This book was a home run for me! The writing is relatable, bringing the sights, sounds, and quirks of a town that’s lost its minor league team and is now making do with a college summer team to life. Loved how he immersed himself in the full summer experience & gave us peeks into the regular attendees personality & life as they rally behind their new collegiate team. It’s a fastball of nostalgia, curveballs of humor, and a lineup of memorable characters. A must-read for baseball fans who know the game is about more than just what happens on the field—it’s about the heart of a community (review written with chatgpt assistance)

This book really didn't play fair with me.

It's something of a love letter to the Batavia Muckdogs of the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League. Author Will Bardenwerper spent several days in the summer of 2022 with the team in its quest to win a championship while keeping "organized" baseball alive in that city that's located about 45 miles from Buffalo down the Thruway.

The book, "Homestand," was written shortly after major league baseball's "contraction" of several minor league teams after the pandemic. Some New York State squads got together in 2021 to form a summer league from the remains of those franchises, as some of them like Batavia didn't survive the cut.

In an interesting coincidence, I actually attended the final two games of that season in Batavia in 2022. I even checked my baseball scorebook. It was odd that I actually recognized a few names in the scorebook after reading the book, as opposed to when I saw them in person at the time. I've tried to go to Batavia every so often over the years; I even announced a game on the radio in the 1980s there.

Speaking of coincidences, the owner of the Muckdogs also owns the Elmira Pioneers of the PGCBL. Bardenwerper makes a couple of trips there for games. I spent ages 9 to 14 in Dunn Field in Elmira, learning about baseball from my father's company's season tickets along the first-base line. I can still picture the place; I took a walk on the field and in the stands before a PGCBL game when in town in 2023.

Therefore, there was absolutely no chance I wouldn't like this book. Heck, I lived a little of it. And I did enjoy it - even if I knew how the story of the season was going to turn out (no spoilers here).

Bardenwerper is an interesting personality. He went to Princeton and had a finance job in New York when 9/11 hit. That inspired him to enlist in the Army, and he saw duty in Iraq. After his time was up, Will eventually landed a Masters' degree in international studies and worked at the Pentagon. He has one other book to his credit - the story of Saddam Hussein and his American captivity during the end of the Iraqi's leader's life.

Still, baseball stays with him. He played in college, and has been a New York Mets' fan for much of his life. But the minor league contraction hit him hard, as MLB ended a tradition of small-town professional baseball that went back decades to save a relatively pittance. So it was off to Batavia for some R&R, even if the players were simply college kids playing summer ball who had little chance to advance their careers past this stop.

Bardenwerper, then, is of two minds during the course of his summer. He wants to be furious about the way cities like Batavia have been treated, but he likes the way the citizens of the small town have banded together to keep some of the magic around. The author makes friends with the front office members and the manager, of course. But he also manages to fit in with some of the other fans who are regulars. Some walk a few blocks from their home to Dwyer Stadium, while others drive in from Buffalo. It does feel like some of small-town America is still alive and well in Batavia.

In addition, Bardenwerper stayed in hotels in the Batavia area during his season with the Muckdogs, That gave him time to explore the town a bit. He had meals there, and frequently ran into - or set up appointments - with others. It allows him to inject some local flavor into the story.

This all adds up into an odd sort of contradiction at the center of the book. He likes what he sees in Batavia, but is still angry about what was lost. So the tone essentially goes back and forth. It's also a little odd that the book was written about the 2022 season, and is only coming out now. I know first-hand that such delays happen, but an update on the situation and the players might have been worth knowing.

It's also worth mentioning from my standpoint that Buffalo doesn't come off particularly well here. Bardenwerper seems obsessed about the weather, making several knocks about the winter snows in the region. For someone who lives in Pittsburgh and was here in summer - and in terms of weather, Western New York has better summers than almost anywhere else - this comes off as a little petty.

That said, there's a lot to like in the book. Not much has been said or written about the towns that got left behind when the MBA types in MLB decided to break with the past. There are plenty of moments in "Homestand" that will remind you what we've lost.

Wow. Just wow.

Any review I give to Homestand by Will Bardenwerper will not give this book any justice.

Will Bardenwerper, an Ivy League graduate and former military veteran is frustrated with the discourse in America and the continued contraction of Minor League Baseball franchises in the name of "efficiency" by the Major Leagues - even though the true bottom line is maybe a week's salary of an MLB all-star.

The Batavia (NY) Muckdogs, a former NY-Penn League minor league franchise was one of the forty teams that were contracted out of the minor leagues by MLB. Now they are a summer ball team full of small college players and others hoping for a longshot chance to be noticed by a professional organization.

Batavia, like many of the other towns in the league, is working-class, with few opportunities as industries have moved to large cities or overseas. COVID closures have further wrecked the economy. Batavia appears to be a blood-red political town full of Trump yard signs and others profanely mocking Joe Biden. It's a typical forgotten town in America.

Bardenwerper resides in Pittsburgh and is jaded by how Major League baseball is run by Ivy League technocrats looking to squeeze every last dollar out of fans (beers are apparently $15 at Pirates Stadium!), games which are essentially three-outcome baseball (home runs, walks, or strikeouts), and many MLB-affiliated Minor League teams are being bought out by Venture Capital firms with no ties to local communities. He makes a summer pilgrimage to Batavia, NY attends every summer game at Batavia's stadium. He furthermore involves himself in the local community. He tries to eat and shop locally, even though there are few non-corporate options.

In going to all of the Batavia games, Bardenwerper finds something lacking in polarized society. A unique community of fans - some of whom he bonds with and stories he shares. A cursory look at Batavia on Wikipedia shows that the town has about 16,000 residents. The Muckdogs draw 2,000 fans a night. The owners are invested in the community, the staff and interns work long hours for little pay, players do not even receive payment - yet everyone cares deeply about making every game a memorable experience for fans.

Meanwhile, corporate Minor League Baseball teams have to run every promotion idea through their Major League affiliates. Those who run Venture Capital firms (apparently one owns 30% of Minor League Baseball) are completely uninvolved.

The Batavia owners have the agency to run the promotions they want - and all are geared to kids, fans, veterans, and the community.

In a time where politicians, influencers, and non-Mainstream media try to tear us apart - and so many spend time on their phones, social media, or avoiding others - the Batavia Muckdogs are something that's right in America. My only regret is that I live at least 15 hours away and doubt I will have an opportunity to catch a game at the stadium.

Just a wonderful read - and one does not even need to be a baseball fan for it. It brought back so many memories of being a kid and going to my hometown's (at the time) locally-owned AA affiliate - where the scores didn't matter, but the three hours of fun created lifetime memories.

Again. Wow. Just wow.

Thank you to both Doubleday Books and Will Bardenwerper himself for allowing me to read an Advanced Copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

5 stars are not enough.