What can I say? I read this book in three days. Couldn't put it down. Before I found out about this book, I actually had a similar idea. Except mine would have been more photography than writing. Anyway.....Mandel was able to bring the prospective from the player's standpoint. For a guy who never wrote a book before, he did a fantastic job of making you feel part of the team. I am very jealous of his experience. Anyone who's a baseball fan....this is a must read. Especially after you been to a couple of minor league games to know some of the quaint features he talks about. I've read no greater baseball book.

Brett Mandel does an excellent job of portraying a year with the Ogden Raptors of the short-season Pioneer League. This is a well written, easy-to-read account of the ups and downs of life in the low minors. At times it is funny, at other times touching. I found myself pulling for him to get into a few more games than he did, but at least he's had an experience not many of us get. Good work on this book!

What a wonderful book! I picked this one up, and it stayed in my stack of books to read for about 6 months. That was a mistake - I should have read it first. This is a great book if you're a fan of baseball, particularly if you're a fan of minor league baseball. This tells the story of Brett's year with the Ogden Raptors in 1994 from the start to the end of the season. Brett's writing style is very easy to read. I tend to do most of my reading before going to bed at night, which usually means I can take several sessions to actually finish a book, as I did with this one. Most books suffer from when you pick them up again, it's not that easy to jump right in where you left off. This one does not have that. For me, it lent itself great to reading it in chunks. Brett was on the Raptors for a whole year, and this book is his recollection of the travels, details, and behind the scenes things most people will never hear about. Check this out - this book has nothing to do with the Texas Rangers (my favourite team), but it's a great GREAT baseball book!

As an added bonus, I met the author last year when my wife & I went to Baltimore to see the Rangers play there. Brett and some friends were coming back from Cooperstown for the HOF induction ceremony, and were in Baltimore to see the Orioles play. He himself told me about the book, and we had a few moments talking about the Phillies, as we're both from there. I wish I would have already read the book at this point, but Brett was a great guy to meet in person, too!

As a CPA and candidate for controller of Montgomery County, PA, it is refreshing to see the long-term planning, comparison, functional issue review, and the "watchdog" functions of a controller so well laid out. Montgomery County will be well served to use this planning approach.

Please tell me it's not this easy to run a city. If all the Giulianis, Rendells, and Daleys of the world would just implement this new direction for urban america, our cities would not be afflicted with the ills they currently suffer. Every big city resident should demand that local government run as recommended in this book. Students, policy professionals, elected officials, and urbanites everywhere should make this book a part of their libraries.

I am a passionate city fan and wish every mayor in the country would read this book and implement the policies the authors advocate. There are no quick fixes to the problems shared by large American cities (crime, poverty, decay). As successful cities prove over and over, local government must concentrate on the basics -- improving schools, reducing crime, lowering taxes -- to make the city a place where people want to be instead of a place people want to avoid. If Philadelphia would adopt the recommendations of this book, the city would truly be a great one.

First the good news: if you loved the movie, you'll like the book. The bad news: with only 155 pages of actual text, you can't help but feel you've been rained-out in the top of the 6th - pricey. If you've bought the DVD and have watched the interviews, much of what's here is familiar ground. Still, there are interesting items - did you know Jimmy Stewart was the first pick to play Moonlight Graham? There are moving stories of the visitors, a good description of the surrounding area, but the book suffers from making too much of the psychology involved in the place, for example: "...religious historian Mircea Eliade explains that the history of religions is constituted by the great number of occasions when something shows itself as sacred...the sanctified can present itself as something wholly other than the secular ..." - you get the idea. Why try to explain the lure of the "Field" - some things are best left unexplained. The book is at its best when it stays with the stories of real people (and the trivia will interest movie fans).

Mr. Mandel is able to strike a cord in the heart strings of his readers in this masterpiece. This book not only tells the true stories of pilgrimages to quaint Dyersville Iowa to explore the movie site for the movie "Field Of Dreams", but lets the reader know that sometimes feelings and dreams can come true in the most unlikeliness of places.

Although the book is documenting the reasons and emotions felt while visiting the Field of Dreams, you don't have to be a baseball fan. You don't have to be a fan of the movie. The only thing you need is a good seat, nice reading light and sit back and enjoy. Keep in mind, be prepared to have difficulty putting it down and keep some tissues handy.

Mr. Mandel thanks his wife in the acknowledgements, but he should also be thanked for bringing to life a bounty of feelings. "If you build it...he will come" so the movie says. Well, he wrote it you need to go get it. It is magic.