The Final Season by Tom Stanton

The Final Season

Fathers, Sons, and One Last Season in a Classic American Ballpark

Tom Stanton

St. Martin's Press · Print & ebook · May 8, 2002

Tom Stanton's The Final Season offers a powerful memoir of fathers, sons, and the end of a baseball era.

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Who it’s for
Tiger Stadium’s final season becomes a thoughtful meeting of baseball memory and family feeling.
Themes
Baseball and family, Father-son bonds, Mortality and loss
Pacing
Reflective

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About this book

Tom Stanton's The Final Season offers a powerful memoir of fathers, sons, and the end of a baseball era. Maybe your dad took you to ball games at Fenway, Wrigley, or Ebbets. Maybe the two of you watched broadcasts from Yankee Stadium or Candlestick Park, or listened as Red Barber or Vin Scully called the plays on radio. Or maybe he coached your team or just played catch with you in the yard.

Continue reading

Chances are good that if you're a baseball fan, your dad had something to do with it--and your thoughts of the sport evoke thoughts of him. If so, you will treasure The Final Season, a poignant true story about baseball and heroes, family and forgiveness, doubts and dreams, and a place that brings them all together. Growing up in the 60s and 70s, Tom Stanton lived for his Detroit Tigers. When Tiger Stadium began its 88th and final season, he vowed to attend all 81 home games in order to explore his attachment to the place where four generations of his family have shared baseball. Join him as he encounters idols, conjures decades past, and discovers the mysteries of a park where Cobb and Ruth played. Come along and sit beside Al Kaline on the dugout bench, eat popcorn with Elmore Leonard, hear Alice Cooper's confessions, soak up the warmth of Ernie Harwell, see McGwire and Ripken up close, and meet Chicken Legs Rau, Bleacher Pete, Al the Usher, and a parade of fans who are anything but ordinary. By the autumn of his odyssey, Stanton comes to realize that his anguish isn't just about the loss of a beloved ballpark but about his dad's mortality, for at the heart of this story is the love between fathers and sons--a theme that resonates with baseball fans of all ages.

Baseball and Belonging

Tiger Stadium’s final season becomes a thoughtful meeting of baseball memory and family feeling.

Come here for

  • A lived-in look at baseball’s ties to fathers and sons
  • The pull of one ballpark across generations

Expect

  • Stadium history alongside reflections on loss and forgiveness
  • A parade of baseball figures and distinctive fans

Where it sits

Baseball History64%
Baseball Essays51%
Personal Memoirs43%

Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.

Publisher categories

  • Personal Memoirs
  • Baseball Essays
Authors
Tom Stanton
Publisher
St. Martin's Press
Published
May 8, 2002
Format
Print & ebook
Theme
Baseball and family · Father-son bonds · Mortality and loss
Reading lane
Personal Memoirs