While this is a fiction story and therefore outside my theme for this year of reading true stories, this is about the 1973 season between the Cubs and the Mets. The author has taken liberties with game schedules, rosters, baseball stats and even put in fictional players with real players.

That said, this is the story of a rising rookie baseball player, Joe Castle. He is nicknamed Calico Joe because he is from Calico Rock, Arkansas. He plays for the Cubs and is having a stellar rookie year with adoring fans far and wide, young and old.

One of his young fans is Paul Tracey. Paul's dad, Warren, pitches for the Mets. Paul is in the stands when his dad is pitching to his idol when everything goes horribly wrong.

The story continues with Paul as an adult and has been estranged from his father for years. He learns of his dad's cancer and decides he wants to try to get his dad and Joe together to reconcile.

This is a story about forgiveness, families and baseball. Even if you don't like baseball, it's a quick read and you'll be able to follow along. ( )

Baseball

Baseball

Baseball story of an amazing rookie who played for the Cubs. He was breaking all kinds of records and had an outstanding career ahead of him. However, the narrator the story is the son of so so pitcher for the Mets who has low self-esteem and plays by the old ?ethics?. So when he pitches to Joe and Joe hits a HR, he decides he must retaliate and bean him. He hits Joe on the side of his head and ruins his career and his own. 30yrs later when the dad is dying of cancer, his son initiates a meeting between the two so his dad can apologize to Joe. Pretty good story, but a bit too lame in the end.

(2012)Much better than the last book I read by Grisham. Story of a rookie baseball phenom who sets an unheard of streak of hitting when he comes up the the Cubs in 1973, only to have his career and almost his life cut short when Warren Tracey a middling pitcher for the Mets hits him in the head with a pitch. His son, 11 at the time, knows that it was deliberate. He tries to reconcile the events leading up to that pitch and what happened afterward. He succeeds 30 years later in bringing Joe Castle and his father together where his father sincerely apologizes for what he did to Joe. This is just before Warren dies of cancer. (Kirkus)Only one player in Major League Baseball history has been hit and killed by a pitch, but bean balls�balls thrown near the head¥have ended careers. Grisham's (The Litigators, 2011, etc.) novel imagines the act and its consequences.It's 1973, another magic baseball season. The National League East has six teams contending, among them the traditionally hapless Chicago Cubs, soon jinxed once again when its first baseman is injured. Now the Cubs must add a minor leaguer to the roster. That's Joe Castle, a kid from Calico Rock, Ark. Calico Joe immediately begins to set rookie records, leading the Cubs to the top of the standings. Watching from New York is Paul Tracey, a baseball fan as avid as only an 11-year-old boy can be. In fact, Paul's father pitches for the New York Mets, but Warren Tracey, ?accustomed to getting whatever he wanted,? is a jerk. Warren is a journeyman pitcher, solid in an occasional game, kicked around from one team to another, never an All Star. Warren also abuses his family, drinks and chases women. The novel unfolds from Paul's adult perspective, with flashbacks. The crucial plot point comes in a flashback when Calico Joe, putting up ?mind-boggling? numbers over 38 games, meets Warren in Shea Stadium and hits a home run. During his next at bat, as part of some unwritten ?code,? Warren goes head-hunting and beans the young player. Calico Joe's career is over, and he drifts home to Calico Rock, partially paralyzed, speech impeded, to work as a groundskeeper rather than earning a plaque in baseball's Hall of Fame. Decades later, long estranged from his father, Paul learns that Warren is dying of pancreatic cancer, and he decides to force his father to confront what he did to Joe Castle. Interestingly, the novel's most fully formed character is Warren, and while the narrative and settings are solid, the story drifts toward a somewhat unsatisfying, perhaps too easy, conclusion. A reconciliation story, Hallmark style.

I don't know how I feel about this book. It was good and interesting and well written, but it was also short and predictable with not too much substance. Kinda hard to describe. I finished it in a couple of hours, a quick easy read. The baseball was there, which is also kind of strange, as Grisham himself describes, as a blend of fact and fiction, real and imagined players, a seemingly factual 1973 season overview, but with a fictional schedule...anyway, I digress. What makes a book good or bad at its core is the story, obviously. This one had a good story, which made it enjoyable enough for me, just don't look for too much out of it. ( )

An excellent read. I initially was doubtful as I know nothing of baseball, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. ( )

In 1973, Warren Tracey is a pitcher for the Mets. Upcoming phenom Joe Castle plays for the Cubs. The story is told from the perspective of Warren’s son, Paul, who is eleven years old at the time of an incident involving both players. Joe Castle is Paul’s favorite player. John Tracey is his father. He is now an adult, and his father is dying.

