The Summer That Saved Baseball: A 38-Day Journey to Thirty Major League Ballparks

by Brad Null, Dave Kaval

The strike of 1994 took a lot out of Major League Baseball. For the first time, a World Series was cancelled, something that hadn't even happened during World War II. When play resumed, people stayed away from the ballparks in droves, and attendance was at an all-time low. Then, in the summer of 1998, balls started flying out of the ballparks in St. Louis and Chicago. Suddenly baseball was fun again. The Great Home Run Derby between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa resulted in both men breaking Roger Maris's 37-year-old record of 61 home runs in a single season. When the season was over, McGwire had hit 70 home runs and Sosa 66, and the New York Yankees had won the first of three consecutive World Series championships. Among the fans in the ballparks that summer were two recent graduates of Stanford University who had decided that before launching into their careers they would indulge themselves in one of the ultimate baseball to see a game in all thirty ballparks of Major League Baseball. To make matters interesting, they decided to view these thirty games and visit the thirty stadiums in less than forty days. This is the chronicle of that adventure, the story of their experiences at the ballparks and at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, the Louisville Slugger Museum, and the Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa. Each chapter offers a fan's-eye view of the stadiums and a description of their experiences at the ballparks -- Kaval and even give advice on what not to miss at each stadium. The notoriety the authors gained while making this pilgrimage earned them special treatment by representatives of the host teams, ballpark officials, and concessionaires. These storiesfocus on all that is good and enjoyable in Major League Baseball. And they are illustrated throughout with photographs from The Summer That Saved Baseball.

Genres: Baseball, Nonfiction, Sports

352 pages, Paperback

First published February 28, 2001

Reviews

[Michael Cox · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unless you have a love for baseball stadiums, I wouldn't recommend this book. As someone intent on going to all 30, it was only marginally better. There is an issue with the printing where the box scores and pictures show up in the next chapter, it gets worse through the book so that by the end a picture of a stadium is 10+ pages after the chapter on that stadium. No idea why.

There is no deep personal story here, it is a post-trip journal/blog of a 20-something who decided to see all the ballparks after college instead of doing something else. The title makes it seems like there will be some thread of interest for the author's life or for the home run chase, but that really doesn't come through. This book is clearly written by someone not aspiring to be an author.

And since the internet has really taken off since 2000 and more than half of these ballparks don't exist, a lot of the information on parking/seats/amenities at the stadium are worth just skipping over. Info for current parks is easy to find online and most of the other information is very dated.

As someone who does want to see all of the MLB stadiums, and does take an interest in the minutia of ballparks - this book offers a snapshot in time. Where the biggest gripes weren't the gambling that has been reintroduced or the speed up of the game, but the fact that stadiums have commercial names, all new stadiums are designed by HOK, and that fans are at the stadium for many reasons other than the game. All of those things we take for granted now.

How can you not be romantic about baseball? By realizing that the forces we gripe about now were present in different forms in 1998. When they thought Fenway might get torn down soon, or that the Giants would move to Florida. For every thing we love to complain about with baseball, the sport itself keeps chugging along, long enough for me to try the same journey.

[Reader · Rating 1 out of 5]

Kaval Underperforms

A tale of privledged Stanford graduates traveling to every MLB stadium. Dave Kaval has gone on to become the president of the Oakland A’s. Over the years Dave has gone on to gaslight A’s fans while handling owner John Fishers dirty laundry and attempting to rip baseball from the East Bay.

[Nik von Schulmann · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is certainly now dated but still a great glimpse of that summer. Ironically, it was also a summer I toured through the US working and going to games. More ironically, one of the two guys on the tour, Dave Kaval, now runs the Oakland A's in a very outdated Stadium.

[Theresa Bathke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liked the story and all the info. My only complaint is the layout of the physical copy of the book is so weird and the pictures and text boxes are a few chapters behind the ballparks they are referencing.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book that tells the story of theo friends on the ultimate baseball journey. The streangt of this book is that gives a great balance between the story of the actual journey and analysis if the baseball parks. I really enjoyed how the author gave details regarding how the experience was impacting them including their friendship, pocketbooks, and outlook on life. The short sections kept the narrative moving, and the numerous pictures both were streangths of the book.

The most glaring weakness of this book is no fault of the authors. This book is dated because so many of the ballparks are demolished. This book is 10 plus years old, but even when this book was published four of the ball parks were demolished.

Another critique of this book is that many of their analysis of the ball parks started to sound the same, and I could measly predict what they weregoing to say about each park by the time I got half way through. They love the old single sport parks, despise the two sport parks from the the 60s, and were grieving that all new parks look like Camden. The word cookie cutter w
as used so many times in their description that the word lost its meaning.

Overall this is a fun ride that you feel part of. I am glad the guys stayed safe because they took risks traveling so much in the wee hours of night. Also I am glad they took the time to share their story.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this a few year's after doing my own similar trip. Pretty decent book (and very cool that they got to go during 1998). There was a certain air of entitlement by the author that was a bit off-putting. I'd recommend The Ultimate Baseball Road Trip before this one.

[Brian K · Rating 5 out of 5]

On my list of things to do