I Don't Care If We Never Get Back: 30 Games In 30 Days On The Best Worst Baseball Road Trip Ever (2014) - Plot & Excerpts
This book got better as it went on. The premise seems cool and fun -- go to all 30 MLB ballparks in 30 days. The reality, of course, is that there's *a lot* of driving in all that, which can be a challenge to make interesting. Because of issues with the narrative technique of the two-person memoir (alternating between first and third person), it took me a while to remember which of the co-authors was a baseball-loving stats nerd (Ben) and which was the baseball hater (Eric), so the beginning was some slow-going. But, it picked up, at least a little. Two newly-minted Harvard graduates decide to visit all thirty (that's 30) major league baseball parks, watching an entire game in each, in 30 (that's thirty) days--driving. (I'll bet it never occurred to them before they started that they might write a book about this adventure.) This timetable meant, among other things, that they never had a day off, had numerous drives of 12-15 or more hours, usually overnight, at speeds of 100 mph and higher, and with only the briefest of pitstops along the way. I would say this verges on madness, but actually it crosses the line and goes well into madness. They say their mothers were worried, and with good reason. The book is light-hearted, and there are some funny stories, as one might expect in a venture like this. Spoiler alert: they do in fact complete the circuit in the thirty allotted days, but not without a lot of difficulty. The unfortunate part is that it becomes clear fairly early on that this is more a book about a truly death-defying, senseless quest, and the survival thereof, than it is a baseball book. The baseball is almost incidental, and by the end of the book has become virtually meaningless, even to the one of the authors who is actually a baseball fan. That said, it's still an interesting story, in the way that running 100 miles in 24 hours, or staying awake for a week, is interesting, but I'm not at all sure it merits a book -- and it was dangerous besides. Ah, well. Undertakings like this are for the very young, and it's good to know these boys and their various co-drivers survived the whole thing, even if they themselves acknowledge that by the end it had become an obsession rather than a vacation.
What do You think about I Don't Care If We Never Get Back: 30 Games In 30 Days On The Best Worst Baseball Road Trip Ever (2014)?
I'd love to take such a trip, except my body couldn't take all that driving...
—Maxyboy10
Fun tour of every ball park in a whirlwind thirty day odyssey.
—athenaleigh
Read my review this week on bookreporter.com .
—MrsEdwardCullenx3
