PDF One Shot at Forever: A Small Town; an Unlikely Coach; and a Magical Baseball Season by Chris Ballard in History

Review

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful. Outstanding Story and an Indelible Portrait of a Small TownBy Daniel GreenstoneBest book I've read this year. As Ballard is a writer at SI I was hardly surprised that this is a fantastic baseball story. But I was delighted to discover that the book delivers so much more. The main character; a teacher and coach named Lynn Sweet; is as remarkable a character as I can recall. He's a sensitive; courageous; free thinker; who finds himself plunked down in a time and place where conformity is the rule. As a high school teacher; I found myself inspired by Sweet's story. And the book is also the portrait of a small town seeking an identity through the exploits of its baseball team. Ballard's exquisite reporting not only preserves that identity for the town of Macon; but he also allows the rest of us to savor the folkways of a (recently) bygone era.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Great....even to a non-baseball fanBy LAEEven though I am somewhat ambivalent to baseball; I could not put this book down. I really loved it. Here are my top 3 reasons:1. I can relate to being the small town underdog. In 1970-71; the Illinois state baseball championship was one big playoff. There were no class divisions (1A; 2A; etc). So; big schools from the Chicago area played against the small schools from rural Illinois. The book chronicles the unlikely winning season of the Macon Ironmen and their magical run in the state championship playoffs. Macon is a tiny town with a tiny school. Although they had some success in the season immediately prior to the time covered in the book; they were coming off several losing seasons. No one considered the Ironmen a serious threat.I attended a small high school; and although it was not as small as Macon; we were seen as the country kids from the small school. Like the kids from Macon; it gave us a wee bit of a chip on our shoulders; but also a deep bond. We felt a sense of commitment to each other. It was something I missed later when I went to college. I felt a serious sense of nostalgia reading One Shot at Forever.2. The colorful (and real) characters. The Macon Ironmen and their coach were not your typical high school baseball team. Their coach was an unlikely hero. He had just started teaching English at Macon High School. Macon was a conservative town. Lynn Sweet; English teacher and soon to be baseball coach; was anything but conservative. He held liberal ideals; frequented the local bars; had long hair and a Fu Manchu mustache; and lived a nomadic existence. He eschewed the English curriculum for his own unorthodox teaching methods. In short; the towns people considered him a hippie. Not all of them approved. But he won over their kids. They loved him. Their English grades improved and they became more engaged in class.These methods carried over into baseball. For example; practices were optional. Some of the team members grew their hair out; wore peace signs on their hats; and they began listening to the sound track from Jesus Christ Superstar on a boom box during warm up at games. This is the kind of teacher I would have loved as a kid.The players and their parents are also interesting; complex people. There are the unlikely heroes; the star athletes; the small and scrappy players. But they are not just stereotypes. We learn about their lives; what drives them; their relationships; and how they lived and grew during those two remarkable seasons.3. The excellent sports writing. Let’s face it; with a nonfiction book such as this; the outcome is known. Even the cover of the book says “the magical season”. So I went into the book knowing the Ironmen experienced a remarkable winning season. But there were still twists that I didn’t see coming (yay!) and the storytelling of the games had me on the edge of my seat. I couldn’t stop reading. In fact; I stayed on the elliptical machine an extra 15 minutes to finish a certain section.I definitely recommend this book; even if you are not a baseball fan. I even recommend it even if you don’t like sports. It’s about a lot more than sports or baseball. It’s about a group of people who come together; form a bond; inspire each other; and triumph against overwhelming odds. How can you not love that?18 of 18 people found the following review helpful. More than just a sports storyBy D. ZehrI've read much of Ballard's work in Sports Illustrated over the past decade; and I got an early look at his latest book; One Shot at Forever. One Shot is a book-length example of his emergence as one of the top long-form narrative writers going today. (For proof; Google his stories about Jill Costello or Mike Powell; or his National Magazine Award finalist piece about Dewayne Dedmon.)At the highest level; the story runs much like Hoosiers; with a small-town Illinois baseball team going on an unlikely run against larger schools. But the real power of the book comes from the interplay of a small town stuck in the 1950s; an outsider coach straight out of the hippie-ville 1960s; a bunch of kids coming of age in the early 1970s; and the memories still seared in their minds as adults today.Those memories are the real payoff of what's already an engaging story. The narrative is engaging on its own; but the way the games of their youth still stick in the psyche of many of the players; who now are in their 50s and 60s; goes right to what we cherish about high school sports -- whether we played them; coached them; or just cheered on our hometown heroes.