The Last Best League – One Summer, One Season, One Dream
Tenth Anniversary Edition
Da Capo Press, 2014
$15.99
“On the Cape, we meandered one evening down Route 28 to the Village of Chatham, and watched the Chatham A’s play the Falmouth Commodores in a Cape Cod League baseball game. The soft June air carried wisps of fog over the dark brown dirt and lush grass. The field glowed under the lights, seemed alive. The players, smooth, graceful, beautiful, drew my eye. I felt old longings rise. I recognized the players in an instant. They weren’t dispassionate, nearly robotic, major leaguers. Nor were they hard-edged minor leaguers fighting for survival. These were kids, full of life – some of them laughing, some scared, some swaggering with the absolute sureness of invincibility. And they were phenomenally talented.”
Author Jim Collins, describing the events that inspired The Last Best League”
A decade ago, Jim Collins gave life to the story of the 2002 Chatham A’s of the Cape Cod Baseball League – considered by many (most) to be the premier amateur baseball league in the county. His book … The Last Best League – One Summer, One Season, One Dream … has been re-released (10th Anniversary Edition) with a follow-up on what happened to its principal characters over the ensuing decade. (Forty-seven of the young men who played in the Cape Cod Baseball League in the 2002 season eventually made it to the major leagues.)
The Last Best League is, in many ways, a coming-of-age story. In this case, the stories of some of the nation’s most talented collegiate baseball players coming of age in a league in which many of the them, for the first time, no longer boast the fastest bat, liveliest arm or quickest feet on the field – where the bar has been raised and the competition intensified. And, while their skill sets may vary, they do (as the subtitle suggests) nearly all share one dream – earning a trip to the big leagues. They also have all chosen (actually been chosen) to pursue that dream in the Cape Cod Baseball League – the last and best amateur league on the road to determining if they possess the talent and determination to bring their major league dreams to reality.
The Last Best League is driven by Collins’ ability to deliver the human side of the Cape Code League story. Yes, he explores the vaunted history of the Cape Cod Baseball League – which promotional materials indicate has produced one of every six major leaguers and which boasts among its alumni such MLB players as Frank Thomas, Nomar Garciaparra, Jeff Bagwell, Robin Ventura, Tommy Davis, John Franco, Mo Vaughn, Craig Biggio and, more currently, Josh Donaldson, Jacob Ellsbury, Mark Tiexeira and Buster Posey. (For a complete list of former Cape Cod League players who made the major leagues click here.) Collins also provides insight into the science and statistics of the game, into the cold objectivity of what it takes to “measure up.” He also gives us the prerequisite pennant race and game action – the big plays and big games that shape a season and determine a champion. However, he balances all of this with a very personal look the people behind the Cape Cod League experience – the players who make up the league rosters, the volunteers who keep the league running, the host families who take the players in for the summer and the employers who provide them jobs on the Cape (the NCAA does not allow the players to be paid for their baseball activities.)
The players, of course, are at the heart of the book and Collins looks into their lives with both passion and compassion. He lets us in on what it feels like enjoy the euphoria of a confidence-building hot streak, to feel the angst of an unbreakable slump, or to deal with the anguish of a dream-ending injury or a season-ending family tragedy. Collins introduces us to players who come into the league supremely talented and supremely confident, as well as those who face an uphill battle with grit and determination (one of whom has made the phrase “Against All Odds” his personal mantra) or who try to hide personal doubt behind an attitude that seems to say “I don’t care.” We are treated to very personal stories of success that exceeds expectations and devastating failure that catches players by surprise. And, all of this takes place against the back drop and beauty of a New England summer.
Going back to that Chatham/Falmouth game that started Collins on The Last Best League journey, he tells readers in the Preface what to expect on the book’s pages, “I saw a human story at every position. I wondered what it must feel like to be a twenty-year-old all-star on Cape Cod. To spend ten weeks around the sun and sand and blue water, standing out among the finest college players in the country. Or to be in that same bucolic landscape, but struggling, doubting yourself for the first time and suddenly questioning whether you had what it took to make it.” Collins took it upon himself to find out and, fortunately, he decided to share what he learned.
Ultimately, The Last Best League tells a tale (in this case tales) worth telling and – for those who hold a place for the national pastime in their hearts – one worth reading. And, Jim Collins is the right person to tell the story. As a native New Englander, former college baseball player (Dartmouth) and former editor of Yankee Magazine, he understands what makes playing on “The Cape” special – it’s that understanding that also makes The Last Best League a special piece of baseball prose.
I’ll close this review with one quote from Collins’ book that made a particular impression on me as life-long fan of the national pastime.
It ended too early. But that’s true no matter who you talk to – whether it ends in high school or after a Hall of Fame career. It’s a kid’s game and none of us wants to grow old.
Colt Morton, former major-leaguer (19 games in two seasons with the Padres) and Cape Cod Baseball League alum, describing his professional baseball career.”
