Joy in Mudville: A Little League Memoir

The author deserves a SRO stadium. It's a lovely book, written by a guy who seems like a cross between Casey Stengel and Joe Torre. The book should be savoured, read in short stretches--one inning at a time. It's all you need to know, for now, about athletic fathers and sons: albeit the sensitive, wry, politically correct and very funny kind. I'd especially recommend this book to any father who claims it doesn't matter whether his own Little Leaguer strikes out with the bases loaded, or boots a crucial ground ball.

Joy In Mudville deserves a place of honor in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Mitchell pulls off quite an impressive feat: the strange-but-true story of his son's Little League team is interwoven with intelligent and hilarious riffs on just about every possible human relationship: fathers and sons, husbands and wives, adults who behave like children, interacting with children with the wit and wisdom of adults. Hey, even the real Boss--Springsteen, not Steinbrenner--makes a cameo appearance in the book...Who knew Bruce was born to run the bases? It's a guaranteed homerun for parents, for kids...and Mitchell even manages to win over the naysayers who insist watching baseball is like watching paint dry.

I am not a die hard baseball fan and I loved "Joy In Mudville". The story of Andy and the Aliens is a warm, funny, father/son book that chronicles the saga of Andy and his Dad/Coach in Little League Play. The book also documents why competitive sports have deviated from their interntion citing national examples of "fan rage". "Greenhorn" coach Mitchell has no coaching credentials but a tremendous love of the game that dates back to his roots in Niagara Falls, NY. The fledgling coach, however, is a quick study and is more than a mental match for the wily, "win at all costs" opposing coach Eddie Badger. The reader is taken into Mitchell's family as he describes how he converted wife Barbara, a football fan from Southeastern Ohio, into an avid baseball fan. The whole family gets into the act including Barbara's parents who fly in from the Buckeye state to support Greg, Andy, and the other "never say die" Aliens in the playoffs. Does Baseball redeem itself as a character building sport in today's virtual, internet world? You bet!.

For anyone who has played little league, watched little league or can spell little league, this book will entertain and inform. Mitchell weaves a sweet tale mixing a year in the life of his son's pint-sized team with little league history and other baseball tid bits ranging from Bruce Springsteen's perspective on coaching to life as a 60's radical. But the majority is on his lovable A's as they battle their way to the playoffs and encounter angry coaches, overbearing parents, and an alien mascot along the way. It's all Apple Pie and mom's cookies, but it works. Batter up!

Joy in Mudville is a terrific, terrific read! It is laugh-out-loud, you'll-read-parts-aloud-to-your-wife-or-friends funny. And a tender story about fathers and sons, and battling against the longest odds. To top it all off, Greg Mitchell really knows his baseball.This book is not only a great read, it would make a great movie. In sum, "Joy in Mudville" has replaced my previous favorite,"Ball Four", as the best baseball book I've ever read.