{"id":2270,"date":"2018-02-16T10:56:07","date_gmt":"2018-02-16T17:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=2270"},"modified":"2018-02-16T10:56:07","modified_gmt":"2018-02-16T17:56:07","slug":"it-might-be-it-could-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=2270","title":{"rendered":"It might be … it could be …"},"content":{"rendered":"

Did you know it’s only a few days until the major league baseball teams start spring training? Tom Dillon is well aware that it’s almost time for a new baseball season, so he figures it’s also time for a review of a new baseball book.<\/p>\n

MY CUBS: A LOVE STORY. By Scott Simon. Blue Ridge Press. 145 pages. $23.<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Tom Dillon<\/p>\n

\"Cubs\"<\/a>This isn\u2019t really a book. There is no table of contents, there aren\u2019t any chapters, there\u2019s no index, and you can read the whole thing in a couple of hours sitting in the doctor\u2019s office or at the barber shop or maybe even in a bar \u2013 which might be the most appropriate place to do it.<\/p>\n

There are also a good number of f-bombs you\u2019ll have to negotiate, and there\u2019s a syrupy sentimentality that may turn you off if you\u2019re not a Chicago Cubs fan.<\/p>\n

But baseball season has to start with some sort of book, and this is the only one that\u2019s come across my desk so far this winter. It may also give some hope to the perennial losers among us. Maybe Wake Forest University basketball fans can get something out of it.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s basically an appreciation of the Chicago Cubs baseball team and all they went through over 108 years of losing before they finally won the World Series in 2016. It\u2019s told through the personal and family memories of Chicago native Scott Simon, a National Public Radio broadcaster who clearly lives \u2013 and dies \u2013 with his team.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s had family ties with a lot of Cubs people, including the late manager Charlie Grimm and a few broadcasters. He\u2019s eaten at the Billy Goat Tavern, whose owner put that supposed curse on the team all those years ago. He knows where bodies are buried \u2013 or at least where a few people\u2019s ashes have been scattered. (Hint: It\u2019s near first base.)<\/p>\n

He\u2019s thrown out the first pitch to start a game at least a couple of times, an angst-inducing experience. (Don\u2019t miss the part with the yoga teacher.) And his family\u2014wife and two daughters — are apparently just as mad about the team as he is.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s really a pretty good storyteller, as will become clear only a few pages in during an encounter with Santa Claus. And no matter what you may think, he has some sort of jaded weird perspective about this slice of life and baseball.<\/p>\n

As he put it somewhere early on, there\u2019s no comparing the Cubs with the Titanic or the Hindenburg. Many lives were lost in those disasters, and besides, they only sank once. The Cubs sank nearly every year for 108 years.<\/p>\n

Simon has a passing knowledge of poetry, which will be clear as he twists the work of Allen Ginsburg and Rudyard Kipling, among others, into paeans \u2013 or maybe it\u2019s pains \u2013 to Chicago baseball.<\/p>\n

And he has a lot of trivia at his command. Did you know that Bill Buckner, the Boston Red Sox first baseman who let that grounder go between his legs in 1986, had just been traded from the Cubs to the Red Sox?<\/p>\n

Simon is a serious journalist, despite these comments. He has eight books to his credit, including the bestseller Unforgettable<\/em>, and he\u2019s won broadcasting awards that include the Peabody and Emmy.<\/p>\n

He also has a serious part toward the end of this book, where he comments about the Chicago murder rate. \u201cI am sickened by Chicago\u2019s homicide crisis, and appalled by attempts to politicize it,\u201d he says. Yes, that means you, Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

But Simon\u2019s book is at heart what the slipcover says it is, a \u201cportrayal of paradise lost and found.\u201d And it tells a good story succinctly. So now, let\u2019s play baseball.<\/p>\n