A large portion of this slim novel is spent with unpleasant characters. The son despises his father for philandering, physical abuse, and abandonment of his family. The father is so mean he is almost cartoonish. Grisham mixes real baseball players of the time with fictional players of his own creation. Baseball fans will notice a couple of glaring inaccuracies (e.g., the Cubs do not hold spring training in Florida). It is a decent story with a predictable ending. The audio book is competently read by Erik Singer.

Grisham is known for his legal thrillers. You might say he has thrown the reader a “change-up” with this novel. Baseball fans will likely enjoy it more than those with no interest in the game.
( )

i had to read this because a student wanted to read something and this is the book she chose. neither of us liked it, but at least it was short, and i speedread my way through most of it.

but now i'm thinking a lot about why i didn't like it, and i think there are a lot of things going on in my head. number 1, though, is all the baseball. I mean ALL the baseball. all the baseball in the world is in this book, but luckily it's pretty much contained to every other chapter. number 2, certain people are pretty much all evil or all good, or empty shells of nothing that exist only to forward the story. boooorrriiinnnng.

still, i was sort of shocked by some aspects of the father-son relationship, which i don't want to go into in much detail, but which made it so much more interesting to me than the rest of the book. but it wasn't enough. ( )

A fantastic summer read. ( )

John Grisham tells the story of an amazing baseball rookie and his fate during the 1973 baseball season. Told by a young man who used to love baseball, it's really two stories. The chapters alternate between his childhood and the journey he takes later on to right the wrong done by his father 30 years earlier. While reading this, I sometimes held my breath for the boy and sometimes, like the fans, for Joe.
Baseball is a great summertime subject. I recommend this story for the thrill as well as the tragedy. ( )

I wish the story was told from Red Castle's or Charlie Castle's point of view. The story was told by a relative of a truly horrible person. The inability of Calico Joe's villain to apologize struck very close. The baseball parts were well done. This could have been a heartwarming, good vs evil novel. It was depressing.
1,635 members; 3.69 average rating; 3/19/2022 ( )

I will start with a confession. I am an attorney, and as such, have had absolutely zero interest in reading any of Mr. Grisham's legal thrillers. That may surprise some people but I am sure that Mr. Grisham would completely understand.

However, I am a baseball fan and absolutely love to read books about baseball. This is a great baseball book. One of the best that I have ever read. Mr. Grisham obviously loves the game and he knows of what he speaks.

He is also a very talented writer. I started this book at around 10 o'clock in the evening and read straight through until I finished. This is a story about a son who became a very good man despite having a father who never was one. It is about making someone do the right thing, not because it will change them in any way, but simply because the right thing needs to be done. A small gem of a novel. I quickly added A Painted House to my wish list and look forward to reading more Grisham.

One note, if you are not a baseball fan, don't hesitate for a second because of that. This story is about baseball because much of the action takes place on a baseball diamond. It is at heart a story about a father and a son. It is a story of how children age to understand their fathers, and in some cases forgive them. ( )

It was a fun read, typical of grisham. If you like baseball it is a good one for you. ( )

I enjoyed this book even though I'm not at all into Baseball. ( )

Enjoyed this. Loosely based on the true story of the only man in baseball to die from a beanball and some of Grisham's own experience with the sport. A nice change from all the legal thrillers. ( )

Enjoyed this. Loosely based on the true story of the only man in baseball to die from a beanball and some of Grisham's own experience with the sport. A nice change from all the legal thrillers. ( )

John Grisham knows how to write a fluid story, with prose that keeps moving and never leaves you confused about what's happening. This novella is a nice baseball story, interweaving fiction into the 1973 Major League baseball season, in a nice, seamless way.

It's narrated by Paul Tracy, the son of a miserable, alcoholic, philandering major league pitcher in the 1970s. It's set in 2003, with flashbacks to a fateful 1973 season in which an impossibly talented rookie nicknamed "Calico Joe" bursts upon the scene with the Cubs and sets pretty much every record in the books in his first weeks in baseball. In 2003, Paul's father is diagnosed with terminal cancer, and the narrator goes on a quest to right a wrong done by his father to Joe in '73.

The story unfolds clearly, and by the time we learn exactly what happened in 1973 we've already guessed it easily enough. The book is gauzy, and Joe is a throwback baseball-novel protagonist in the tradition of The Kid From Tomkinsville and The Natural- not a particularly nuanced character, but a square-jawed, humble, absurdly skilled young man. And the narrator's father is pretty one dimensional too.

