Book review: Theology

I won't be heading to Fenway Park this evening after all. My roommate broke her ankle yesterday due to a rugby accident, and so we will not be seeing Daisuke Matsuzaka nibble around the strikezone and get pulled before the sixth inning. Sad.

Instead, we gave the tickets to her cousin for the girl's birthday - here's hoping she gets to see a win!

Now, since I have nothing to say about the Red Sox today that can't be summed up with "Dear God, why!?", I've decided to start a series of posts reviewing the baseball books I so avidly devour, both during the summer, and over the offseason (which is looming closer by the day). Full disclosure: I was inspired in this endeavor by this article on the Boston Globe's website. It was less than I expected, presenting a list instead of the synopses the texts deserved.

So without further ado, hopefully the first in a series of reviews, a look at John Frascella's Theology: How a Boy Wonder Led the Red Sox to the Promised Land.


I have to say, I was sadly disappointed in the book. I know Theo Epstein is a notoriously private person, but I was hoping for more insight then I could get from a Wikipedia page.

There were literally no quotations or insights that I hadn't already read in the Boston Globe or Herald, and the book read more like a high schooler's rendition of a biography than a professional's. There were several typographical errors in my copy, which any editor should have caught, and it just made the whole thing seem even more like the project of a fan rather than an actual book.

I'm sorry to say I would not recommend this book to anyone but the most casual of fans; if you're anything close to die hard (as I assume my readers are), you already know that Theo has a small son, that he and Larry Lucchino aren't exactly bosom buddies, and the gorilla suit angle has been beaten to death.


Read the Wikipedia page instead: it's better written, and it's free.