One Shot at Forever: A Small Town, an Unlikely Coach, and a Magical Baseball Season

Even though I am somewhat ambivalent to baseball, I could not put this book down. I really loved it. Here are my top 3 reasons:1. I can relate to being the small town underdog. In 1970-71, the Illinois state baseball championship was one big playoff. There were no class divisions (1A, 2A, etc). So, big schools from the Chicago area played against the small schools from rural Illinois. The book chronicles the unlikely winning season of the Macon Ironmen and their magical run in the state championship playoffs. Macon is a tiny town with a tiny school. Although they had some success in the season immediately prior to the time covered in the book, they were coming off several losing seasons. No one considered the Ironmen a serious threat.I attended a small high school, and although it was not as small as Macon, we were seen as the country kids from the small school. Like the kids from Macon, it gave us a wee bit of a chip on our shoulders, but also a deep bond. We felt a sense of commitment to each other. It was something I missed later when I went to college. I felt a serious sense of nostalgia reading One Shot at Forever.2. The colorful (and real) characters. The Macon Ironmen and their coach were not your typical high school baseball team. Their coach was an unlikely hero. He had just started teaching English at Macon High School. Macon was a conservative town. Lynn Sweet, English teacher and soon to be baseball coach, was anything but conservative. He held liberal ideals, frequented the local bars, had long hair and a Fu Manchu mustache, and lived a nomadic existence. He eschewed the English curriculum for his own unorthodox teaching methods. In short, the towns people considered him a hippie. Not all of them approved. But he won over their kids. They loved him. Their English grades improved and they became more engaged in class.These methods carried over into baseball. For example, practices were optional. Some of the team members grew their hair out, wore peace signs on their hats, and they began listening to the sound track from Jesus Christ Superstar on a boom box during warm up at games. This is the kind of teacher I would have loved as a kid.The players and their parents are also interesting, complex people. There are the unlikely heroes, the star athletes, the small and scrappy players. But they are not just stereotypes. We learn about their lives, what drives them, their relationships, and how they lived and grew during those two remarkable seasons.3. The excellent sports writing. Let’s face it, with a nonfiction book such as this, the outcome is known. Even the cover of the book says “the magical season”. So I went into the book knowing the Ironmen experienced a remarkable winning season. But there were still twists that I didn’t see coming (yay!) and the storytelling of the games had me on the edge of my seat. I couldn’t stop reading. In fact, I stayed on the elliptical machine an extra 15 minutes to finish a certain section.I definitely recommend this book, even if you are not a baseball fan. I even recommend it even if you don’t like sports. It’s about a lot more than sports or baseball. It’s about a group of people who come together, form a bond, inspire each other, and triumph against overwhelming odds. How can you not love that?

Very fine book about small towns and small town athletics. If you are familiar with this genre it will remind you of the movie The Final Season about Iowa baseball. Don't be surprised if there is a movie made of this book some day.I got this book partly for myself as a part time prep school coach and partly for my 8 year old who loves baseball, but it was beyond his ken, now that he is nearly ten he's ready for me to read it to him, explain some things, and skip a few others.The Amazon description is at times hyperbolic. The coach really wasn't a hippie, left leaning for sure, but this adds to rather than distracts from the story given the contrast with the small town. Coach Sweet had some coaching experience and certainly knew how to play ball as did the team--they certainly were not a rag-tag bunch as described. The 'Eisenhower-era' comment is thrown out as an epithet rather than a good descriptor--don't let these lead you away from this fine book. The customer reviews do the potential reader a real service on this story.Yet, this is a real underdog story covering two seasons plus the effect on the young men of the memorable run at the state championship. It is a worthy underdog story, told in a compelling style. If you are looking for a late summer read and scholastic athletics, small town america, or baseball are of interest, this could be your final beach read of the summer.As an adult, this is a good read, and the impact on the players 40 years later is visible--high school athletics and this run at the championship leads you to see how these boys became the men they are today.Buy it, read it, enjoy it. Start the discussion with your kids why they should participate in high school sports. You'll be glad you did.

