The Eastern Stars

For the past 40 years, Major League Baseball has benefitted from great talent hailing from the Dominican Republic. There are currently more professional baseball players from that country than any other country outside of the United States. This book, The Eastern Stars by Mark Kurlansky, looks at how baseball has transformed the town San Pedro de Macoris.

Kurlansky begins by going through a whirlwind tour of the history of the Dominican Republic. He also goes into the daily life of a typical resident of San Pedro de Macoris. Life in the Dominican Republic is not easy - much of it revolves around working in the sugar cane fields, other agriculture, fishing, tourism, or working for American factories. Inflation and insecurity has made matters worse. Most residents struggle to make ends meet, but they usually can at least afford to feed themselves, unlike their Haitian neighbors. There is one hope to escape the dismal outlook: baseball.

Kurlansky goes into detail about how baseball grew to be such an important staple of Dominican life. He also sketches out the path that baseball took, growing from small-scale hobby occasionally funded by the government, to large-scale baseball schools that groom top athletes into baseball stars. As a result, one small town (San Pedro de Macoris) has blossomed into a baseball factory (ever heard of Sammy Sosa or Robinson Cano?). Kurlansky also discusses some of the stuggles Dominican players have once they make it big.

I was really let down by this book. I was a bit foolish to think that it would be mostly about baseball - it was only about 60% baseball, 40% history - but I also feel like the book had some legitimate flaws. Kurlansky clearly is more comfortable writing about culture and history, of which he possesses a lot of knowledge, particularly about the Dominican Repulbic. Baseball...not so much. Kurlansky seems to understand the basics, but not to the level of a baseball fanatic, who I imagine make up a large portion of this book's audience, whether he wants that to be the case or not.

In the back section, Kurlansky gives short bios of all 79 professional baseball players from San Pedro de Macoris. They are probably the most boring writing that I've ever read. The bios consist of all of the transactions that each player had with exact dates of when they were signed, traded, or released. Then he writes a sentence or two about their statistics. NOBODY wants to read about transaction dates, not even these players' mothers. The statistics contained errors as well - like attributing 67 homers to a pitcher, when that pitcher actually gave up 67 homers. He also overexaggerates stats, like when he brags about a player hitting .500 for a year...but fails to mention that was over just 4 at-bats.

Books about baseball tend to attract baseball fans and few others. Kurlansky's lack of research about baseball is embarrasing for such an accomplished and highly regarded author.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars - well written from a technical standpoint but the baseball errors and limited research are too pervasive to be acceptable.

(78/100)