Good Enough to Dream

by Roger Kahn

The true story of a year in the life of the Utica Blue Sox, a minor league baseball team in upstate New York, by the acclaimed author of The Boys of Summer.   Roger Kahn’s The Boys of Summer immortalized the 1950s Brooklyn Dodgers. Good Enough to Dream does the same for players whose moment in the sun has not yet arrived.   Here, Kahn tells the story of his year as owner of the Class A, very minor league Utica Blue Sox. Most of the Blue Sox never made it to the majors, but they all shared the dream that links the small child in the sandlot with the superstar who has just smacked one out of the stadium. This is a look at the heart of America’s pastime, a game still sweet enough to lure grown men to leagues where first-class transportation was an old school bus and the infield was likely to be the consistency of thick soup. It is a funny and poignant story of one season, and one special team, that will make us hesitate before we ever call anything “bush league” again.  Praise for Roger Kahn “As a kid, I loved sports first and writing second, and loved everything Roger Kahn wrote. As an adult, I love writing first and sports second, and love Roger Kahn even more.” —David Maraniss, Pulitzer Prize winner   “He can epitomize a player with a single swing of the pen.” —Time   “Roger Kahn is the best baseball writer in the business.” —Stephen Jay Gould, The New York Review of Books 

Genres: Baseball, Sports, Nonfiction, Memoir, Business, History, Journalism

353 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Roger Kahn was best known for The Boys of Summer, about the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Reviews

[Brina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Roger Kahn of Boys of Summer renown is one of the best baseball writers of all time. This is his Casey Award winning account of the year he owned a minor league baseball team. Full review to come.

[N.N. Heaven · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book about the 1983 Blue Sox by Roger Kahn.



This is a wonderful book because it is not about a team you intrinsically know. This is not the story of the ‘55 Dodgers or the ‘61 Yankees or the ‘75 Reds or the ‘77 Yankees or the ‘87 Twins or ‘91 Twins or ‘92 Blue Jays or ‘93 Blue Jays.



This is a story about a bunch of young guys who play baseball because they have the chance to be paid for the privilege. It is a chronological tale that covers the season that has fun, sadness, excitement, turmoil and simply life and baseball.



A fantastic read for every baseball fan and for everyone who might like baseball. A treasured part of my baseball book library that I have owned for decades.



Disclaimer: I bought the hardcover when it was first released in 1985.



My Rating: 5 stars



This review first appeared: https://princessofthelight.wordpress.com

[Joy D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Roger Kahn takes the reader into the heart of small-town America in the days when baseball was still considered “America’s pastime.” He provides a glimpse into the workings of a minor league baseball team, the Utica Blue Sox, in upstate New York, which was in the “A” league and had no parent team. Kahn relates his experience as the owner-general manager, and the many challenges of working on the ownership side of a struggling team. He also delves into the lives of several players and the reception the team receives from residents of Utica. Themes include dreams, goals, community, resilience, and perseverance.

Kahn discusses baseball as a symbol of hope and opportunity, while not ignoring the obvious fact that most minor leaguers never make it to the major leagues, and it was even more difficult for anyone on an independent minor league team. Kahn is a great storyteller. His writing is a blend of anecdotes and astute observations. Published in 1985, it is a bit of a period piece, as there have been many changes to the way teams are run since this book was written. It is nostalgic, humorous, and a pleasure to read. I can see why this book is considered a classic of sports literature.

[mitchell dwyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I have lived variations of this moment, with authors, physicians, lawyers and bartenders. Layers of acquired, mannered sophistication fall away to passion when they talk of distant baseball dreams that failed.”

Roger Kahn’s The Boys of Summer was published in 1972. Thirty years later, Sports Illustrated named it the second best sports book of all time, saying it was a baseball book “the same way Moby Dick is a fishing book … no book is better at showing how sports is not just games.”

A copy of that esteemed story of the 1950s Brooklyn Dodgers has been on my shelf forever, a tribute both to its place in the sports canon and my penchant for biting off more books than I can chew. On the same shelf for even longer is Good Enough to Dream, also by Kahn. I first read it in the early 1990s, and it has survived multiple (though not multiple enough) cullings of the collection, one of my ten favorite baseball books.

I read it again this summer, a season in which I paid more attention to my favorite sport than I had in many years, sensing since the early days of spring training that 2016 would be historic. The Chicago Cubs were months away from winning their first World Series in 129 years, something so mind-blowing and deep-hitting that I yearned to get back in touch with the fan I used to be, before the days of fantasy baseball. I remembered baseball in Kahn’s book about his year managing a single-A minor league team the way I remembered my earliest baseball cards, not as some commodity or billion-dollar-enterprise, but as something to be treasured because it is beautiful.

