Making It Home: Life Lessons from a Season of Little League

Name: Making It Home: Life Lessons from a Season of Little League
SKU: 58385
Availability: InStock

4.7 | 190 ratings

Price: 17.72

Last update: 11-27-2024

About this item

"This is a story about a team that becomes a family and a family that becomes a team. . . a wonderful book ."—Cal Ripken, Jr.

"A MUST READ!"—USA TODAY (ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2023)

An achingly heartfelt and surprisingly funny memoir about family, grief, and moving forward.

When her brother dies from cancer, and then her mother just four months later, Teresa Strasser has no one to mourn with but her irresponsible, cantankerous, trailerpark-dwelling father. He claims not to remember her chaotic childhood, but he’s a devoted grandpa, so as her son embarks on his first season pitching in Little League, Teresa and Nelson form a grief group of two in beach chairs lined up behind the first base line.

There are no therapeutically trained facilitators and no rules other than those dictated by the Little League of America, and the human heart. For Teresa and her father, the stages of grief are the draft, the regular season, and the playoffs. One season of baseball becomes the framework for a memoir about family, loss, and the fundamentals of baseball and life. They cheer, talk smack about other teams, scream at each other in the parking lot, and care way too much about Little League.

Making It Home is a bracingly honest journey through grief, self-doubt, and anxiety armed with humor and optimism. After all, America’s pastime may be just a game, but it always leaves room for redemption, even at the bottom of the lineup.

Tammy Nordin-Garcia

A Wonderful Book by a Wonderful Person

Reviewed in the United States on July 17, 2023

The best storytellers are the people that describe a situation so well, that you feel yourself in the story. I remember listening to Teresa Strasser on the radio and really loving her stories. So I was excited to read this book. I didn’t expect to have so many things in common with her grief experiences and childhood traumas. (Hello Gen X!!!!) I recently lost my brother (who I loved dearly, but didn’t grow up with) and I had a difficult step mother (mine wouldn’t let us in the house, so we would come sit on the front porch with our dad to exchange Xmas gifts). The best thing about Teresa and this book, is the humor. She is so funny! And the great relationship she has with her dad now…makes me miss the fun banter I used to have with my own dad….and brother, for that matter. This book is just wonderful on many levels. Read it! It’s going to make a great movie…mark my words.

Matt Schreiner

This story is funny, heartbreaking and expertly told!

Reviewed in the United States on June 17, 2023

I’ve heard and read as Teresa has told many of the stories she writes about in this book on some of the podcast episodes she’s done. I love them! But when I read how she pulls them all together into the story of her relationship with her family, and how they survived the loss of her brother “Mugsy”, it’s so wrenching and difficult to hear. Teresa finds the perfect times to throw in comic relief (and she’s funny as hell, y’all).
The way the trials and tribulations of her father- daughter relationship play out on the page is so engaging that I couldn’t help but push through chapters quickly.
Grief is such a varied experience, and Teresa captures her father’s and her own grief in such a masterful and powerful way!

Read this book! You will be glad you did!

Book about Baseball, Parenting, Love, Loss, and Also funny

Reviewed in the United States on December 18, 2023

As a big fan of Teresa and all her exploits, I am a bit biased - so if I didn't like the book, I'd just skip the review. As it stands, however, this is the best book I read in 2023 and in recent years. It's easy to say "oh, its a book about baseball", but it's so much more - it's a book about a relationship from a child, both small and grown, to parents, both living and at some point, gone. It's a book about parenthood, trying to right the wrongs taught to them as they teach their own kids. It's a book about a season of Little League, the ups, the downs, the hurried moments and the reflective pauses. And its told in vintage Teresa style - with humor, sarcasm, a few one liners and so much heart.

I love this book and will end up rereading a few times over the years. Thanks Teresa, for sharing your life.

Joseph G

Well written and poignant

Reviewed in the United States on August 31, 2024

I read this book for a book club and was worried it would be triggering as my father was in hospice care when I started the book and he passed away when I was about half way through. I found I was still able to laugh at the funny parts and cry at the appropriate sad parts. The book is well written and poignant. I did have to re-read some of the more intricate baseball passages as I went along, being not well versed in the sport. They were not overly complex. It may have just been my fuzzy grief-ridden brain having trouble grasping those concepts. I also came to care about the author’s father and was very concerned when he fell at one point in the book. A good read, would recommend.

AndiBrad

Excellent book about grief, and accepting your parents for who they are and what your childhood was

Reviewed in the United States on November 25, 2024

I loved this book so much that I read it, suggested it for my book club, and then listened to the audiobook. It resonated with me deeply because I have a daughter who aspires to pitch, and I know firsthand the challenges and triumphs of that journey. The book's exploration of accepting parents for who they are and what your childhood was struck a chord with me. Finally, Teresa's story of grief and loss really resonated with me too as I have lost my parents. Teresa is a gifted storyteller, and I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Giovanni G

You'll love this book if you love baseball and you'll still love it even if you hate baseball.

Reviewed in the United States on December 21, 2023

If someone would have told me that my book of the year was framed around a season of little league baseball I would have stopped reading out of opposition, that's how little interest I have for the game. Yet this book was riveting, I couldn't stop reading it and was fascinated with how the author was able to blend in real human truth, comedy and personal insights without straying from the central premise.

This is a real page-turner and a perfect gift for anyone in your life that enjoys reading, baseball, humorous memoirs about specific events and even baseball hating griefers too.

T-rav

Watching The World Series While Writing This Review

Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2023

First off, Seager just tied it up in the bottom of the 9th.

Second off, I'm exhausted. I started my day on the morning commute with DMX. Love me DMX. Just maybe one song in the morning. I went with three. Strike three. Any rate. I gotta work tomorrow.

Hello. Having played little league. Early 1990's. Thankfully I didn't write 1890's. (Lawd AZ just walked their first batter. And now a double play by AZ). Baseball. Goodness gracious. I gotta wake up at 5:30am tomorrow and slog the mail around.

Back to my original thought. Having played little league and having a disability(born without a right hand) I was put in left field. No confidence from the manager. Awesome teammates, still friends. I was close to third. I was also close to falling asleep in left field. If I had a developed frontal lobe as I do now. I could have realized, that my life (Rangers in scoring position), would always be in(Top of the 11th) left field. Life in general. Life in specifically. Constantly falling asleep.

Then while trying to see if my parents were attending. I heard that sound. That crack, that pop, that perfect sound. Finally! Some action in sleepy left little league field! Then I noticed the sun. Ball dropped in front of my feet. Thankfully my folks were not in attendance. (Bottom of the 11th. Lawd. It's 12:01 in the a.m. EST)

Now. Present day. While slogging the mail. Everyday. Still no confidence from the manager. Awesome coworkers, good friends. Still dropping mail. Still moving forward. No pun intended.

Baseball is life. Life is baseball. (Walk off HR Garcia, Rangers win Game 1).

Read Making It Home by Teresa Strasser!!

Then read, I'm Going To Bed by Travis Moore. It's just one page. One sentence.

Peace!

Post script: Get the audio book also!

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