The Final Season: Fathers, Sons, and One Last Season in a Classic American Ballpark (Honoring a...

The Final Season: Fathers, Sons, and One Last Season in a Classic American Ballpark (Honoring a Detroit ... | Tom Stanton | Heartfelt Narrative

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The Final Season: ...

	The Final Season: Fathers, Sons, and One Last Season in a Classic American Ballpark (Honoring a Detroit ... Tom Stanton St. Martin's Griffin, 2002 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 24 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Maybe your dad took you to ball games at Fenway, Wrigley, or Ebbets. Maybe the two of you watched broadcasts from Yankee Stadium or Candlestick Park, or listened as Red Barber or Vin Scully called the plays on radio. Or maybe he coached your team or just played catch with you in the yard. Chances are good that if you're a baseball fan, your dad had something to do with it--and your thoughts of the sport evoke thoughts of him. If so, you will treasure The Final Season, a poignant true story about baseball and heroes, family and forgiveness, doubts and dreams, and a place that brings them all together.

Growing up in the 60s and 70s, Tom Stanton lived for his Detroit Tigers. When Tiger Stadium began its 88th and final season, he vowed to attend all 81 home games in order to explore his attachment to the place where four generations of his family have shared baseball. Join him as he encounters idols, conjures decades past, and discovers the mysteries of a park where Cobb and Ruth played. Come along and sit beside Al Kaline on the dugout bench, eat popcorn with Elmore Leonard, hear Alice Cooper's confessions, soak up the warmth of Ernie Harwell, see McGwire and Ripken up close, and meet Chicken Legs Rau, Bleacher Pete, Al the Usher, and a parade of fans who are anything but ordinary. By the autumn of his odyssey, Stanton comes to realize that his anguish isn't just about the loss of a beloved ballpark but about his dad's mortality, for at the heart of this story is the love between fathers and sons--a theme that resonates with baseball fans of all ages.

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Not Just A Tigers Tale

As a huge baseball fan, I have read many, many baseball books. Even though all of them were either entertaining or informative in their own way I have not yet rounded out a Top Ten. What qualifies my Top Ten is a sense of sadness when the book is finished. The Final Season is such a book and now joins the likes of A Stolen Season, The Celebrant, Men At Work, Eight Men Out and Shoeless Joe on my list of favorites. I was lucky enough to see a game at Tiger Stadium and can understand the emotional attachment. It is a poignant book and had me fully expecting to see the ghosts of Tigers past coming out of the dugout.

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Heartfelt Narrative

This is a moving look at Tiger Stadium (1912-1999) and the vital father-son-family ties of baseball fans. Attending every home game that final season, author Tom Stanton captures the feel of this venerable arena, introducing us to those that played, worked, or watched games there, including four generations of his baseball-loving family. Readers feel as if we are sitting in the close-by upper deck watching Babe Ruth, Hank Greenberg, and Bob Feller. It was here that a stricken Lou Gherig ended his playing streak in 1939, Ted Williams (1941) and Reggie Jackson (1971) hit famous All-Star game homers, Ernie Harwell called the action (1960-2002), and the Tigers four World Series (1935, 1945, 1968, 1984). Readers learn about Stanton's immigrant grandfather cheering on Ty Cobb from the grandstands, then father, author and son arrived to root for guys like Gehringer, Newhouser, Kaline, Freehan, Gibson, Trammel, and Whitaker. I'd have liked better photos and more attention on the economics (urban decline, no skyboxes) leading to the park's abandonment, but this remains an excellent narrative.

We traveled to Detroit to see this inspiring if imperfect ballpark, and found it similar but superior to our city's Comiskey Park (1910-1990). Sadly, they are now tearing it down except for a section of infield grandstands. At least we have this moving narrative as testament to baseball at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull.

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A Real Treat

Thanks Tom Stanton for this terrific book and sentimental journey. Having grown up on the same street that Mr. Stanton's family did in Detroit, this book really was a walk down memory lane. A terrific family story. Very well done.

Great book about holding onto a piece of baseball history

Tom Stanton decided to attend every home game of the Detroit Tigers in their final season at Detroit Stadium as we are the richer because of it. What follows is a fan's dedication to memories that came from a place that at season's end will be abandoned. Stanton holds firm to his promise, missing important family events and dedicating himself to his boyhood team. With the advent of new stadiums popping up all over the place, Stanton celebrates why Tiger Stadium doesn't really need replaced and how the clean, corporate stadiums wipe away the many years of history with it.

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For any "diehard" Tiger fan to read

White reading this book, it reminded me so much of growning up in Williamston, Michigan (just outside of Lansing) with my two brothers and all of our friends, we played baseball in our front yard for years, we watched the games together and even went to a couple now and then. This book brings back those memories and reminds me of how family always comes first.

Thanks for a good read!

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

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