I don’t know if anything in baseball will ever be as beautiful for me as Rickey Henderson’s headfirst slide into a stolen second base or Phil Niekro’s knuckleball floating past opponents who could only wave their bats at it. I’m not thirteen anymore, and I’ve seen too many Jose Cansecos and Mark McGwires to be certain of anything.

But the 1983 Utica Blue Sox were the only team in the New York—Penn League without a parent club in the Major Leagues. This meant its players didn’t have a next level to aspire to, at least not the way their opponents did. If the young men on the other side of the field performed well enough, they’d be promoted through the system, someday to make the big-league club. The best a Blue Sox could aspire to was catching the eye of a scout and being purchased by a real team the next season, one with built-in upward mobility.

This is the team that sportswriter Roger Kahn purchased, serving as its president and daily head of operations, making decisions out of a trailer, about a budget that didn’t have room to purchase jackets for its players because it first had to make good on bills unpaid in seasons past by previous owners.

“These fellows I hear are coming back,” I said. “Hendershot, Jacoby. Moretti. Coyle. Are they really major league prospects? How good are they?”

Joanne stood on her high heels in the infield and thought for a while. Then she said, “They’re good enough to dream.”

Why would one of the most successful sportswriters in America put himself in that trailer, mediating disagreements between coaches who had nobody better to coach and players who had nowhere better to play? Because baseball is beautiful, perhaps nowhere more than at its lowest levels, where young men who were legends of their high-school teams, and slightly older men who were about to run out of opportunities, clung to the hope that their time had not yet run out on their dreams of playing professionally the game they loved.

Kahn’s account of that season and the men who played it is one of the best things I’ve ever read about baseball. This recent reading reminded me not only of how much I adore this game, but how many of my own unrealized dreams are still in play. It’s a great book.

Four and a half stars out of five. I love it.

[Brian Eshleman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The "Everyman steps into a brave new world and reports back to us" genre that I enjoy has another particularly effective installment. Already established as an effective chronicler of major-league grandeur Roger Kahn becomes an an active character as an owner in the low minors. If anything, his sharp perception combined with genial regard for those he studies improves in this setting. Even in the season of a baseball book binge running up the opening day, and having read it a scant two years ago, this one stands out.

[Jay French · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love books on the minor leagues, especially those that combine the stories of the baseball players with the stories of the team owners and operators. This is one of the best of the bunch. Kahn, a well-known baseball writer, buys into an independent minor league team in the Mohawk Valley of New York. There are plenty of story lines that come up here. Does the famous baseball writer know anything about running a club? Can the independent team stand up to the other teams affiliated with Major League teams? Can the team with a minute budget continue to pay the lights and buy baseballs? Can the female GM run the organization? Will the manager have a coronary? Will Kahn’s 16 year old daughter fall for a player? These are just some of the stories that come up. You really feel for the players and staff of the team. The only group that you don’t feel for are the owners and the league administrators, who are played for humor but also shown to be dedicated to their causes.

I appreciated the mix of stories between the typical baseball stories and the business stories. It seems like books about the minors tend to lean one way or the other, but this seems reasonably balanced. The book covers a single season, with a “where are they now” section at the end. I found this very worthwhile, and appreciated it more than Kahn’s “The Boys of Summer”. “The Boys of Summer” mixed stories of baseball and the story of journalists, whereas “Good Enough to Dream” mixed baseball with small business. And small business to me seems more approachable and identifiable. I’d take the second mix most days…

[Michael C Dreimiller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enjoyable read. Nice surprise to see a friend of mine who played for the Erie Cardinals mentioned.

[Matt Ely · Rating 3 out of 5]

A 3.5, rounded down for the lack of highlights.

It's an interesting look at a single minor league season. Lots of great anecdotes and it builds an exciting atmosphere. But with a few exceptions (the author not really even among them), it refuses to go more than skin deep. It's unapologetically old school and Kahn seems to treat his own squad as the one exception to a universal decline is truly great baseball in America.

It's got all the pieces, it just fails to elevate them beyond their independent value.

[Joelb · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is 40 years old, but it holds up better than most baseball books would after 40 years. Why? Because it tells stories of baseball players no one ever heard about in the first place. Players come and go, but baseball is timeless. Kahn's book reminds me of this universal truth.

Lucky Roger Kahn. After hitting it big with Boys of Summer (an excellent book in it's own right), he's offered the opportunity to become owner of the Utica Blue Sox, an independent class A team in the New York-Penn League. Other teams are affiliated with major league teams that stock them with players. The Blue Sox, as an independent team, get their players through an agreement with a Texas baseball talent agency. The Blue Sox play in a municipal stadium where the stands are all bleachers and the player seating in the dugout consists of 2x1o lumber bolted to iron supports. The clubhouse is so cramped that many players change at home before arriving. The team comes complete with a reputation for not paying its bills, so the only bus company that will even agree to transport them insists on payment up front, as well as the option of providing a school bus on dates where other customers have already booked all the coaches. For the sum of $15,000, Kahn becomes majority owner and team president. He's a hands-on executive. His office is in the same former house trailer, parked behind center field, which houses the general office and the ticket sales division.