I'm a sucker for a good baseball book.I hadn't heard of "One Shot at Forever: A Small Town, an Unlikely Coach, and a Magical Baseball Season" by Chris Ballard before stumbling across it on Amazon. The Kindle price was but $2.24 (it's since gone up to $2.99, but still a very fair price), so I thought it would be a good way to start the 2013 reading campaign.This is more of an historical baseball book as it goes back to remember a small-school baseball team based in Illinois. They have old uniforms and a unique coach who does things quite a bit differently. This coach -- the English teacher at the school who has zero experience in coaching -- leads his squad to the Illinois state final. This is back in a time when there were no divisions. Macon is still the smallest school to reach the state final.The team took on the spirit of its coach -- long hair, peace symbols on their hats and a carefree outlook that seemed balanced enough to win over a town.Ballard is a senior writer at Sports Illustrated, so he tells a wonderful story from beginning to end, including catching up with many of these players in the present time.The GoodThis is a great story. If you like feel-good stories, especially in sports, this is a fine read. This shows that all in sports isn't bad and it brings you back to a glory day when high school sports were serious, but at the same time, it wasn't as crazy as it is today. Games were serious back then, but society today puts high school sports on a whole different level.Ballard does a wonderful job of developing all the people in this story, which is tough, considering you have a full team, a coach, his eventual wife, school administration, members of the media and some parents. That's a lot of people. For the most part, I was able to keep track of who is who throughout, though not always. It was really easy to cheer for certain people and, at the same time, have a bit of a dislike for others.The book also helps the reader related to the team. Even those who grew up and live in large urban areas should be able to feel the emotion of this town and area and the support of the team. One think to keep in mind is this is the early 1970s, so a different time. Though everybody will be able to relate and see what this type of atmosphere was like, I know I got a bit more out of it because I grew up in a small town and understand the thought process and how people will live for the days of a great high school team to show pride in the town.The BadAt times, it was tough when some of the players were being mentioned. Though the big ones were pretty easy to follow with, sometimes one of the more secondary players was mentioned and it would make me stop for a moment. I think that's the tough part with a book like this because there are so many people who need to be in it. This isn't fictional, so one can't just eliminate some in situations. To tell the story, these players need to be in the story.This is a tough "bad," per say, but books like this need a few photos. When dealing with historical items like this, I know I like to see what people look like, or anything else to help my mind paint a picture of the town, the field, the players and all that. Ballard does a wonderful job of describing everything, but having a section in the book with images would have helped. (I've since been told there are photos in the print edition, but I didn't see them in my Kindle edition).Overall thoughtsI truly enjoyed this book. I didn't take too long to read it as it moved quickly, kept my attention and made me want to keep going. And it really is an underdog story. If you are a sports fan and like something like Hoosiers, you'll like this book. It's the same sort of thing -- the David vs. Goliath. I won't give away the ending of this book, but it doesn't matter what the end result is. It's well worth the read and I would encourage anybody who likes books about real life, sports, overcoming odds or the little guy to give it a go.

One of the best books that I have read in a long time. Hey, didn't everyone play on a favorite baseball team when they were growing up and hasn't everyone thought of those days and wondered - 'what if?' - we could have or we did - win it all. And hasn't everyone wondered where all those guys on the team went and where they are now. The story plays out so well and the reader identifies with the characters in the story. And as it all unravels one wants to keep reading because you not only want to find out what happens in the season but where these guys are now. It's amazing how the best player, the most heralded star of sandlot, does not always do the best in life's game. That somewhere along the journey of life, we have to let go. Apparently that is not always the case. I read this book in 2 days and gave it to a friend and learned later that he too, read it in two days. A compelling book about a High School Baseball team that is really a story about life in 1971 and life today. Outstanding.

Worth the read. Very enjoyable