BOOK REVIEW

Heat
By Mike Lupica

I've been a casual Mike Lupica fan for a bunch of years. As a teen, I was a big fan - even though I prefer the Daily News sports, my 1994 Rangers Stanley Cup Championship saved newspapers are Newsday, because I asked my parents to switch so that I could continue to read Mike Lupica. (He has since come back to the Daily News.)

Anyway, as he became more of a talking head, as so many writers do, he started to wear on me a little...and also as the Yankees won more and more, his Yankee fandom shone through, and that started to wear thin on me.

Regardless, I still read his columns occasionally...I'm by no means a diehard fan, but I think he's a fine writer.

Now, onto the book. I was taken by surprise when I saw a Mike Lupica book on the Scholastic book order I had at school. I had worked up some classroom points (you earn points as a teacher by the books the kids order), so I decided to get the book to see how it was. (Little did I know he had already written a book about basketball.) This was about a year and a half ago. I finally read the book last week...and I really liked it.

It's a story about a little leaguer from the Bronx who gets caught in a Danny Almonte situation...but he's the correct age. It takes place in the shadows of Yankee Stadium, and it's a feel-good little league story. I've been meaning to read it for a long time just because I wanted to put it in my classroom library, and I wanted to read it before I did, just so I knew what the content was. I never expected it would be good enough that I would write a review, but here we are.

The book was good throughout, but the ending was what I thought made it great. A really nice story. I know only adults are reading this, but if you're looking for a quick, enjoyable baseball read, I recommend you pick this up from the library. (I've spent most of the past three or four years reading children's books - there are a ton of good ones out there...so it's not as embarrassing as you might think.)

ROCKIES, DIAMONDBACKS, RED SOX ADVANCE: I expect the Indians will beat the Yankees Monday night as well. That would clinch for me a new matchup in the World Series.

Also, the segment that AIG sponsors is called 'Then and Now'. Waiting for it to pop up in the National League games was torture. It never showed up. Then Sunday, switching back and forth between football and the American League games, I saw both the one in the Angels-Red Sox game and the Yankees-Indians game (by the way - how about a sense of urgency, Angels? If I had just landed on planet Earth and watched that game, I would have thought it was a regular season game that meant nothing. The Angels did not look like a team facing elimination. I know you don't want to be too tense...but come on.). Rod Carew was featured, and I forget who they highlighted in the other game. But I'm thinking that maybe it was only sponsored for the ALDS, not the NLDS. Either way, the ones on Sunday were a little more dressed up than the previous ones. Thanks for reading the blog, TBS!