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Summary
Summary
If you love baseball, chances are you love one particular ballpark. Boston fans wax poetic about Fenway Park. Cubs fans are adamant that Wrigley Field is the classic ballfield. Busch Stadium is a hit with folks from Missouri, and Yankee fans are passionate about the House That Ruth Built....
Besides passionate fans, there's one other thing all ballparks -- from the Union Grounds in Brooklyn built in 1862 to the Baltimore Oriole's Camden Yards built in 1992 -- have in common: Each has its own vibrant and unique history.
In Ballpark, Sibert Honor Award winner Lynn Curlee explores both the histories and the cultural significances of America's most famous ballparks. Grand in scope and illustrations, and filled with nifty anecdotes about these "green cathedrals," Ballpark also explores the changing social climate that accompanied baseball's rise from a minor sport to the national pastime. This is a baseball book like no other.
Author Notes
Lynn Curlee, who received a Robert F. Sibert Informational Honor Book Award for Brooklyn Bridge, comes from a family of intense sports fans. His other books include Liberty, Ships of the Air, Into the Ice: The Story of Arctic Exploration, Rushmore, The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, Capital, and, most recently, Parthenon. He lives on the North Fork of Long Island, New York.
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 3-5-In this succinct and thoughtful overview, Curlee traces developments in the game from the mid-1800s to the construction of landmark arenas. The early 1900s saw the building of intimate playing fields such as Boston's Fenway Park and Chicago's Wrigley Field. Yankee Stadium, "the House that Ruth built," opened in 1923 and immediately became one of the country's best-loved ballparks. In the era of expansion teams, Houston's Astrodome opened in 1965-a huge but characterless stadium typical of the era. Baltimore's Camden Yards in 1992 saw a return of nostalgia-inspired fields. Stylized, full-page acrylic paintings add to the nostalgic tone of the book: players appear dramatically frozen in time as flags flap crisply against pastel-tinted skies. Lack of an index limits this title's usefulness for report writers, but both fans and those new to the sport will find that it succeeds admirably at showing the venues, famous and not-so-famous, that have featured so highly in baseball history.-Marilyn Taniguchi, Beverly Hills Public Library, CA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Curlee (Brooklyn Bridge) takes readers out to the ballparks in this high-spirited paean to the nation's legendary "green cathedrals." Along the way, he offers a concise yet conversational chronicle of modern baseball's origins, milestones, rituals and the feats of its superstars ("The history of the sport reflects the story of our country," he posits, "and even something of our national character"). The construction of ballparks began after the Civil War, when soldiers took the sport back home across the country, and the destruction by fire of many late-19th-century wooden "baseball palaces" paved the way for steel and concrete structures, beginning with Philadelphia's Shibe Park in 1909. The text also includes brief biographies, such as Babe Ruth, whose record crowds spurred the building of Yankee Stadium, as well as Jackie Robinson, his courageous entry into the segregated Major Leagues and its affects on the Negro Leagues. Curlee's paintings capture some bittersweet moments: when he mentions the late 1950s move of the Dodgers and the Giants to California, he depicts a brass band playing "Auld Lang Syne" next to the wrecking ball-painted to resemble a baseball-that would raze both Ebbets Field and, four years later, the Polo Grounds. The advent of expansion teams precipitated the "superstadiums," criticized by many as bland and impersonal. As a result, more character and retro features were incorporated into the 1992 design of Baltimore's Camden Yards and subsequent parks, which offered state-of-the-art amenities, while also "serving up a nostalgic baseball experience." That is, in fact, exactly what Curlee does so gracefully here, in words as well as spare, sparkling acrylic paintings. Fans of America's favorite pastime will happily pass time with this handsome book. All ages. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Primary, Intermediate) In a departure from his other works, which detail the creation of a single structure, here Curlee uses historical and present-day ballparks as place markers for memorable events in baseball. The first real game was played at the Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey; William Howard Taft inaugurated the custom of presidents throwing the first ball of the season at National Park in Washington, D.C.; Ebbets Field in Brooklyn hosted Jackie Robinson's debut into the major leagues; at St. Louis's Busch Stadium, Mark McGwire broke Roger Maris's home run record. Curlee chronicles both the modifications in the game and the fields upon which it is played, but despite the title, he gives more history of the game than information about baseball's ""green cathedrals."" The flat, acrylic drawings showcase places better than events or individuals; rather than complement the narrative or sustain a separate visual one, they disengage the reader from the enthusiastic and vivid text. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Adding to an impressive and growing body of work about important places, Curlee here celebrates America's "green cathedrals," offering a fine survey of American history through the story of baseball. From early American bat-and-ball games to the present, every era has its story, from the Black Sox scandal after WWI, Babe Ruth and the Roaring Twenties, the Negro Leagues and the Great Depression, and on into the modern era of ballparks shaped like "concrete doughnuts" and the reaction to them in retro ballparks such as Baltimore's Camden Yards. The text is dense but full of fascinating history, and the glorious colors of the acrylic paintings effectively celebrate the ballparks and the players, stiff and formal as the stately cathedrals they inhabit. Double-page spreads featuring Ty Cobb and Jackie Robinson, majestic paintings of Yankee Stadium and Wrigley Field, and a diagram of Fenway Park add to the work's tremendous visual appeal. The volume arrives with the new season, and readers who need encouragement to get out to the ballpark will surely find it here. (bibliography) (Picture book/nonfiction. All ages) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Gr. 4-6. Veteran nonfiction author and Sibert Honor Book winner (for Brooklyn Bridge0 , 2001), Curlee offers an engaging history of baseball parks in words and pictures. The text briefly recaps the history of the game, mentioning star players through the years (Cobb, Ruth, Robinson, Mays, et al.) but emphasizing the game's growth through the evolution of its playing fields: from parklands to enclosed stadiums with grandstands. Naturally, the most loving attention is paid to the classic ballparks built in the early twentieth century (of which only Chicago's Wrigley Field and Boston's Fenway Park remain), but Curlee also notes the low points in ballpark architecture (the "concrete doughnuts" and domed stadiums of the 1970s). The text is concise and serviceable, but the striking, acrylic-on-canvas illustrations--in bold colors and evoking the baseball art of the early 1900s--are the superstars here, effectively carrying the narrative. One caveat: the upbeat ending, asserting that the game remains in good health and celebrating the home-run records of Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire, rings hollow in light of the ongoing steroid scandal. --Bill Ott Copyright 2005 Booklist
