is Williams. Halberstam portrays the notoriously moody and difficult Williams as a complex man: driven by a rough childhood and a fiercely competitive nature to become perhaps the greatest pure hitter of all time while also being a magnetic personality and loving friend. While there is nothing exceptionally unusual about old men who have stayed friends (plenty of people stay friends, after all), baseball gives this particular relationship a unique makeup. Unlike most friendships, that of Williams, Doerr, Pesky, and DiMaggio was viewed all summer long by hooting, hollering Red Sox fans. As such, their bond is forged both of individual accomplishment, win-loss records, numerous road trips, and, since they played for the Red Sox, annual doses of disappointment. Halberstam, author of Summer of '49 and October 1964 is the ideal writer to tell two equally intriguing stories, both rich in America's pastime. Although he occasionally drops himself into the narrative, one expects that of Halberstam and gladly accepts it in exchange for the highly readable exposition infused with poetic majesty that has become his trademark. --John Moe
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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Admittedly, I'm a huge Yankee fan. But beyond that, I'm a baseball fan, and Halberstam does a great job of getting me to feel in my heart for this great group of guys and the relationships they had with each other. He takes you through the major milestones of their careers and relationships and makes you feel like you're one of the boys and share in their joys and hardships. If you're not a fan of baseball and brotherhood, then you won't enjoy this book. But if you are, you won't be able to put it down.
Rated by buyers -
I read this book on the recommendation of a client and was impressed! Halberstam does an excellent job of weaving the tale of four teammates forever bound by baseball, Boston, and their friendship. Each has his own story and personality from the larger-than-life Ted Williams to the reserved Bobby Doerr all revealed with masterful writing. A must read for any Red Sox or baseball fan. Because of the masterful writing I will be reading more of David Halberstam.
October 1964
Summer of '49 (P.S.)
The Best and the Brightest
Rated by buyers 
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There's a good bit of information in this book. But I just did not perceive that the author effectively conveyed the "magic" that the story seemed to promise. I came away feeling like I had some more facts about these players but just none of the 'warm and fuzzy' that I expected.
Rated by buyers 
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This brief but excellent book covers a lot of ground. It is a fine baseball book that follows the lives of its four main characters from their humble roots through their shared baseball careers and into their post baseball lives. Along the way, the reader learns a lot about how baseball worked during simpler times both at the minor and major league levels.
But it is much more. Among other things, Halberstam examines immigrant culture in America, friendship, success, love and aging. He also tells a lot of really entertaining stories including the Williams lunch with Tip o'Neil, the infamous tarpon fishing trip and the Red Sox/Cardinals World Series. The parallels between Williams and Joe Dimaggio were also interesting.
Ted Williams' "cantankerous" personality is a featured element of this story. As the book progresses, Pesky, Dimaggio and Doerr are presented as truly wonderful human beings (and there is no reason to believe that they are not). It is difficult to imagine what attracted them to Williams, but they clearly were all great friends with Williams as the glue. Despite his well known personality flaws, Williams clearly had some excellent qualities. Halberstam chronicles both sides of the Williams personality and leaves the reader with an overall positive feeling toward him.
This is an entertaining and meaningful story that is more about life and friendship than baseball. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and hated to see it end.
Rated by buyers -
Good books need no blurbs, they can speak for themselves. This one has at least ten blurbs on the covers.
If you're curious about just how much of a bastard Ted Williams really was, read the book and marvel at the stature of a person who would repeatedly curse out a friend for "not fishing right". Then find out about his son's exploitive tendencies, presumably learned from his father. (Nah, a cryofreezing company would never, ever, not in a billion years, pay anyone to freeze their famous father. Couldn't possibly happen.)
I feel sorry for the other three guys who got lumped in with this mess, because they seem like reasonably decent people. And some of the stories are entertaining, though I felt like I had to fight through a lot of unnecessary verbiage to get there.
If you're in the target audience (people who worship sports heroes) this probably will work well for you. I was quite disappointed, and I'm not likely to read any of the author's other works; the effort wasn't worth it.
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