A Chance to Win: Boyhood, Baseball, and the Struggle for Redemption in the Inner City, by Jonathan Schuppe
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A Chance to Win: Boyhood, Baseball, and the Struggle for Redemption in the Inner City, by Jonathan Schuppe
Ebook Download : A Chance to Win: Boyhood, Baseball, and the Struggle for Redemption in the Inner City, by Jonathan Schuppe
A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist follows an embattled Little League team in inner-city Newark, New Jersey, revealing the complex realities of urban life in one of America's most dangerous citiesWhen Rodney Mason, an ex-con drug dealer from Newark's rough South Ward, was shot and paralyzed, he vowed to turn his life around. A former high-school pitching ace with a 93 mph fastball, Mason decided to form a Little League team to help boys avoid the street life that had claimed his youth and mobility. Predictably, the players struggle—they endure poverty, unstable family lives with few positive male role models, failing schools, and dangerous neighborhoods—but through the fists and tears, lopsided losses and rare victories, this bunch of misfits becomes a team, and in doing so gives the community something to root for. With in-depth reporting, fascinating characters, and vivid prose, Jonathan Schuppe's A Chance to Win is both a penetrating, true-to-life portrait of what's at stake for kids growing up poor in America's inner cities and a portrait of Newark itself, a struggling city that has recently known great hope as well as failure.
A Chance to Win: Boyhood, Baseball, and the Struggle for Redemption in the Inner City, by Jonathan Schuppe - Amazon Sales Rank: #604860 in eBooks
- Published on: 2013-05-07
- Released on: 2013-05-07
- Format: Kindle eBook
A Chance to Win: Boyhood, Baseball, and the Struggle for Redemption in the Inner City, by Jonathan Schuppe From Booklist *Starred Review* We’re all familiar with the rags-to-riches lives of famous celebrities who overcame poverty-drugs-abuse to become household names. Schuppe, a Pulitzer Prize winner, explores the far more frequent rags-to-rags scenario, focusing on a few people involved in the life of Rodney Mason of Newark, New Jersey. Mason was, at times, a high-school baseball star, gang member, dope dealer, and all-around badass. But after he was shot in a dispute over a woman and confined to a wheelchair, he decided to try to help kids avoid the gang life by getting them interested in baseball. Against all odds and surmounting crushing obstacles, he did just that. In addition to telling Mason’s story, Schuppe examines the lives of the kids Mason tries to help. One has virtually no place to live. Dad’s in prison, Mom is often ineffectual, so he moves from cousin to sister to grandma and back again, changing schools each time. Keep pressing on? Pass on the easy money available on the street? Kids do it, but, as Schuppe points out, it is so damn hard. That’s the takeaway here. There is poverty defined by an absence of money, but the real poverty may be the absence of opportunity. Yes, it may be peculiar to describe a book that looks unflinchingly at urban poverty as wonderful, but in the sense that this account will open eyes and maybe a few minds, wonderful just might apply. --Wes Lukowsky
Review
“[A] deep excavation . . . told with consummate empathy.” ―The New York Times Book Review
“A compelling book.” ―The Washington Post
“Honest and gritty.” ―Newark Star Ledger
“[A Chance to Win] reads like a mix between Friday Night Lights by Buzz Bissinger and Random Family by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc -- tough acts that Schuppe gracefully follows.” ―Bookriot.com
“A lively work of literary nonfiction [that] vividly illustrates the often fierce struggles of a small group of people [and] offers a larger truth about the city. . . Jonathan Schuppe gives dignified, poetic voice to [Newark's] struggle.” ―Inside Jersey
“It may be peculiar to describe a book that looks unflinchingly at urban poverty as wonderful, but in the sense that this account will open eyes and maybe a few minds, wonderful just might apply.” ―Booklist (starred review)
“A compelling portrait of inner-city struggles . . . Schuppe's punchy journalistic style serves the material well.” ―Kirkus
“This is one of the most powerful books of narrative non-fiction I've read in years. Schuppe has assembled an unremarkable and yet unforgettable cast -- led by a paralyzed ex-con-cum-little-league-coach -- and told their story with clear-eyed compassion and grace. The result is somehow both understated and majestic.” ―Jonathan Mahler, author of Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx is Burning
“Sobering yet inspiring, Jonathan Schuppe's A Chance to Win is one terrific read, an extraordinary journey with a cast of characters who will stay with you. I found myself on the edge of my seat rooting for Rodney Mason and his young protégés, and ruminating on what it really means to find redemption.” ―Alex Kotlowitz, There Are No Children Here
“A man with no legs teaches the forgotten children of Newark how to run for glory. Amazing, and all true. Jon Schuppe has written an extraordinary book of the human spirit. This powerful narrative--brilliantly reported and passionately rendered--is a true journey of the heart. The aching heart, in fact, of a still-great nation, revealed by those left behind, who still--somehow--find a way to believe in America's promise.” ―Ron Suskind, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of A Hope in the Unseen, An American Odyssey from the Inner City to the Ivy League
“A Chance to Win is a model of intimate reporting, an exemplar of lucid prose, and a demonstration of genuine courage. It will take most readers into a world that they do not know, and they will be rewarded for the venture.” ―Daniel Okrent, author of Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition
“A Chance to Win will take its rightful place as a classic of American urban life. Through superb reporting and compelling empathy, it makes us care passionately about the characters and their struggles. The story is by turns sad, inspiring, disturbing, hopeful and all true.” ―Jonathan Alter, author of The Promise
About the Author Jonathan Schuppe is an award-winning journalist who has shared a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey's resignation. He won the coveted J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Prize for A Chance to Win. He lives with his wife and daughter in Maplewood, New Jersey.
