It may be a cliche, but baseball is the game that binds cities and countries around the world. Jean Fruth, one of today’s most prolific sports photographers, traveled to more than a dozen communities across the U.S and around the world to capture the joy, if not necessarily innocence, of youth.
Each chapter begins with an essay by a former major leaguer with a local connection, including Ichiro Suzuki (Japan), White Ford (New York), Hank Aaron (Mobile, Alabama), Tony Perez (Cuba), Hensley Meulens (Curaçao), Vladamir Guerrera (Dominican Republic), Fernando Valenzuela (Mexico), and others. Cal Ripken Jr., who contributed the opener for Aberdeen, Maryland, also wrote the introduction to the book. Veteran sports journalist Steve Wulf delivers the foreword with Johnny Bench providing an afterword.
The photos themselves deliver on the title. This is where the young athletes — overwhelmingly boys — get their first taste. For some, it will become an addiction; the ballplayer-writers are of a single mind: they wanted to make baseball their livelihood practically from the start. Some may be better equipped than others, but regardless of the economics of their homelands, these kids — from preschool through teenagers — enjoy the game as is evident via Fruth’s work.
Perhaps the first gift/coffee table book of the year, Grassroots was released in June by Skyhorse Publishing (the same folks who published Hank Greenberg in 1938), giving both photo and baseball fans plenty of time to get theirs.
is available on Amazon.com,
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