The Dad Report: Fathers, Sons, and Baseball Families

An unforgettable look at how baseball families share our national pastimeBaseball honors legaciesxfrom cheering the home team to breaking in an old glove handed down from father to son In The Dad Report award-winning sportswriter Kevin Cook weaves a tapestry of uplifting stories in which fathers and sonsxfrom the sports superstars to Cook and his own ball-playing fatherxshare the gameAlmost two hundred father-son pairs have played in the big leagues Cook takes us inside the clubhouses homes and lives of many of the greats Aaron Boone follows grandfather Bob father Ray and brother Bret to the majorsxthree generations of All-Stars Barry Bonds and Ken Griffey Jr strive to outdo their famous dads Michael Jordan walks away from basketball to play minor-league baseballxto fulfill his fathers dreamIn visiting these legendary families Cook discovers that ball-playing families are a lot like our own Dan Haren regrets the long road trips that keep him from his kids Ike Davis and his father a former Yankee debate whether Ike should pitch or play first base Buddy Bell leads a generation of big-leaguers determined to open their workplacexthe clubhousexto their kidsFraming The Dad Report is the story of Kevin Cooks own father Art Cook a minor-league pitcher a loveable rogue with a wicked screwball In Arts later years Kevin phoned him almost every night to talk baseball They called those nightly conversations the Dad Report In time Kevin came to see that these conversations were about much more than the game Thats what this book is about the way fathers and sons talk baseball as a way of talking about everythingxcourage fear fun family morality mortality and how its not whether you win or lose that counts its how you share the game pages of photographs.