The Ticket Out: Darryl Strawberry and the Boys of Crenshaw

(Paperback)

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Description

Micahel Sokolove presents an unforgettable tale of families grasping for opportunities, of athletes praying for one chance to make it big, of all of us hoping that the will to succeed can triumph over the demons haunting our city streets.

The year was 1979 and the fifteen teenagers on the Crenshaw High Cougars were the most talented team in the history of high school baseball. They were pure ballplayers, sluggers and sweet fielders who played with unbridled joy and breathtaking skill.

The national press converged on Crenshaw. So many scouts gravitated to their games that they took up most of the seats in the bleachers. Even the Crenshaw ballfield was a sight to behold -- groomed by the players themselves, picked clean of every pebble, it was the finest diamond in all of inner-city Los Angeles. On the outfield fences, the gates to the outside stayed locked against the danger and distraction of the streets. Baseball, for these boys, was hope itself. They had grown up with the notion that it could somehow set things right -- a vague, unexpressed, but persistent hope that even if life was rigged, baseball might be fair.

And for a while it seemed they were right. Incredibly, most of of this team -- even several of the boys who sat on the bench -- were drafted into professional baseball. Two of them, Darryl Strawberry and Chris Brown, would reunite as teammates on a National League All-Star roster. But Michael Sokolove's The Ticket Out is more a story of promise denied than of dreams fulfilled. Because in Sokolove's brilliantly reported poignant and powerful tale, the lives of these gifted athletes intersect with the realities of being poor, urban, and black in America. What happened to these young men is a harsh reminder of the ways inspiration turns to frustration when the bats and balls are stowed and the crowd's applause dies down.

Reviews

"The Ticket Out does for baseball what the 1994 movie Hoop Dreams did for basketball."
-- Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
"The Ticket Out is an emotional detective story about baseball, moving and thought-provoking."
-- Sally Jenkins, coauthor with Lance Armstrong of It's Not About the Bike and Every Second Counts
"More than the sad saga of Darryl Strawberry, The Ticket Out examines and explodes an American myth: that athletic skill offers a magic shortcut to happiness and success."
-- Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down
"The Ticket Out raises some serious questions about the meaning of fair play."
-- Sports Illustrated
"A terrific read, made to work by Sokolove's insightful reporting and deft writing."
-- The Chicago Tribune
"Michael Sokolove knows a good story when he sees one, and the tale he tells in The Ticket Out about the often sorrowful lives of Darryl Strawberry and his high school baseball teammates is powerful indeed."
-- The Washington Post

Author Bio

Michael Sokolove is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and the author of Hustle: The Myth, Life, and Lies of Pete Rose. He lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with his wife and their three children.