A review by blevins
One Shot at Forever: A Small Town, an Unlikely Coach, and a Magical Baseball Season by Chris Ballard

5.0

This is my favorite baseball related book I've read in a long, long time. Chris Ballard does a terrific job transporting the reader back to the early 1970s and in small-town Illinois as we get to know a group of players and their remarkable coach over a few years. I grew up in a various small-towns in Oklahoma [smallest was Okay] and was in love with the sport of baseball. I related. Ballard weaves in stories of the players, their parents, teachers, the differences between teams, the Vietnam War era and all kinds of topics to really flesh out the story. I was on the edge of my seat rooting for these kids!

I don't know if the rights to this has been purchased but I see this as a future movie. Unfortunately, it'll probably be a Disney sports film stripped of the edge of the socio, political and economic issues facing the coach [an amazing character named LC Sweet], players and town, but it will be a movie all the same. There could be a Bad News Bears style gem made from this book instead of the cliched, Disney-fied version that is likely going to come our way.