The book proceeds chronologically through the Blue Sox' short season schedule, June through August, with playoffs for the league championship extending into September should the team qualify.

The early parts of the book recount the business frustrations of trying to run a business which is a sport. It's a fascinating look behind the scenes which parallels the chicaneries that afflict honest business people anywhere - lyin' politicians, schmoozers who want something from you, irate minority stockholders, the difficulty of building team spirit in the business organization when employees are working for $800 a month, that sort of thing. Kahn recounts it engagingly, with the through line that it's all in the service of the team and the game.

The really interesting part is watching the development of the team's identity and cohesiveness. Surprisingly, these players have nothing in common with the bad news Bears. One might suspect that, as players passed over by major league organizations, they'd be unrealistic youngsters or old men with nothing else to do with their lives, bumblers all. Not true. The book deserves it's title, which surfaced in a conversation between Kahn and his general manager (who also serves as office manager, bookkeeper, and diligent guardian of team property, doling out balls and bats with miserly suspicion). She knows some of the players from previous seasons. The new owner asks, "How good are these guys really?" She responds, "Good enough to dream."

In fact, they're very good. One of the truths of the book is that, historically, major league scouting leaned too heavily on the eye test. Did these guys look like ball players? Often, not so much. Too short. Too long-haired. Too round. Could they play? The answer is a resounding "yes." Kahn insists that the team’s closer could close in the bigs. Team batting average for the season is north of .300, and some players hit .380. Are they professional? Absolutely. Almost all are driven by the desire to prove the major league scouts wrong. Most of the other teams in the NY-Penn League are major league farm teams, so the Blue Sox take particular pleasure in trouncing their rivals while the major league scouts are watching.

The book could devolve into a tiresome recounting of what happened in this game, followed by what happened in the next series. For the most part, it doesn't. There's enough particularity to lend authenticity, but that's not why the reader is here. As team president, Kahn is absolutely serious about winning. It's fascinating to see him become arbitrator when tempers flare, conciliator when feathers are ruffled, morale-builder when cohesiveness is frayed. One example: he institutes, at club expense, an after-game beer bar where every employee, from the grounds-keepers (three 20-something part-timers) to the players and coaches to the front office staff each receive two free beers. It’s a great way to release the tension of the game, and it keeps the players from heading straight from the game to the bar.

The season consists of three months of baseball played every day. Luckily for the author, the season proceeds along a story arc that would be judged too good to be true if it were fiction. The Blue Sox pound the opposition and are eight games up after one month. The race tightens until they fall into a tie for first place. They exchange places in the standings with their chief rivals throughout the final month. I won’t reveal the ending, but suffice to say that much tension and emotion are involved.

In the end, I don’t read a sports book to find out what happened. Who cares whether the 1982 Utica Blue Sox won the pennant? I read it to find out how the people who made it happen did or didn’t negotiate the challenges and interpersonal dynamics that occurred along the way. I read it for the style as well as the substance. Roger Kahn is one of the finest baseball writers I’ve read, right up there with Roger Angell. Baseball fans will enjoy this book.

[Len Knighton · Rating 5 out of 5]

An outstanding book on the most minor of minor leagues, Single A Baseball, Roger Kahn, arguably a member of baseball writers Mount Rushmore, allows us to view him in a different light, as the owner of a minor league baseball team. He is owner for just one season. As owner he is the antithesis of what most baseball fans prefer from their favorite teams owners. Kahn has daily conversations with his manager, even about which pitcher is starting, although he insists that the manager make the final decision. Kahn rides the bus with the team to their road games. He is a confidant to the players.
This is a team the reader will care about. We care about the players; the talented and the mediocre. We care about Kahn's daughter Alissa, a teenager among men. Joanne Gerace is the general manager, not much more than a teenager herself. I Googled her and learned that, a few years later, she would be named Executive of the Year. He makes mistakes but not for lack of trying.
What is most intriguing about the book is the close look Kahn gives us of the pressure of a pennant race and the everyday nuances of professional sports, whether major league or several steps below. I recently attended a Single A game in which a former World Series MVP was playing. Fortunes certainly do change.
This is a book all baseball fans will love.

Five stars

[Burt · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Boys of Summer will always be Roger Kahn’s most-famous work. But I probably enjoyed Good Enough to Dream even more. Back in 1983, Kahn became the owner of the minor-league Utica (New York) Blue Sox. Utica was a team of players who’d been cast off by other minor-league teams. Kahn recounts their 1983 season in Good Enough to Dream.

