Quantcast

’DREAMS’ COME TRUE

’DREAMS’
The Brooklyn Papers / Greg Mango

Pitchers and catchers reported this week,
and that event, following the remarkable sighting by a rodent
of his shadow on a cloudy Groundhog Day, is the second sign this
February that spring – and baseball – is right around the corner.



Here in Brooklyn, of course, we have to wait a few extra months
before we hear the crack of the bat, as our beloved Cyclones
– the short-season, single-A affiliate of the New York Mets –
won’t be throwing out a first pitch until mid-June.



But for those of you who can’t wait, you can, in part, relive
the Clones’ inaugural (and championship) campaign of 2001, in
the new book "The Brooklyn Cyclones: Hardball Dreams and
the New Coney Island" by Park Slope author Ben Osborne.



I say "in part" because Osborne’s book eschews in-depth
interviewing of the people and players involved with the Cyclones,
as in "When Baseball Returned to Brooklyn" (McFarland,
2003) by Brooklyn Papers’ columnist Ed Shakespeare, and he wisely
chooses not to give the play-by-play of the season you can still
find on The Brooklyn Papers Web site (www.brooklynpapers.com).



Instead, Osborne attempts to tell the story of professional baseball’s
successful return to Brooklyn through the juxtaposing of his
personal experience with two main characters: Cyclones catcher
Brett Kay, who he describes as a "cool Californian with
a rich sports background," and 14-year-old Anthony Otero,
a resident of a nearby housing project and a baseball fanatic
who, he writes, "brought baseball to the Coney Island Houses."



Without question, Otero is Osborne’s most interesting character
– a Puerto Rican-American kid growing up near the same housing
project that spawned NBA all-star and current New York Knick
Stephon Marbury. Thanks to his mother’s love of the Yankees,
Otero teaches his friends to play baseball on makeshift fields
in the shadow of basketball courts.



At the start of the book, Otero, who’s never been to a professional
baseball game or played organized ball, has little interest in
the Cyclones, instead focusing his efforts on staying out of
trouble and, hopefully, making the junior varsity baseball team
at Lincoln High School come fall.



Meanwhile, Kay, of the $72,000 signing bonus, demands that he
be allowed to start his professional career in Brooklyn, about
which he and his coach had already heard a lot of buzz thanks
to the new ballpark. Kay, 20, out of Mater Dei High School in
Santa Ana, Calif., "arguably one of the best high school
sports programs in the country," according to Osborne, felt
Coney Island would be a great place to learn how to play the
game.



Osborne takes us back and forth between Otero’s home turf in
the projects and Kay’s studio apartment in Manhattan, all the
while filling us in on how things are going for both of them
as the season wears on.



Often, Osborne tries to cram too much information into the 208-page
book, and loses focus of his characters.



As the title suggests, Osborne delves into the promised rebirth
of Coney Island, made by then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, beginning
with the construction of Keyspan Park and the introduction of
the baseball team – and the politics that came along with it.



Osborne practically casts Giuliani as the villain of the story
– a popular concept in pre-Sept. 11 New York – describing the
mayor and his then-mistress and present wife, Judith Nathan,
as "wearing their patented smug grin" while marching
in the opening day parade down Surf Avenue. Osborne’s cartoonish
descriptions of Giuliani occasionally made me feel like I was
reading about C. Montgomery Burns, the evil nuclear power plant
owner on "The Simpsons."



Osborne also takes issue with the way the private company that
operates the publicly funded stadium – the New York Mets – reached
out to the community around it. He gives the impression that
everyone living in the apartment buildings down the block should
have received a written invitation – if not free tickets – to
come to the game.



"One can only imagine how much more of a boost these kids
could get toward sports and away from trouble once the Cyclones
have an opportunity to improve community outreach," he laments
after kids from the neighborhood tell him they play sports to
stay out of trouble.



In the end (and without giving away too much), the Cyclones do
have a positive impact on Otero’s life, as he, his dad and friends
begin going to games and enjoy some of the improvements to local
parks the Mets helped finance.



Kay, meanwhile, struggles professionally as he moves up the ladder
toward the major leagues.



As for Coney Island and the economic impact the new ballpark
has on it, well, that remains to be seen. Osborne quotes Giuliani
as calling the stadium "the first positive thing to happen
in Coney Island in 60 years," and then wonders what Otero
and his friends and family would think of such a bold claim –
an interesting point.



"But those questions," he writes in the first chapter,
"will have to wait." Unfortunately, that question is
never posed.



The fact is, as long as there are hot summer days, a beach and
the Atlantic Ocean, Coney Island will continue to draw a crowd.



And soon, after reading a book on that beach all day, come 7
pm, you can sit back and enjoy a game.

 

"The Brooklyn Cyclones: Hardball
Dreams and the New Coney Island" (NYU Press, $24.99] by
Ben Osborne will be released in April at BookCourt, 163 Court
St. at Dean Street in Cobble Hill or by logging on to www.nyupress.org.