It’s not often that a bookaholic like myself can take a 166 page book, read it in two hours, and then decide it’s the best read I’ve had in months, if not more.
Emma Span’s 90% of the Game is Half Mental, is such that book.
Perhaps it’s because I find myself identifying with Ms. Span in quite a few areas:
1) We’re both female New York baseball fans (although I loathe the Mets)
2) We’re both bloggers
3) We’re both nerds (Sorry, when you’ve got Hitchhiker’s and Lord of the Rings mentioned in the same sentence, there’s no way you are not a nerd)
Whatever the case may be, I found myself both laughing and being moved by her trials and tribulations in her collection of essays, as she covers everything from growing up a baseball fan, to life in the press box, even baseball movies (here I have a very slight bone to pick– Field of Dreams is a sapfest, but it is a very good sapfest.)
There have been plenty of books about being a fan–even being a female fan, but Span takes it to a different level: she boards a plane to Taiwan to see what all the fuss is about, travels to Milwaukee, even becomes a member of the working media for a short while. Span is fairly self-deprecating, which adds to the humor and almost makes you ready to forgive her for getting into Yale. Almost (so sayeth the girl who was very much not an Ivy Leaguer).
There are many quotable lines here, but I think my favorite occurs fairly early in the text:
When the legend becomes fact, print the legend
That seems to sum up the entirety of baseball lore–legends, such as curses and Babe Ruth’s called shot, told so often that they’ve become something akin to fact.
Span’s ability to put her finger on the pulse of baseball fandom, to understand exactly what it is to be a fan and find a way to relate that in such wonderful prose, keeps you reading, and when you’ve finished, all you want is more.
Original Story:
http://www.puristbleedspinstripes.com...
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