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Beep: Inside the Unseen World of Baseball for the Blind
In Beep, David Wanczyk illuminates the sport of blind baseball to show us a remarkable version of America’s pastime. With balls tricked out to squeal three times per second, and with bases that buzz, this game of baseball for the blind is both innovative and intense. And when the best beep baseball team in America, the Austin Blackhawks, takes on its international rival, Taiwan Homerun, no one’s thinking about disability. What we find are athletes playing their hearts out for a championship. Wanczyk follows teams around the world and even joins them on the field to produce a riveting inside narrative about the game and its players. Can Ethan Johnston, kidnapped and intentionally blinded as a child in Ethiopia, find a new home in beep baseball, and a spot on the all-star team? Will Taiwan’s rookie MVP Ching-kai Chen—whose superhuman feats on the field have left some veterans suspicious—keep up his incredible play? And can Austin’s Lupe Perez harness his competitive fire and lead his team to a long-awaited victory in the beep baseball world series? Beep is the first book about blind baseball.
- GenresNonfictionSports
246 pages, Hardcover
Published March 12, 2018
4 people are currently reading
37 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 8, 2018
An absorbing introduction into a competitive game you’ve probably never heard of -- and the lore, legends and rivalries that fuel beep baseball -- “Beep” sherpas readers through peaks and valleys on a journey that’s hard to put down.
Author Wanczyk’s thoughtful and compassionate outsider lens makes a complex game approachable and rewarding for all fans of sport and/or story.
“Beep” echoes of “The Boys of Summer,” “Ball Four,” Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk,” “Paper Lion” and other classics that look beyond cliche to capture sports universes simultaneously major and intimate, and always up close to the action.
The journey takes you from the American heartland to Dominican talk shows and what's likely the world’s highest Starbucks in Taiwan -- seeking answers to questions universal and specific.
From the learned, pragmatic Renegades of Boston to the bullheaded Indy Thunder and the dynastic Taiwan Homerun, each team you meet has its own pathos. Wanczyk carefully, dexterously makes what's in Beep’s rearview mirror seem closer than it first appears.
It's funny, too, clever in its love language of (mostly self) deprecation, but never at the expense of the reader or the people you'll encounter on the journey.
I'll follow the author’s lead and reject saccharine sentimentality about perseverance and overcoming adversity, but “Beep” is a case study in capturing the essence of colorful characters you're glad you met.
Author Wanczyk’s thoughtful and compassionate outsider lens makes a complex game approachable and rewarding for all fans of sport and/or story.
“Beep” echoes of “The Boys of Summer,” “Ball Four,” Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk,” “Paper Lion” and other classics that look beyond cliche to capture sports universes simultaneously major and intimate, and always up close to the action.
The journey takes you from the American heartland to Dominican talk shows and what's likely the world’s highest Starbucks in Taiwan -- seeking answers to questions universal and specific.
From the learned, pragmatic Renegades of Boston to the bullheaded Indy Thunder and the dynastic Taiwan Homerun, each team you meet has its own pathos. Wanczyk carefully, dexterously makes what's in Beep’s rearview mirror seem closer than it first appears.
It's funny, too, clever in its love language of (mostly self) deprecation, but never at the expense of the reader or the people you'll encounter on the journey.
I'll follow the author’s lead and reject saccharine sentimentality about perseverance and overcoming adversity, but “Beep” is a case study in capturing the essence of colorful characters you're glad you met.
February 3, 2019
There are books you find interesting and theirs books you don't. I mean a book about blind people playing a sport? Who would've thought? Beep by David Wanczyk is about grit and perseverance. It also teaches the readers what hard work will do for you no matter who you are and what you're struggling with.
One main idea of Beep is grit. Grit is to work hard on something and not to give up in order to overcome an obstacle. The book has multiple stories from different peoples lives and the first story is about a boy in Boston who grows up near Fenway Park (Red Sox stadium). This little boy was born blind but still had a passion and love for the game. Knowing that he was blind didn't stop him from not playing. He was trying to figure out ways of playing and finally heard about blind baseball. However, The little boy had to work extremely hard to learn how to play without seeing because its a real challenging task. Therefore he was able to accomplish the grind and got to play blind baseball. But the only way he was able to work hard to get into the league, he had to have grit and perseverance. If he didn't he might not have made it because there was many times where he wanted to quit but he had the mindset of completing his task.