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Most helpful customer reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful. Baseball Is Their Chance to Win By Sam Sattler Much to the chagrin of Major League Baseball and baseball coaches at every level, the sport has pretty much been abandoned by the black youth of America's inner cities. This is not a new problem, and Major League executives have thrown a lot of money at the problem in recent years by building youth ballparks and providing equipment to teams willing to give the sport a shot.But, as Jonathan Schuppe points out in A Chance to Win, largely due to peer pressure, black kids are still reluctant to take up the game. They consider it a "white" sport and by huge margins give their attention to basketball and football instead. Schuppe points out, too, that baseball is a sport whose skills are most often passed on directly from father to son. This is a huge handicap in an environment in which fathers are, more often than not, not living in the same home as their children - and are unlikely to have learned the game from their own fathers, in the first place.Rodney Mason, a Newark kid now in his forties, knew early on that he was good at baseball. He was a prized pitcher on his high school team, and had the potential to parley his baseball skills into a bright future for himself. Unfortunately, Rodney was also pretty good at dealing drugs from a local street corner - but, as Rodney would eventually learn, a "pretty good" drug dealer does not stay out of trouble forever.Although Rodney's drug dealing always did have the potential for getting him killed, his undoing actually came at the hands of a rival who targeted Rodney for a drive-by shooting because of their dispute over a woman. Rodney survived the shooting but woke up paralyzed from the waist down. His baseball-playing days might have been over - but Rodney was soon back out on the street dealing drugs from his wheelchair.Then, when the city of Newark decided to clean up the old ball field across the street from Rodney's apartment, he decided to get involved. He hoped that baseball, the only thing he was ever exceptional at in his life, could save him before it was too late. He hoped to use baseball to save a few of the neighborhood kids from the street life that had crippled him - and in the process to turn his own life around. But it would not be easy - and A Chance to Win explains why.Over the course of a couple of seasons, the book closely follows "Coach Rock," two of his better players, and the father of two other players as they struggle mightily to turn their hopes into reality. For all of them, it turns out to be a case of "two steps forward and one step back." Life might be stacked against the Newark Eagles, but baseball gives them a chance to make the most of their potential rather than simply succumbing to the city's street life. Theirs is a touching story with a message of hope. Baseball is their "chance to win."
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. This is a page turner! By michelle ryang I know nothing about baseball, sports or Newark and I found this book totally engrossing, interesting and thoughtfully written. This is the type of book that you stay up late reading "just one more chapter" because you can't wait to read what happens next. It's painful and real and I highly recommend this to everyone!This book nicely ties together all the different stories of the boys, men and city of Newark that is totally relevant today and you can't help wondering how it all ends throughout the book.This is honest reporting at it's best and really inspires you to examine your own life and those around you!Read this book!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Must read! By L. Monthan There are at least two key measures of a great book for me: One, I can't stop reading it; and two, I don't want to finish it because I don't want to leave the world and the people it has made real for me. This book meets both measures in abundance, and so much more. This is not just a sports book, though it centers on a ragtag team of inner-city Little League players; it's not just a book about urban blight, though it is rich with backstory and sidebars into Newark's history and politics. It's a compelling human story about people bucking odds that have been stacked against them from birth -- as well as struggling with their own mistakes and shortcomings as they try, sometimes over and over, to do the right thing. Schuppe doesn't cast a Disney glow over anyone; this story is gritty and real and often heartbreaking. The book's honesty, for me, points to something easy to lose sight of in our culture's demand for easy answers, tidy romantic endings, and flawless heroes: There are none. But that shouldn't stop us from doing what we can. The triumph of the human spirit depicted here is often messy and imperfect but no less uplifting for that. I felt I'd been changed myself by witnessing, through Schuppe's eyes, the network of children and parents whose lives intersect through ex-con Rodney Mason and his simple desire to make a positive contribution by starting a Little League team. I can't recommend this book highly enough. It's an utterly engrossing and important work of journalism.
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