The Last Days of Shea
Delight and Despair in the Life of a Mets Fan
Published on 16. November 2009
Book
Paperback/Softback
280 pages
978-1-58979-457-3 (ISBN)
Description
Written in a personal, moving, and humorous style, The Last Days of Shea chronicles the New York Mets from October 2006, when the team lost the National League Championship Series, to October 2008, when the team began to dismantle its antiquated, inadequate, and dearly loved Shea Stadium. The book is about following a baseball team with one's heart, mind, and soul. It represents the experience of being in a crowd at a ballpark, following a pennant race, enduring an offseason, experiencing streaks, slumps, triumph and heartbreak. All of this is represented against the imminent destruction of a stadium "that is not likely to be represented as well in the perfect and profitable little park that will replace it."
Reviews / Votes
The Last Days of Shea is a great tribute to Shea stadium and to the spirit of the fans who made it such a wonderful place to play baseball. -- Jerry Koosman, pitcher, New York Mets, 1968-1978 In this wonderful homage, Dana Brand ties together our experiences of Shea, in a celebration of a place that, in memory, will always be far more substantial than most historians will care to admit. -- Howie Rose, WFAN Mets broadcaster Why care so much about a baseball team? Dana Brand has figured out a way to articulate that pleasurable or frustrating heartache and make it understandable and even forgivable. If Mets Fan was filled with delights, The Last Days of Shea goes deeper: its real subject is loss and grief, and its prescription the consolations of philosophy. Brand is a first-rate personal essayist, who has chosen baseball as his focus the way Baldwin chose race or Hoagland nature. -- Phillip Lopate, author of <I>Waterfront: A Walk Around Manhattan<I> and <I>Writing New York<I> Dana Brand is one of the true Believeniks, and he's earned his Shake Shack burger the hard way: an X-ray of his heart would show a Shea-shaped scar. -- Jonathan Lethem, author of <I>Motherless Brooklyn<I> and <I>Chronic City<I> The Last Days of Shea is a must read for any nostalgic Mets super fan or for collections on American icons. * Library Bookwatch, November 2009 * A truly soulful look through the eyes of a Mets fan who remembers the stadium as a child.... The Last Days of Shea is a must read for any nostalgic Mets super fan or for collections on American icons. * Midwest Book Review * Dana Brand's The Last Days of Shea is a must read for any baseball fan. The 'communal experience' of living and dying with your team is something fans experience everywhere., but there is something unique about Mets fans. The Last Days of Shea chronicles the ending of a ballpark but, even more importantly, it reveals the spirit and resoluteness of Mets fans as they bring their 'ya gotta believe' attitude to their new home. -- Ron Darling, author of <i>The Complete Game: Reflections on Baseball, Pitching, and Life on the Mound<i> and SNY Mets broadcasterMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Lanham
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 227 mm
Width: 151 mm
Thickness: 21 mm
Weight
417 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-58979-457-3 (9781589794573)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
09/2009
Taylor Trade Publishing
€9.49
Available for download
Person
Dana Brand is a professor of English at Hofstra University in New York and author of the highly acclaimed Mets Fan. While working for his Ph.D. at Yale in the 1970s, he studied under A. Bartlett Giamatti, the Yale English professor who would eventually become Commissioner of Baseball until his death in 1989. He lives in Sandy Hook, Connecticut.