If many individuals believe in themselves and if they don't give up they'd succeed in mostly anything they do. One thing that David Wanczyk done well was showing readers what happens when you have a little grit in something you do. He also chooses a very inspiring topic to write about and to share with the readers a sport that's damn near impossible.
One main idea of Beep is grit. Grit is to work hard on something and not to give up in order to overcome an obstacle. The book has multiple stories from different peoples lives and the first story is about a boy in Boston who grows up near Fenway Park (Red Sox stadium). This little boy was born blind but still had a passion and love for the game. Knowing that he was blind didn't stop him from not playing. He was trying to figure out ways of playing and finally heard about blind baseball. However, The little boy had to work extremely hard to learn how to play without seeing because its a real challenging task. Therefore he was able to accomplish the grind and got to play blind baseball. But the only way he was able to work hard to get into the league, he had to have grit and perseverance. If he didn't he might not have made it because there was many times where he wanted to quit but he had the mindset of completing his task.
If many individuals believe in themselves and if they don't give up they'd succeed in mostly anything they do. One thing that David Wanczyk done well was showing readers what happens when you have a little grit in something you do. He also chooses a very inspiring topic to write about and to share with the readers a sport that's damn near impossible.
August 23, 2018
If you thought baseball players were skilled, here is an inside look at a form of International Baseball that will blow you away, and not just because it is unpaid! The author is sighted and an avid baseball fan but doesn't have a lot of skills to play. He covers the inception and development of the beep balls and the development of the game played by adults of a wide range of ages and nations as he himself tramped around the US following teams and interviewing players. For those of us who care to know, he does include the type and cause of each player's blindness and what he does for a living (we nurses are awfully nosy). This is a fantastic read even if you aren't into pro baseball, like me.
Doug McDonald is the narrator extraordinaire for this book.
I requested and received a free audio copy via AudioBookBOOM.
Doug McDonald is the narrator extraordinaire for this book.
I requested and received a free audio copy via AudioBookBOOM.
October 7, 2018
I'm 50 (ugh lol) and have been a baseball fan since I was kid, and I've never heard of this! So cool that blind men CAN play baseball! Just goes to show ya, when you put your mind to something... :)
Very comprehensive look into the game and the players themselves. Fascinating, and I'm so glad these people are able to enjoy baseball just like anyone else.
Loved it!! It's a great listen, highly recommended for baseball fans. Inspirational!
I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
Very comprehensive look into the game and the players themselves. Fascinating, and I'm so glad these people are able to enjoy baseball just like anyone else.
Loved it!! It's a great listen, highly recommended for baseball fans. Inspirational!
I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
December 27, 2021
Beep is the best kind of book. First it entertains: We meet and get to know—to like and maybe dislike but mainly to care about—a cast of characters we’re privileged to follow around for a while. We get to be part of a team, for part of a season. There’s a story to be told, and it’s a good one, and it’s an old one but also a brand new one and that’s where the other best part about the book comes into play: It doesn’t just entertain, it informs.
For me, Beep opened the gates to an unknown world. Specifically, it served as the introduction to a new sport, or at least one I was unfamiliar with. In case you’re coming into this as uninformed as I was, there’s something you might want to know: There’s baseball for the blind! The ball freaking beeps!
That’s where Wanczyk comes in, as the outsider-insider who has been allowed to immerse himself so he can immerse us. He attends game after game. He travels the world with the team. He earns the confidence of coaches, players, even their loved ones. He has it as his goal to “do justice to the players” by not just “dramatizing their triumphs over adversity” but “showing them in all their rough-and-tumble glory.”
Through Wanczak we witness rivalries, brawls, allegations and scandals. We experience injuries and losses and major victories. We get a night on the town with the team. Beep—both the book and the game—amounts to an embodiment of the redemptive possibility of sport, or of “organized frivolity,” as Wanczyk terms it at one point.
“But beep ball was a way out…,” he writes, “and the sport reminded me to hang on to some of my youthful self. When I didn’t try too hard to make it something important, beep was something impractical, and therefore good.”
It might be argued that there’s plenty practical, though, about the effect of this game on some of its players’ lives. One beepballer’s mother confides to Wanczak that “When they presented [her son] with this game, it saved him. From feeling useless.”
As spectator-readers we are granted, through Beep, both the privilege of seeing and the opportunity to consider that privilege and appreciate it anew—all the while considering and appreciating other ways of seeing, of living.
