The Cup of Coffee Club

Starred review from January 1, 2020
Many young children would be ecstatic if they were told they could play one game of big-league baseball when they grew up. But they wouldn't understand the struggle it would take to get them into that single game, nor the heartbreak that would follow. That's it? Kornhauser details the journeys of 11 players who made the majors for a single game. Some never made it back due to injury; for others, it was lack of talent. Circumstances often drive the shortness of a career: perhaps the role a team envisioned for a player is usurped when someone playing the same position develops more quickly. Or maybe the front-office staff who believed in a player's potential was fired en masse. The rigors of minor-league life?two steps up the hierarchy, then one back?also drive players to abandon the dream and get on with life. Kornhauser examines all of these situations in his moving profiles of these 11 one-game wonders. This is one of the very best baseball books in years. Readers will put faces and names to what they knew on a subliminal level: major-league baseball is really, really hard, and a lot of fine young players get left behind.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)