Growing Up Pedro by Matt Tavares

Growing Up Pedro by Matt Tavares
Rating: 5 stars

Candlewick

I'm so happy it's baseball season again. I'm thrilled to spend many afternoons throwing the ball around with now both of my sons, and sometimes pitching to them in our backyard. I love watching Ben practice, and I love watching the games.

I've said it before here, but one of the things I love so much about baseball is that there are so many wholesome, heroic, hard-working, and dedicated ballplayers. Many of these great men lived and played in the past--but their memories live on through their stats and their lore, so their lessons are still accessible and easy to discuss with my sons. But how great to find a man from the present whose life and character are worth knowing and emulating.

The talented Matt Tavares shows and tells us of how Pedro Martinez grew up in the Dominican Republic. He followed in his big brother Ramon's footsteps as he played baseball, practiced pitching by aiming at mangoes in trees, and dreamed big. Ramon made it to the minor leagues, then the major leagues, and soon Pedro, despite his small size, got a chance. He pitched his way through the Dodgers' minor league system and finally played alongside Ramon. The two boys were ecstatic--it's a big dream come true!

Then what always happens happened: Pedro got traded to the Montreal Expos, but Ramon's advice to the upset Pedro turned out to be true. Ramon explained how the Dodgers would never make Pedro their starting pitcher, but the Expos will. The Expos do, and Pedro started to make headlines as a great pitcher, possibly even better than his brother.

The two brothers continue to play and excel and win awards--Pedro even more so than Ramon--until they finally play together again, this time on the Red Sox, and this time with Pedro as the star pitcher with heaps of talent and grit. The two return to the Dominican Republic often, where they've paid for a fantastic gathering space for their whole family in the spot on which they first learned to play the game.

I know this post is long enough, but the best part of the book for me is the brotherhood part. I know Kiefer keeps choosing this book because of the story of two brothers, making it to the big leagues together--and the little brother comes out on top. But I hope he's listening to the fact that the brothers don't care who is a bigger star. They love each other fiercely still now. When the boys were young, Ramon always looked out for him, and Pedro was smart enough to recognize this and humble enough to keep working hard. The brotherhood bond is awesome and strange right now for my boys--they can't stand being apart even when they can't figure out how to get along at that minute--but it's so important that they figure it out and trust in and believe in and root for each other...

I hope my boys continue to play baseball and be good team players and role models, but I hope even more they continue to be good brothers to each other.

Matt Tavares has several other great baseball (and non-baseball) picture books. Click HERE for a list of titles.

There Goes Ted Williams: The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived by Matt Tavares

There Goes Ted Williams: The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived by Matt Tavares

Rating: 5 stars

Ben read the title and retorted: "Wait.  I thought Babe Ruth was the greatest hitter who ever lived!"

Ah, another chance to enhance his life with a little life lesson: the difference between fact and opinion.  And Matt Tavares, in his afterward, explains his bias: His father loved Ted Williams, and grew up following Williams' every move.  How fitting, then, that Tavares wrote an homage to Williams.  Or was it an homage to his father?  Let's face it: both.

And it's a very positive, very respectful homage indeed, full of life lessons for Ben and other kids like the one above.  I admit not to know a whole lot about Ted Williams.  I've not read the recent book The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams by Ben Bradlee, Jr.  But I've read enough reviews of it and listened to enough of my grandfather's stories to know that he's not exactly my first choice for one of Ben's heroes.  While he was a sensational hitter and his batting average remains to be beaten, he was a brutal, mean man outside of baseball.

The book, of course, says nothing of that.  And that's okay. His life has good lessons for Ben and other boys and girls in this generation.

There Goes Ted Williams speaks of Ted Williams' commitment to baseball--his insistence at being excellent at it.  He practiced and swung and practiced and swung hours a day because he wanted to be the best.  And--whaddya know--he achieved his goal.  He really did become the best.  But his baseball career was interrupted by war: In May 1942, Williams walked away from the spotlight to become a pilot in the navy's V-5 training program.