Rich with telling detail, gentle humor, and thoughtful reflection, Beep is the first book of its kind, and Wanczyk proves perfect for the task of delivering this beautiful game to a wider audience. I’ll leave you with a passage that somehow makes a mess of me every time I return to it. It’s a lovely image, rendered in striking prose, but it’s beyond just that. There’s something more. There’s got to be.
“This game had been the time of his life, and though it was getting late in Santo Domingo and the stands were emptying out, he didn’t want to leave just yet.”
For me, Beep opened the gates to an unknown world. Specifically, it served as the introduction to a new sport, or at least one I was unfamiliar with. In case you’re coming into this as uninformed as I was, there’s something you might want to know: There’s baseball for the blind! The ball freaking beeps!
That’s where Wanczyk comes in, as the outsider-insider who has been allowed to immerse himself so he can immerse us. He attends game after game. He travels the world with the team. He earns the confidence of coaches, players, even their loved ones. He has it as his goal to “do justice to the players” by not just “dramatizing their triumphs over adversity” but “showing them in all their rough-and-tumble glory.”
Through Wanczak we witness rivalries, brawls, allegations and scandals. We experience injuries and losses and major victories. We get a night on the town with the team. Beep—both the book and the game—amounts to an embodiment of the redemptive possibility of sport, or of “organized frivolity,” as Wanczyk terms it at one point.
“But beep ball was a way out…,” he writes, “and the sport reminded me to hang on to some of my youthful self. When I didn’t try too hard to make it something important, beep was something impractical, and therefore good.”
It might be argued that there’s plenty practical, though, about the effect of this game on some of its players’ lives. One beepballer’s mother confides to Wanczak that “When they presented [her son] with this game, it saved him. From feeling useless.”
As spectator-readers we are granted, through Beep, both the privilege of seeing and the opportunity to consider that privilege and appreciate it anew—all the while considering and appreciating other ways of seeing, of living.
Rich with telling detail, gentle humor, and thoughtful reflection, Beep is the first book of its kind, and Wanczyk proves perfect for the task of delivering this beautiful game to a wider audience. I’ll leave you with a passage that somehow makes a mess of me every time I return to it. It’s a lovely image, rendered in striking prose, but it’s beyond just that. There’s something more. There’s got to be.
“This game had been the time of his life, and though it was getting late in Santo Domingo and the stands were emptying out, he didn’t want to leave just yet.”
December 17, 2018
Caden Weidner
English 9a
Period 2
Book Review
Beep: Inside the Unseen World of Baseball for the Blind
Inspiring. Eye-opening. That’s how I felt reading this book. For people that love baseball or love to read sports books, this is a good one! When people think of someone blind, they may think that the blind are helpless, but not these players, not this league, they are far from the word “helpless”. The blind can do everything that us visioned people can do and everyone needs to know that. But in all honesty, I’m not really a fan of this book. The book is kind of bland and doesn’t really jump out at me.
In this book by David Wanczyk, the main character, David Wanczyk, gives us the inside sneak of how blind athletes go with their daily lives and interviews them to know their backstory. The athletes come from all around the world and with different backstories, some tragic. Before David knows it, he doesn’t just get a taste of blind baseball off the field through his interviews, he also gets some action on the field.
English 9a
Period 2
Book Review
Beep: Inside the Unseen World of Baseball for the Blind
Inspiring. Eye-opening. That’s how I felt reading this book. For people that love baseball or love to read sports books, this is a good one! When people think of someone blind, they may think that the blind are helpless, but not these players, not this league, they are far from the word “helpless”. The blind can do everything that us visioned people can do and everyone needs to know that. But in all honesty, I’m not really a fan of this book. The book is kind of bland and doesn’t really jump out at me.
In this book by David Wanczyk, the main character, David Wanczyk, gives us the inside sneak of how blind athletes go with their daily lives and interviews them to know their backstory. The athletes come from all around the world and with different backstories, some tragic. Before David knows it, he doesn’t just get a taste of blind baseball off the field through his interviews, he also gets some action on the field.
August 29, 2023
So this three star rating is an average of four stars for subject matter and two stars for writing. I'm not sure how a topic so interesting could be made so boring, but I did not finish this rather slim volume. I may try to finish it later because I haven't found any other book on the subject.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews