Poet in the Grandstand: An Enlightened Tour of Ballparks and the Places Where They Live: 1990-2010 Review

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(More customer reviews)This book has a lot to offer. It has 700+ pages, and offers a lot of history, poems and travel ideas from the various baseball venues, both open and closed. This experience is seen through a baseball purist's eyes, and the adventures that Mr. McDonald had at each stadium is definitely worth reading. Mr. McDonald's poems increase the feel and experience of each adventure. It's a book that you don't have to read page after page, and can just read about whatever city/stadium you want to, and as a big baseball fan, I felt like I was along for the ride and get to experience a lot of the stadiums that were closed, while getting a great feel of the newer ones.
Great Book!

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In the area of ballpark hopping, there have been a number of accounts written, recorded or talked about in recent times, sometimes for a cause or others just as a gimmick. Through Poet in the Grandstand, poet and writer Thomas Porky McDonald gives us a most unique twist on a preoccupation which has grown in the past few decades, in the wake of the closings of classic old yards and the birth of the more entertainment and nostalgia driven open-air parks. From his first trip in 1990, to the fabled Comiskey Park of Shoeless Joe Jackson, Bill Veeck and the Go-Go Sox, on through to the 2010 opening of Minnesota's fabulous Target Field, featuring the modern M&M Boys, Joe Mauer and Justin Mourneau, McDonald offers up a book that is part travelogue and part poetic tribute to all the places that men and women have gone to over the years for a very personal sense of joy. This journey, done methodically, over two decades, picks up steam as the chapters begin to flow. The effect of McDonald himself clearly growing as a poet through the years is accentuated by the fact that more and more pieces are written in the later trips. The end result is a most interesting volume of not just ballparks, but Americana, as numerous attractions taken in during those ballpark weeks and weekends are also noted and/or dissected.For fourteen seasons on his own and then six more accompanied by friend and confidant Adam Boneker, McDonald's travels, highlighted by over 300 poems, can take the reader back to a simpler time or into the possibilities of the future.In chapter and in verse, Poet in the Grandstand has something for both the baseball enthusiast and the curious traveler. Fans of the game and lovers of the road will each find much to offer within these pages.