Read moreĪ FEW YEARS AGO, anxious to enrich his predominantly male cast with a passionate female fan, filmmaker Ken Burns interviewed me for his documentary on baseball. But I'm still not sure what that might have contributed to her adult self. The author, though she seems quite aware of the particular social conditions under which she grew up, seems to be hewing too close to the emotions she might have experienced as a very young Dodgers fan. She was a Dodgers fan, and this seems to have cemented the bond she had with her father.but then, what? In "Wait Till Next Year," her connection with the team and the game doesn't seem to go too far beyond standard-issue sports fan tribalism. But what seems to be lacking is any analysis of why the game appealed to the author, or what she got out of it. We get some fond reminiscences about growing up on Long Island during the prosperous fifties, a description of the author's home life, and, yes, a lot about baseball. After having gotten halfway through it, though, I'm dismayed to report that there doesn't seem to be enough material in here to make a book out of. So "Wait Till Next Year" seemed like a good fit for me. I'm a guy and a baseball fan, but I've long suspected that I follow baseball like a lot of female baseball fans do: I care less about winning and statistical excellence than about the stories, personalities, culture and aesthetics of the game.
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