George Genovese

Full disclosure: I received this book as part of Library Thing's Early Reviewer program in exchange for an honest review. The opinions are my own.

In baseball today, few people intensely follow the sport before October. Fewer follow the minor leagues, especially outside the markets for the individual minor league teams. And even fewer people know, or care, about the importance of scouting.

Scouts, just like in football, baseball, or Wall Street, are the hidden hand behind a team's success. Genovese is one of the great ones in this respect, and I recommend his book for anyone who wants to learn more about this important part of the game.… (mais)

I received this book free in exchange for an HONEST review.

I have always loved sports. When I was much younger and before work took control of the majority, I would be able to rattle of rosters from hockey, football and baseball teams with little to no errors. Today I can't do such "amazing feats" anymore but I still love learning about and hearing about the history of my favorite sports and favorite players.

"A Scout's Report: My 70 Years in Baseball"is a MUST HAVE book for baseball fans...or sports fans in general. Anyone can tune into ESPN or the nightly news and hear the scores and the public information floating around but books like this one are invaluable when it comes to getting the story behind the story. Hearing things about how players suffered while fighting their way to the big leagues and how they got noticed and their trip from struggling star-struck player to idolized superstar are just not as common.
I love the parts of the book that named names and decisions that would change and mold the the fate of baseball. One such moment was when Mr. Genovese saw Willie Mays play and BEGGED the Dodgers to go see him but they decided not to. Instead Willie Mays went to play for the New York/San Francisco Giants...think about this...how different would the history of baseball been if the Dodgers would have signed Mays instead? These are the types of historic events Mr. Genovese was around for and participated in.

If you like/love baseball or sports in general, BUY THIS BOOK!… (mais)

There isn't a baseball fan who won't enjoy Goerge Genovese's (1922-2015) baseball memoir, "A Scout's Report: My 70 Years in Baseball." Player, manager (he would be the first US citizen to manage a Mexican League team), field coordinator, and scout, Mr Genovese was born and raised in Depression-era New York City, specifically Staten Island. He was stung by the baseball bug early, as his older brothers played youth baseball in the city. Perhaps the itch turned to love when he was named the team's bat boy. Even more exciting for the eight-year old George and his team advanced to the city championship, which was played in Yankee Stadium. A career in the minors as a middle infielder (with a very brief cup-of-coffee with the American League's Washington Senators) led to Mr Genovese being hired as a minor-league manager by Branch Rickey. Managing and scouting both in the US and internationally, he utilized the lessons he learned as he eventually turned to scouting full-time.
Geneovese's fascinating baseball journey spanned crucial decades of the sport: the 1940s "golden age," the breaking of the segregation barriers in the 1940s and 1950s, the franchise re-locations and expansions of the 1950s and 1960s (Genovese would scout for the San Francisco Giants): Mr. Rickey confiding that he was deliberately "gutting" his Pittsburgh Pirates team so they could draft Roberto Clemente from the Brooklyn Dodgers; the discrimination he encountered while playing for and managing in cities and towns both north and south; his older brother, a minor-league coach, excited almost beyond words in describing this 17-year old kid he just saw play (Willie Mays); his own (disregarded) advice to his LA Dodger superiors to please, please!, check out this kid (Giancarlo Stanton).
Mr. Genovese's co-author, Dan Taylor, deserves a big shout-out. His writing surely made me feel as if I was having a comfortable sit as I listened to a baseball lifer tell his stories. Mr Taylor's expertise took me back in time, near to half a century ago now, to an afternoon and evening I had with my great-uncle, who was a baseball-lifer as well. (The club he was GM of lost the playoffs -- to Havana, Cuba. Like I said, a long time ago.)… (mais)