New Book Alert: Born For The Game by Mike DeLucia; Check This Book Out About The Ball Game
By Julie Sara Porter
Bookworm Reviews
Spoilers: Once again, we have a book that ends up mirroring real life perfectly. As I am writing my review for Mike DeLucia's Born for The Game, the Winter Olympics has ended. Every time the Olympics or any major sports event airs, we are made consciously aware of the intense scrutiny and pressure that athletes are put through. We glamorize them when they succeed and vilify them when they fail or do something outside of what we consider appropriate behavior.
During this past Olympics, much of the spotlight was put on Russian figure skater, Kamila Valieva, who tested positive for an illegal substance for heart medication. The Olympics Committee faced much criticism by allowing her to perform.
She, the ROC, and the Olympics Committee, faced verbal attacks, criticism, and threats because of this decision. Despite the intense controversy, Valieva performed superbly during the short program. But the pressure obviously got to her and she did not do as well during the long.
The criticism that she received, particularly from commentators Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir, was beyond abusive and hypocritical on Lipinski and Weir's part. Lipinski was herself a teenage figure skater and should understand her situation and Weir had an accusation of domestic violence that could have ended in his dismissal from the figure skating world. Regardless of whether it was true, he should understand what negative publicity can do to a career.
The camera following the ROC team before the medal ceremony in which not only Valieva but her colleague, Silver medalist, Alexandra Trusova were left in tears making what should have been a private moment public was ghoulish and voyeuristic. What is forgotten in all of this is that Kamila Valieva and her fellow skaters are not only world class athletes, but they are also young. In her case, she is fifteen years old. Teenagers are emotional, unpredictable, not always far thinking or even in charge of their own decisions, and the intense pressure would break anyone but especially one who is not old, experienced, or in many cases mature enough to handle such stressful scrutiny.
This pressure can double when an athlete is the first of their kind to enter the sport. Think about the threats and abuse that Jackie Robinson received when he became the first African American baseball player in Major League baseball or that Hank Aaron received when he dared to break Babe Ruth's home run record. All eyes are on that athlete, waiting for them to succeed and break that barrier to welcome others or waiting for them to fail as proof that their "kind" can't do the sport.
In Born For The Game, we have a fictional situation that hopefully will one day be real: the first woman to play for Major League baseball. (Since the All American Girls Professional Baseball League during WWII, forever immortalized by the Penny Marshall directed film, A League of Their Own.)
In this eye opening look at what it takes to break such athletic barriers this woman is Ryan Stone, pitcher for the fictitious L.A. Greyhounds. She is 19 years old and is a coach and manager's dream. She can throw a knuckleball at 50, a fastball at 88, and curves, sliders, and screwballs at different release points. In contrast to the whole "pitchers make lousy batters" myth, she strikes out most of the other players during spring tryouts. As for intelligence, well she graduated from high school at age 8, was tutored by Harvard Law professors, and has an IQ of 197. She is probably the prototype of what many consider the perfect baseball player.
While her impressive career can be attributed to plenty of talent and practice, there is a darker side to Ryan's past and her ambitions to become not only a great baseball player or the first female but to become the best. She was groomed long before her birth to become the perfect baseball player. Multimillionaire Phineas Stone, former player and manager Baxter "Rollie" Rollins, and martial artist and head of the L.A. Japanese Cultural Center, Ito Hatchi conspired to create and raise the perfect player.
They arrange her conception by bringing together two world class athletes, Dakota Swiftwater, a Hall of Fame pitcher and Valentina Fermi, an Italian gold medalist in both Summer and Winter Olympics to conceive and give birth to their future prodigy. That she turned out to be a girl instead of the hoped for boy didn't bother them. In fact they consider her debut more noteworthy for that reason.
Besides arranging Ryan's conception, she is raised by Ito, trained by Rollie, and overseen by Phineas through a combination of visual impressions, subliminal messages, drilling and training for the goal of becoming the best baseball player.
Ryan is well developed as a character. She is clearly living someone else's dream and being programmed even before birth to succeed. Her background is meant to be secret but plays a large part in her acceptance into the baseball world. While this constant pressure and programming have led her to this place, she also shows enough natural talent and study in the sport itself to allow the dream to be hers.
However, the unspoken thought and unanswered question throughout this book is what if Ryan hadn't had this background of these men creating her to be the perfect baseball player. If she had just been an average woman with an amazing gift from an impoverished background but a killer pitching arm would she even be considered for the Majors? How many women have considered a career in professional major league baseball and even told "if you were a guy, we would sign you up" but because they weren't men they have been denied or didn't even bother to try? Do women have to be super successful and have something extra before they can break into a boy's club or can they get in through the traditional way through hard work and perseverance?
While Phineas and Co.'s training and programming of her, particularly putting her parents together, are untoward are they really any different from the real life "Coach Dads" and "Stage Moms" who micromanage and pressure their kids to succeed, feed them drugs to enhance their performance, and even fight with judges, directors, and other personnel when they don't?
At least Ryan actually loves baseball and wants to succeed just as much for herself and not just because she is driven to.
Some of the best moments in the book occur when Ryan breaks her programming and shows despite Phineas, Rollie, and Ito's influence, she is still a person and a young person at that. Right before she gets accepted for the Greyhounds, she mouths off to the manager showing her legalese and business savvy to get a decent contract to join the team. She has an affair with a fan and argues with her adopted fathers when they find out. She sincerely mourns the death of one guardian and feels caught in the middle of a power struggle between the remaining father figures. Then when rumors fly about her background, she is often at an emotional crossroads that impacts not only her career but her mental health and self worth.
While fictional and possibly extreme in the attempts to create the perfect athlete, Born For The Game takes an insider look at the pressure, the highs, and lows of what it really means to be a groundbreaking athlete. As a book, it looks like it could be, yes it is a home run!