The Kahn who wrote Good Enough to Dream was not the same guy who’d written The Boys of Summer. By 1983, Kahn had been beaten up a bit by life. (In fact, he’d been mugged in the streets of New York). He wasn’t quite as sure of himself when he wrote this book and he showed a kinder heart to (most of) the people he encountered.

The Blue Sox’s story is a good one. While these players had almost no chance of reaching the major leagues, they played on. Kahn succeeds in getting the reader to care about the players and many of the people from the community.

I’ve read this book twice. The first time was in 2001. Baseball fans will enjoy it.

[Eric Schultz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved minor league baseball, especially low level A ball. I grew up spending my summers watching my local NY-Penn League team- in same league as Mr. Kahn’s team. This book captures a feeling and a slice of baseball in a past era, before even Class A became “corporate”. This book is excellent and must reading for baseball fans.

[Larry Manch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kahn wrote many excellent books, but this was my favorite of his. I lived in Utica, NY that summer (where the team he co-owned and wrote about was based). I was at many of the games, and witnessed in person the spectacular turn of events that Roger wrote about. This book captures perfectly the essence of what that team was all about.

[Ed Turner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an interesting look into the world of Minor League Baseball. As a big baseball fan, I would highly recommend it.

[Dave Moyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

His inimitable voice is always worth the read.

[Cindy Regan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love Roger Kahn. Here's his beaut of a book about minor league baseball

[Edward Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

must read book for any baseball fan.

[Bill Purcell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Minor league baseball season as told by an excellent writer

[Salahuddin Hourani]

ملاحظة لي: لم اقرا الكتاب بعد

مقترح من ستيفين كينغ

[Ruth Vanderhart · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 really. A fun read for anyone who loves baseball.

[jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written account of a baseball season in the low minor leagues. There oughta be a movie of this! Perhaps, a sequel, of sorts, to the original "Bad News Bears".

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will excuse the author for a few paragraphs of political incorrectness in this wonderfully personal account of one season as a minor league baseball team owner. This one might be better than The Boys of Summer.

[Nancy Kennedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those books you don't want to end! Mr. Kahn's book follows the 1983 season when he was owner and president of the Class A Utica Blue Sox in the New York-Penn League, a team that didn't even have a major league affiliation. "Utica and the season would bring us deep measures of pain and elation, humor and anger, and above all a sense of purpose," he writes. In Mr. Kahn's book, fortunately, there's equal measures of humor and angst.

I'm familiar with upstate New York and loved reading about the ins and outs of owning a minor league ball club there. And real underdogs at that! The author obviously has a love not only of the game, but of the characters who populate it, both on the field and in the front office. What a fun read for any baseball fan.

[Wayland Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Roger Kahn gained fame with his best seller The Boys of Summer about the 1950's Dodgers. Now he focuses on a different part of baseball, and a summer he spent as president of a minor league team.

It's a lot of detail about how baseball is run, and a very backstage/behind the scenes about the sport. I'm a casual baseball fan, and I found it interesting reading. The pettiness on the team and from the league they were in shows that even at the outer edges of a dream come true, people are still people and will find a way to not live up to the ideal.

Good read for baseball fans, or someone who wants to learn more about it.

[Siobhan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Roger Kahn is a great writer. I have now read three of his books and loved each of them. This one holds a special place in my heart, though, because it is about the minor league team in Utica, New York. I grew up outside of Utica, in Clinton, so I'm always delighted when I read about this area in a book. I was intrigued by the fact that all the other readers who have listed this book that I can see are men. Not that I mind being the only woman, but this is great writing!!! It's too bad that more people aren't reading it.

[Daniel Jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

BOTTOM OF THE 33rd and GOOD ENOUGH TO DREAM are two of the finest minor league books in existence, and, reading both within the same year, I understand the strange and wonderful world of the "farm team" so much better. I go to many minor league games each year, and I'm sure that GOOD ENOUGH TO DREAM will enhance my experience in the stands on the third base line. Roger Kahn's voice is so likeable, and as the story of the pennant race heats up, baseball lovers will not be able to put the book down. Fantastic, with local flavor (upstate NY) to boot.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 1983 Utica Blue Sox was an unaffiliated, independent team made up of cast off players from other teams affiliated with the major league; the Yankees, the Mets, the Phillies, the Red Sox etc.

They faced a challenge of fielding a team of misfits with the worse field in the league, and the lowest budget. They were so strapped for funds that the bull pen was given only one ball to warm up a pitcher until it was pointed out that sometime two would be warming up at the same time.

It is a story of struggle, perseverance, and fortitude. They did well.

[Gary Geiger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Minor league baseball!

[Debra]

Stephen King recommended.

[Kelly White · Rating 5 out of 5]

Go Blue Sox! A superb read for fans of minor league baseball and the underdog.