Book Review: For the Love of the Mets
An interesting opportunity arose recently that allowed me to merge my two favorite interests: my kids and the Mets. With the costs of taking the kids to a game being way too prohibitive in recent years and the hardships of trying to keep them interested through more than two or three batters when watching on TV it’s become very difficualt to expose my kids to the team I’ve loved since I was their ages. As if reading my mind, author Frederick C. Klein stepped in to fill the void with his new book For the Love of the Mets: An A-to-z Primer for Mets Fans of All Ages.
In this book Klein matches someone or something in Mets history to each letter of the alphabet. “A” is for the “Amazin’s”, “B” is for Beltran, etc. Each entry begins with a cute rhyme, good for the younger fans, and contains a brief paragraph of further explanation. Nothing too deep. Like the title says it’s just a primer and not an encyclopedia. Most entries also include a full page illustration by Mark Anderson.
When I sat down to read the book with my kids I had planned on splitting the reading into two sittings so we wouldn’t run too late and the kids would get to sleep on time. But they were having such a good time with the book that not only did I read the whole book once but I let them talk me into reading it to them a second time. (Rhymes only on the second reading. It was getting late and I didn’t want a hard time getting them up for school in the morning.)
Some of the entries in the book were lame (“I” is for Innings, “Q” is for Quest, “U” is for Umpires) as well as the last rhyme (“Z” is the sound someone makes when he snoozes. A loyal Mets fan stays loyal even when his team loses.) I realize those are hard letters to match. I can’t think of anything for them but I also didn’t do any research for a book where I needed to match content to a letter of the alphabet.
Be that as it may, it was a fun read for me and the kids liked it too. (I’ve read it to them several times in the last week.) The artwork is excellent. And the short foreword by former Met Rusty Staub was a nice treat.
On a scale of 1 to 5 (strikeout, single, double, triple, home run) this book was a triple (4) for me but a home run (5) for my kids. If you’re just getting into the Mets or know someone who is then this book is for you (or them).
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