Williams begins another commitment: this one to his country--and he focuses all of his energy on being excellent at it.  After he finishes his training and is awaiting his orders for combat duty, Japan surrenders.  He can go back to baseball.

And so he does.  In a terrific way, he picks up the bat right where he left it.

Yet his career is interrupted again, this time by the Korean War.  The navy needs pilots, and the navy needs him.  After 39 successful missions, after one emergency landing (which serves as the climax of the book in a gripping way), he goes home.

And Ted Williams picks up the bat once more.

For kids today (am I old enough to start a sentence like that?!), I think there are many good lessons in this great book.  I like how the book teaches how success takes time and effort: it involves a whole lot of practice, a whole lot of putting-in-the-time to achieve a goal.  I like how the book shows how Williams threw himself into his time as a pilot just as much as he threw himself into baseball.  I love how it illustrates his commitment to something even bigger than baseball: his country.

Ted Williams was, just as we all are, terribly and wonderfully human.  Bravo to Matt Tavares for selecting a lot of the good and presenting it so well, in both words and pictures.

Becoming Babe Ruth by Matt Tavares

Becoming Babe Ruth by Matt Tavares

Rating: 5 stars

I suspect that this will only happen once, and it's happening now: Lorelei and Ben are playing the same sport, and they're on the same team.  They're both playing for the Cincinnati Reds in our local Little League--at the t-ball level.  Lorelei likes it, Ben loves it; they are both soaking up some of the rich history of the oh-so-American, oh-so-tradition-rich sport by the stories they are reading.

Dozens of wonderful nonfiction books exist about baseball that bring out the excitement of a previous era, teach about a famous sportsman, and hold the interest of almost any age of reader.  This is one of those books.

Becoming Babe Ruth came out last year--I read about it in the NYTimes Book Review (click HERE) one Sunday when I actually did read the paper.  The story starts off with a slightly shocking image and with a fact I didn't know: In George Ruth's early years in Baltimore, Maryland, he was a rascal of a kid who skipped school and caused trouble.  Yikes! What else was I about to read my kids?! I wondered as I read this page out loud.

But then the story unfolds: in an effort to straighten him out, George's parents send him to the strict St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys.  There, he first chafed under the tight control...until he found baseball.  He was soon slugging away nearly every afternoon, and the balance of finding something he loved (and that something he loved came along with someone he loved, the brother/coach of the team) made the strictness of the school bearable.  Years later, after he'd been playing baseball there for a decade or so, a scout came to watch him.  He was signed onto the Baltimore Orioles the next day.  While he played for them (for just half a season, before being traded to the Red Sox), he often returned to St. Mary's to play with his pals after practicing all day.  Also while playing for the Orioles, he got his nickname "Babe," which obviously stuck.

He got traded to the Red Sox, pitched less and slugged more, and became a sensation unlike any other ball player had before.  Tavares doesn't highlight his trade to the Yankees, and doesn't bring up the curse that trade famously causes (you and your child can--and should!--read about that in the fine, informative The Legend of the Curse of the Bambino).

Instead, Tavares highlights a story that highlights Ruth's character--which gave me the opportunity to talk with Ben about the importance of being a good man while also being a fantastic ball player.  While Babe Ruth was at his peak, out slamming balls left and right in any field in which he played, he got word that there had been a fire at St. Mary's.  Everything burned to the ground.  He was shocked and concerned--this was his home for so many years, and he loved it.  He returned and figured out a way to help.  He took the St. Mary's baseball team on tour with him--letting them lap up hot dogs and ice cream like they never had before, and letting them soak up games as they traveled around with the Yankees for a good part of the season. At the games, Babe Ruth asked people to donate money to have St. Mary's rebuilt.  They did, and St. Mary's was, in fact, rebuilt.

This is a fantastic book about a sportsman every kid needs to know about--a must-read for sure.

There's so much to love about this sport even if, like me, all the joy of playing it comes from pitching to your kid and watching the joy and pride wash over his face when he actually hears the SMACK of the bat meeting the ball.  It's really the first time in parenting when I've sat on the side and watched my children being coached (by my great friend and great coach for this sponge-like yet attention-challenged age group).  I'm learning so much about it all.