Young Razzle

This book continues the tradition of the other books that Tunis has written about the Dodgers. While the theme is baseball and how it is played, there is another more significant story about life. Razzle Nugent, one of the main characters in the earlier books, is a man on his way out of baseball. His estranged son is a rookie whose star is on a dramatic rise. They first met in the minor leagues where an old and out of shape Razzle has been demoted and his son Joe is at the plate. Joe hits a solid home run to win the game, which prompts Razzle to begin a ferocious conditioning program that eventually gets him called back to the Dodgers. Joe earns his way onto the Yankee team in the opposite league. Since the only time they can meet on the field again is in the World Series, both teams win their respective pennants. As the Series moves on, they face each other several times, with neither one emerging as the clear victor. When Joe is the goat of an early game, Razzle visits his hotel room and tries to make amends for his previous neglect. The boy and his father are not on speaking terms over what the boy considers his abandonment. Razzle tries to explain that the boy's mother kicked him out and would not accept the presents that Razzle sent to Joe. The climactic game seven arrives and in the late innings Razzle is on the mound for the Dodgers. The game ends with a close play and Razzle is the loser when Joe scores the winning run. In a gesture of reconciliation, Joe walks off the field arm in arm with Razzle and when a photographer wants to take Joe's picture, he states that only father and son photos will be allowed. This is another of the excellent books by Tunis, where a lesson of life is taught in the context of baseball. The playing of baseball and the relationship between a father and his son are both timeless, so the fact that the book was written over a half-century ago has no affect on the relevance. It is a book that can be enjoyed by men of all ages.

Although this book is considered part of John R. Tunis' Brooklyn Dodger series, it's really not quite within that description. The main character, Joe Nugent, is a young infielder whose father is pitching great Razzle Nugent of the Dodgers. Ol' Raz is wrapping up his career with the Brooks, and son Joe has a smoldering resentment towards a father who never had much time for him while he was growing up. The book mostly concerns itself with Joe's climb up the New York Yankees ladder and his effort to both come to grips with his father while trying to get out from under Raz's shadow. Although you miss the Dodger players from the previous novels like Roy Tucker, Karl Case, Red Allen and others, this is well worth reading for the message of reconciliation it carries. In that regard, baseball is a metaphor here much like the movie "Field of Dreams" was (but without the ghosts and the cornfield). Sons and fathers both should read this one.