And just like that I'm back on track. Nothing like a short, well written, hard to put down book to help me make up the time I lost trying to get through Infinite Jest. I read this book over three days and probably could have finished it in one sitting if I had the time. Yes, it helps that I am a huge Red Sox fan and love reading anything about the team and it's players, but this was a fantastically engrossing book even disregarding that fact.
The Teammates is David Halberstam's beautiful homage to baseball friendships. In it, he chronicles the last trip taken by Dom DiMaggio and Johnny Pesky to visit the great Ted Williams before he dies and in the process talks about their time together playing for the Boston Red Sox during the 40's and early 50's. Like most of Halberstam's work it is wonderfully written and terribly ingrossing. Halberstam has a knack for conveying the passion and respect he has for his subjects and passing it on to his readers. It comes as no surprise that Ted Williams is painted as a great man, but Halberstam is able to make the other Sox of the era, Bobby Doer, Dom DiMaggio, and Johnny Pesky look just as amazing.
This book is a love letter to many things: the sport of baseball, the idea of friendships that last a lifetime, and an bygone era of American History. And it succeeds on all those levels. It's a sweet story about four men who made each other better people while living as icons for a generation of Americans. It's not political or incredibly deep because it doesn't have to be. Baseball fan or not, Red Sox fan or not, this is a wonderful book for anyone to read.
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