Long Island author Lara Reznik hits it out of the park with her ode to baseball, growing up, and the game of life in “M&M Boys,” a fictional take on living next door to two of the greatest sluggers who ever picked up a bat.
Baseball fanatic Marshall Elliott, a tween about to enter junior high school, has lots of tsuris, including making sure not to let his Little League team and his dad down in the clutch, his parents’ crumbling marriage, and a first kiss. But his biggest problem arises when his idols, New York Yankee sluggers Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris — the M&M Boys — move into the neighborhood, and Marshall is sworn to secrecy! He’s not even allowed to tell his cousin Bobby, his Little League teammate who shares his love of the game and the Yankees.
Marshall has a lot on his plate that summer and Reznick provides him with a very believable cast of characters to help him round the bases including the sluggers Mantle and Maris, who take the time out of their own rivalries, life on the diamond, and quest to break the Babe Ruth’s record of 60 home runs in a season to give the kid some heavy-hitting pointers on getting through life on and off the field.
Reznick weaves the fanciful with the reality, which is no easy task when mixing real-life events with fiction, but she bats .400 as she segues into the facts about the game, the players, and the way things were in the Bronx before the days of the George Steinbrenner Yankees.
Although the plot sometimes flies into the outfield and a takes a whole lot of literary license when it comes to the conversations between the Yankee greats, “M&M Boys” is an enjoyable read (albeit not for the very young, as the language sometimes gets a bit too adult).
You don’t need to love the game to enjoy this yarn, as Reznik makes it an enjoyable run around the bases for all as we learn if Marshall Elliot survives that summer, makes the All-Stars and saves the day with outstanding fielding.
“M&M Boys” takes you back to 1961 when baseball was still America’s pastime and going to the game didn’t cost you a month’s salary. Reznik has a masterful understanding of life in Flushing, Queens in the early 1960s before the second World’s Fair and before Shea Stadium opened, bringing the Mets to the borough.
This is the second time to the plate for Reznik, who also authored “The Girl from Long Guyland,” in 2012.
This three run-homer is published by Violet Crown Publishers and is available on Amazon.