Good airplane read. ( )

5670. Calico Joe, by John Grisham (read 17 Jan 2020) This book has 1398 members who have it on LibraryThing and 81 reviews thereon. It is a fictional story relating very unlikely exploits in major league baseball which uses real names of players and somewhat suggests it tells of actual events in 1973. The author shows he knows something about the attraction of major league ball for youth who 'discover' it. I discovered it when I was 9 years old and in the next season, 1938, I was an avid fan of the Cubs (and remain their fan today) and knew every major league player and saved newspaper accounts of Cubs games. I was overjoyed when they won the pennant that year. So that aspect of this book resonated with me, though the extraordinary feats of Calico Joe did not because they were so fantastic that one could not believe them possible. The story depicts a super hero and a despicable pitcher who beans Joe. One hopes for a stunning outcome but I was disappointed and conclude that the story had nothing to tell me. As one who has read many Grisham books, some of which I enthused over, I conclude this book is a disappointment. ( )

Calico Joe es una novela corta (unas 200 páginas) que se publicó en abril del 2012 y que narra una historia de familia, decepción, perdón y baseball.

Encierra en sus páginas una historia simple pero poderosa, que fácilmente te pondrá al borde de las lágrimas dos o tres veces. Es una historia memorable con repercusiones morales y que usa el campo de baseball como zapata.

Al ser una novela corta, es difícil para mi poder abundar mucho tanto en el argumento como en la opinión de la misma. Pero puedo decir que es una lectura amena, rápida y placentera, una recomendación acertada aún sea para no-seguidores del deporte.

Hablando del mismo, Grisham mezcla jugadores reales de la época con jugadores ficticios y hace cambios en el calendario y algunas estadísticas para dar credibilidad a la obra. Son detalles que logra sumergirnos en las páginas y nadar entre palabras de un autor que "hizo su tarea".

Hay un poco para todos en Calico Joe, seas o no fanático del deporte. Es una novela que va más allá, una novela difícil de olvidar. ( )

Excellent book! I loved baseball as a little girl and followed major league teams and collected baseball cards. I recognized many of the names of the baseball players mentioned in the book and it was fun to read because of that. However, you do not need to know baseball or how the sport is played to thoroughly enjoy the book. Calico Joe is told from the perspective of Paul, the son of a major league baseball pitcher, Warren Tracey. Paul wants to idolize his father, but his father is abusive and drinks and criticizes everything about 11-year-old Paul, who plays baseball as a pitcher. During the same summer, a rookie, Joe Castle is breaking all kinds of records and leading the Cubs to a winning season. Paul follows everything about Joe Castle and is excited to see if play the night his father is pitching. What Paul's father does that night on the baseball field changes all of their lives forever. ( )

Paul Tracey has had little contact with his father over the years until he gets a call saying his father is dying. Paul knows that this will have little impact on his life but feels it is time to close some open wounds from his past.
"After a few minutes, I admit the truth - life without Warren will be the same as life with him."

Paul revisits his childhood as the son of a major league ball player and the son of the most hated man in baseball in 1973. Paul will travel many miles to try and make Warren face up to the wrongs that he did in the past and get closure for themselves and for the man who Warren ruined everything for.

John Grisham steps outside his norm of writing legal thrillers and delivers this touching story. You don't have to like baseball to enjoy this story. ( )

This is a decent short story. No legal components at all - so not your normal Grisham. The story centers around the now grown son of a cruel professional baseball player. I think Grisham's intent was to have a story of forgiveness and at least a measure of redemption. However, though it feels realistic, when you finally arrive at the forgiveness it seems to fall a bit flat - failing to fully portray the power of forgiveness. Nevertheless it is still a good read particularly if you are short on time as you should be able to read it in a few hours. ( )

Not one of Grisham's best. Admittedly, it was odd to have the primary character be female - but overall the story was a bit weak - it just did not "grab" me like most of his have done. Seem like the author is running a bit hot & cold lately. ( )

A baseball story by John Grisham...who knew? Grisham did a great job with the baseball characters, interweaving actual ball players from the time. The story is really about family and relationships...wrapped in baseball. It unfolds nicely and keeps the listener's interest. One of the heroes, Joe Castle, is almost too good to believe, but believe we do. Joe's antagonist is a ball player pitcher and dad that you must hate. The story of the two is heart warming and facilitated by the pitcher's son. ( )