Why I Love Reading: How Georgie Radbourn Saved Baseball

For those of you that don't know, I am a die hard New York Mets fan. I love baseball and following my team throughout the year. It's not my favorite sport to play but there's something indescribably great about watching it, especially at the park. So for Emlyn Chan's Books That Made You Love Reading Challenge, in honor of baseball coming back, I re-read possibly my favorite picture book from when I was younger, How Georgie Radbourn Saved Baseball by David Shannon.

It hasn't been too long since I've read this one, it's the only picture book that has stayed with me throughout college and afterwards and there's a reason. The story is great, if short. It starts with the tale of Boss Swaggert, a ballplayer who gets booed off the field and turns to finance. Bitter, he works and gets baseball outlawed arguing that ballplayers make too much money while people starve. But when he does, spring never comes back. No baseball, no spring. It's a sad time. Then Georgie is born and the only thing he can say is old illegal baseball terms. "Batter up!" instead of "I'm ready." "No hitter!" instead of "look out!" This all leads to Georgie eventually having a three pitch showdown with Swaggert to get baseball back or go to prison forever!

Boss Swaggert

As a kid, the story is just fun. The big evil man outlaws baseball and the kid saves the day! As an adult though, it's amazing to see the political themes at work in this story I first read when I was six. The communist overtones are fairly obvious, Boss Swaggert even looks Russian. They've taken the money from the rich (ballplayers) and distributed it to the people except that everyone is miserable now. From the 'Factory Police' to the Radbourns standing in lines, it's easy to pick out the Soviet comparison.

What's interesting though, is how these themes are very true and yet take on a whole new meaning 18 years after the book. In the times of Occupy Wall Street and the 99%, it seems even more plausible than it would have in the '90s for something like this to happen. All it would really take is one frighteningly persuasive person.

In the book Boss Swaggert buys up lots of newspaper, radio, and TV stations where he talks about destroying baseball and during one speech has a line "Let's tear down the ballparks and build factories instead. Then everyone will have jobs!" Completely different ideology aside, I couldn't help but think of Rush Limbaugh as I read this part. All it really would take is one properly placed, well spoken extremist to do something like outlaw games if it meant more jobs for people.

If you haven't read Georgie Radbourn, I can't recommend it enough. Pair with Field of Dreams, a hot dog and a beer for true baseball excitement. That line started as a joke but it actually sounds like an amazing day... I'm gonna go to the grocery store.

The Hobbit: Or a Review That Will Go There and Potentially Back Again

To recap: this year as part of a challenge from Emlyn Chand I'll be reading twelve books from my childhood and reflecting on how it's a different experience years later. Really it's just a good excuse to read some books I haven't read in a while and blog about 'em.

Well, anyway, the first book I went with was The Hobbit, which I first read in the 6th grade and haven't read since. This was in no small part influenced by seeing the trailer for the new movie. That trailer is unreal and after I saw it, I realized I couldn't remember most of the actual plot details from the book! So, with my fancy new Kindle, I downloaded The Hobbit Enhanced Edition. This fancy edition comes with full color versions of Tolkien's own drawings spread across the book AND audio recordings of Tolkien himself reading/singing passages, which added a new piece of fun to re-reading the book.

One of the first things that I noticed while reading was the style of Tolkien and it's something I do in my writing but to a lesser extent (and not as well, I might add). He does it as if he's actually narrating, not writing. He's telling you a story before bed, side comments included. It's such a remarkable violation of everything you've been taught about writing, how could I not love it?

Writing in grade school, my teachers always said I write too much like I'm talking but I always felt that was better for reading. Maybe I wasn't fully aware of it at the time but somehow I knew that if something reads like it's from a friend, you'll be warmer to it and thus you'll be more willing to trust and join the characters. In The Hobbit, we don't just get Bilbo's tale, we get Bilbo's tale the way it would be told around a campfire. There is no more classic way to hear a story.

After I finished the book my biggest revelation was simply that I had forgotten how good it really was. But beyond that, I'd forgotten how much I enjoy a good fantasy book. I've been reading so much 'hard' science fiction recently that I forgot how much fun it is to enter a world that is completely separate from our own. Little unassuming Bilbo goes off on his adventure and encounters trolls and goblins and dragons and those are just, plain fun.

There are possibilities here.

What was really cool about this reread is that it got me thinking about stories and worlds I'd left behind long ago. And there's no reason to leave them behind. I never thought they were too childish they just... weren't what I was doing at the moment. It started me questioning some of the fundamentals of my storytelling and that is more than I could have possibly asked for (it even inspired a rather fabulous idea for a web series that will combine my more current love of science fiction with the older love of fantasy in a most intriguing fashion).

At the end of the day, The Hobbit is probably one of the most purely fun reads that I've had in a while and I can't wait to reread The Lord of the Rings later this year.

I.M. Literate

Well, it's a new year and that means setting goals. One of the goals I've set for myself this year is to both read and write more often. The Kindle my parents gave me for the holidays will undoubtedly aid me in the reading part and I intend this blog to take a brunt of the writing part of it.

Today I was reading some posts on my friend Rachel's blog (Coffee and Cigarettes) and in turn followed that to a blog I had, admittedly, never been to before. But Rachel's post spoke of a challenge and I the competitor in me said "what have you got?"

The challenge from author Emlyn Chand is basically to read 12 books from your childhood (one per month) and then blog out the results. Will the stories hold up over time? Will they affect me the same way emotionally as the first time through? Do I even remember the story the way it actually happened? How much have I really changed in the years since I've read these books? These questions and more await their answers....

I haven't figured out ALL the books I plan on reading this year but here are a couple I plan on getting in at some point during the year.

• The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
• How Georgie Radbourn Saved Baseball by David Shannon
• Yertle the Turtle by Dr. Seuss
• Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling (let's say all of them for now)
• 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C Clarke
• Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein 

The challenge begins with a simple question: why do I like reading? I suppose it's very much the same as why I like watching television or movies and why I like playing video games, I like the escape. The real world can be boring, repetitive and dull. Books, movies, games; they all allow us an opportunity to experience things that we would never get to experience in the real world. Sure, there are endless great places and things to explore in this world but I can't go into space in real life (yet) and I definitely can't journey to lands like Middle-Earth but I can in my head. A book can take me there.

These stories can also give us hope. If our own story isn't going quite the way we wanted to, we can find another person who overcame even greater obstacles to save the world or meet the girl or just succeed at something.

Basically, books are a way to experience the impossible and I can't think of a better reason to read.