I met author Jeff Gillenkirk at a baseball game between the San Quentin All-Stars and the Pacifics. The Pacifics is an independent baseball team that hails out of San Rafael.
According to the team manager, Mike Shapiro, “The Pacifics provide the local community with low-cost fun, in a family-friendly environment.”
The game-time interview went well, as I talked with many of the players—a bunch of college kids and an assortment of good athletes, many drafted by major league teams. How they got to the Pacifics, the answers varied—an injury here, slow development there, or some other circumstance that thwarted entry into the majors. Now with the Pacifics, these ball-players are trying to crawl their way into the Big Show.
Sports
That being said, no matter what level of play—in sports—moving up is the objective, which is the framework of Gillenkirk’s first novel, Home, Away.
Well, since I have a baseball coach for a cellie, and I’m a huge baseball fan, I thought it quite right to give Home, Away a look-see.
I learned a little about organized sports from Gillenkirk’s main characters—Jason and Raphael Thiodeaux. Gillenkirk used this father/son duo as a conduit to teach, “money ain’t all it’s cracked up to be” by comparing two icons of Western Civilization; the team spirit and the family unit.
Family
Jason forked over his $42 million contract to focus his energies toward raising his son.
So, while reading this sacrificial tale, I kept asking myself, would I have done the same?—especially when Jason woke up only to grasp a stark reality:
“The sweet morning breeze off the ocean troubled him for some reason. The world was good, it seemed to be saying, but to him it felt anything but. His son had already been expelled from two schools, arrested three times and jailed, ran away from his mother and was hardly making progress in Denver. What chance did he have of making anything of himself with that kind of foundation?”
I know exactly what it feels like to fail at parenthood. Nothing makes you feel worse than to be missing during the developmental years of your child’s life. There’s no “get back” when you’re absent for those impressionable years. Adding insult to injury—incarceration does not negate paternity. Benign neglect to fatherly responsibilities is sadly wrong and is inexcusable. But, here I am, reading about real sacrifice through Gillenkirk’s storytelling.
Jason fought his own demons to help his son, and Raphael eventually recognized what a treasure he had in his father. Happy endings are nice to read, but behind bars, they are rare.
All athletes or anyone who gets the “material world” shoved between him and his family ought to pick this book up and use Jason’s determination as a study as to how good fathers act under pressure. Gillenkirk just uses baseball as a conduit to tell it—to get an understanding about life.
Moreover, Gillenkirk’s journalistic skills weren’t wasted in Home, Away, as he injects a flavor of sports writing into strategic places in the storyline. By doing so, the storyline is easier for reader/fans to understand media influence on an athlete’s attitude toward the public.
The right to play baseball is something that begins with a willingness to step up to the plate. Talents and skills are secondary. The right attitude is paramount to make it to the Big Show. Even still, Gillenkirk emphasizes, you can always go your separate way, when you have a greater love than the Big Show, but reality bites:
Reality
“Nations went to war, economies collapsed, marriages began and ended but the beauty of el beisbol went on. His father was right—it was a privilege to play this game,” thought Raphael.
Gillenkirk knows and never lets us forget that baseball will always be the Great American passtime. To get a feel of the good, the bad, and the ugly, Home, Away is a good read for incarcerated fathers. It is an inspirational story, which is always good in a prison environment.
