Review by Booklist Review
First, this book about the authors' successful attempt to attend an entire game in each of the 30 Major League parks in 30 days during the 2013 season is moronically contrived, and at a cost of some 22,000 miles' worth of fossil fuels. And if the banter between these two knuckleheads, one a Harvard senior and the other a recent Harvard grad, is meant to be funny, it kind of isn't: for instance, their Yankee Stadium MVP seats were so close to the action you had a legitimate chance of being named the player of the game. Still, stacking together these 30 stadiums, one after the other, is a great way to contrast and compare the unique experience each of them offers fans. And, almost despite themselves, Blatt and Brewster make some wonderfully salient points: It made far more sense to root for the success of your favorite doctor than it did for your favorite player. A quirky book that just might draw a crowd.--Moores, Alan Copyright 2014 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
When sports analyst and baseball fanatic Blatt first came up with an algorithm that figured out how one could see every pitch of 30 baseball games in 30 different ballparks in 30 days, it seemed like a pipe dream. That is, until his best friend Brewster, who "didn't like baseball," agreed to come along for the 22,000-mile ride. As expected on such as trip, the games themselves take a backseat, so those looking for exciting sports writing or an in-depth baseball history best look elsewhere. It also takes a little time getting used to the writing combination of two different third-person narratives plus the first-person plural as well as the way the friends talk in witty rejoinders (Eric: "I thought you didn't want children."/Ben: "But everyone wants grandchildren"). The story doesn't start to get interesting till something bad happens, and here it occurs about a third of the way through the trip when Ben messes up the start time for the Rockies game, putting the 30-in-30 streak in serious jeopardy. As the two friends put their heads together to figure out how to salvage the trip, the journey picks up steam, and from there it's the fun road trip/ballpark adventure with pranks, missed exits, a misadventure with a scalper, and a sellout on the worst possible day that has you rooting for them to accomplish their goal. The result, like any good road trip tale, is less about the destination and more about the bonds formed and experiences had trying to get there, and in that respect Blatt and Brewster have definitely scored. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Two former Harvard Lampoon writers attempt a road trip of epic logistical proportions: 30 baseball games in 30 stadiums in 30 days. The road-trip memoir has become so tired that there's almost no premise good enough to resurrect it from endless clich, and a frenetic race to an arbitrary goal didn't seem promising. But that wasn't accounting for two things: Moneyball-worthy mathematical algorithms and the sharp, hilarious prose that has made Lampoon alums famous for generations. Slate writer Blatt is passionate about two things: math and baseball. His travel companion, Brewster, is passionate about neither. But when Blatt wrote a computer program that plotted out the tripan entire game every day, hitting every stadium, using only a carBrewster reluctantly agreed to join his friend. The math assured the pair that the trip was possible, albeit illogical (requiring several dizzying loops of the country) and stupid (the average leg between games was a 12-hour drive). But math also didn't account for things like weather, traffic and human error, turning what should have been a month of leisurely summer fun into a suspenseful series of high-speed hauls through the night. Blatt and Brewster pepper their adventure with statisticsthere was, they cheerfully point out in response to parental concerns, only a 0.5 percent chance that they would die in a vehicular accidentand anecdotes. At one point, they even constructed an OK Cupid profile for the romantically challenged Blatt and set him up with a date to a St. Louis Cardinals game. Our intrepid narrators are charmingly self-deprecating and keenly aware of the pointlessness of their journey, and yet they still imbue it with some meaningful thoughts about friendship, community, and the beauty and total absurdity of obsessive fandom. Nate Silver numbers and James Thurber wit turn what should be a harebrained adventure into a pretty damn endearing one.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
