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Dodgers Essential: Everything You Need to Know to Be a Real Fan
A one-stop record containing everything Dodger fans want to know about their favorite baseball team, this resource is packed with anecdotes, history, explanations of traditions, statistics, trivia, and photos.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published March 30, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 21, 2013
Dodgers Essential is a quick read that effectively summarizes the history of the Dodgers organization. At its best, it’s essentially a book report on a handful of other, better books about the Dodgers that the author has apparently read or at least skimmed through. The most pillaged books include: The Dodgers: 120 Years of Dodgers Baseball, Rickey and Robinson: The Men Who Broke Baseball's Color Barrier, and Few and Chosen Dodgers: Defining Dodgers Greatness Across the Eras. As a result, Travers covers the Brooklyn years and the 1950s and ’60s in detail, while he glosses over the ’80s and ’90s, singling out Steve Garvey and Mike Piazza for some hastily written hero worship.
Travers didn’t conduct a single interviews or consult a solitary piece of primary source material. As such, he doesn't contribute any new information, insight or analysis. This is glaringly obvious in the final chapter on Vin Scully, where he just summarizes and quotes extensively from a single (and superior) article written by King Kaufmann for Salon.com.
But, when Travers does try to inject his own personality into the proceedings, he just makes things worse. He veers from groan-inducing puns to stomach-churning social commentary. The most troubling (and, the more I think about it, infuriating) moments for me have to do with the author’s apparent attitude toward Latinos. While discussing the building of Dodger Stadium in Chavez Ravine, he glosses over and casually dismisses the controversy surrounding the relocation of the area’s residents by essentially saying: Bah! Who cares? They were a bunch of illegal immigrants anyway.
This shows not only a lack of journalistic integrity and non-bias, but also a lack of journalistic instinct. There’s a big, important story there and the author just dismisses it out of hand. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on the grounds that maybe he considered it to be outside the scope of his book. But then I read the chapter on Fernando Valenzuela. Fernando gets a token 3-page chapter where the author mostly talks about the 1981 players strike and how statistics from that year are meaningless. He implies that Fernando just got off to a lucky start and calls him a “one-shot wonder.” Again, there’s no analysis to back up these claims and no insight into the cultural, social, or political ramifications of the Fernandomania phenomenon. But Travers also just doesn’t give the man his due, even as he spends the next chapter effusively puckering up to Orel Hershiser’s hindquarters.
Granted, the author is a sports writer, not an economist, sociologist, political scientist, or even a legitimate journalist, apparently. Luckily for us, he’s not a play-by-play announcer, either. His writing is impassioned when he’s breaking down key moments in important games, but that passion comes at the sake of clarity. I had to re-read his play-by-plays just to understand what was going on, until I finally gave up and started skimming through them. The last chapter focuses on Vin Scully, whom he calls “the poet.” To me, Scully's more like a painter. Especially when you're listening to Vin Scully call a game on the radio, he can instantly paint a picture of exactly what’s happening on the field at Dodger Stadium. I’ve always known that was a rare gift, but Traver's bumbling proves just how rare a gift it truly is.
Travers didn’t conduct a single interviews or consult a solitary piece of primary source material. As such, he doesn't contribute any new information, insight or analysis. This is glaringly obvious in the final chapter on Vin Scully, where he just summarizes and quotes extensively from a single (and superior) article written by King Kaufmann for Salon.com.
But, when Travers does try to inject his own personality into the proceedings, he just makes things worse. He veers from groan-inducing puns to stomach-churning social commentary. The most troubling (and, the more I think about it, infuriating) moments for me have to do with the author’s apparent attitude toward Latinos. While discussing the building of Dodger Stadium in Chavez Ravine, he glosses over and casually dismisses the controversy surrounding the relocation of the area’s residents by essentially saying: Bah! Who cares? They were a bunch of illegal immigrants anyway.
This shows not only a lack of journalistic integrity and non-bias, but also a lack of journalistic instinct. There’s a big, important story there and the author just dismisses it out of hand. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on the grounds that maybe he considered it to be outside the scope of his book. But then I read the chapter on Fernando Valenzuela. Fernando gets a token 3-page chapter where the author mostly talks about the 1981 players strike and how statistics from that year are meaningless. He implies that Fernando just got off to a lucky start and calls him a “one-shot wonder.” Again, there’s no analysis to back up these claims and no insight into the cultural, social, or political ramifications of the Fernandomania phenomenon. But Travers also just doesn’t give the man his due, even as he spends the next chapter effusively puckering up to Orel Hershiser’s hindquarters.
Granted, the author is a sports writer, not an economist, sociologist, political scientist, or even a legitimate journalist, apparently. Luckily for us, he’s not a play-by-play announcer, either. His writing is impassioned when he’s breaking down key moments in important games, but that passion comes at the sake of clarity. I had to re-read his play-by-plays just to understand what was going on, until I finally gave up and started skimming through them. The last chapter focuses on Vin Scully, whom he calls “the poet.” To me, Scully's more like a painter. Especially when you're listening to Vin Scully call a game on the radio, he can instantly paint a picture of exactly what’s happening on the field at Dodger Stadium. I’ve always known that was a rare gift, but Traver's bumbling proves just how rare a gift it truly is.
August 29, 2010
A great look at Dodger history....a fun read....
August 29, 2008
Interesting if you're a Dodgers fan!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews