I recently met John Wolff, a spectacular young man who comes from the Wolff baseball dynasty. His grandfather, Bob Wolff, was a legendary sportscaster who was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1995 as one of the greatest to ever broadcast the game. I am hoping that my good friend Suzyn Waldman will be inducted as she is a complete rockstar in her own right. Suzyn broadcasts the Yankee games on the radio along with John Sterling — I’ll save her amazing story for a future blog.

John’s father Rick was drafted in 1972 in his junior year at Harvard to play for the Detroit Tigers. John was drafted in 2006 in his junior year at Harvard to play for the Chicago White Sox. They have recently co-authored a must read book called “Harvard Boys.” Rick wrote letters home to his folks when he was playing and John sent emails to his parents from the road. The book is mostly John’s story about his life in the minors with Rick’s insightful comments written in the margins— the reader can’t help but feel how amazing it must have been to have a father-son relationship that transcended the usual father/son generational angst as they both spoke the only language that mattered – the language of baseball. John’s emails nail what it’s like to be in a sport that is synonymous with glamour and money and celebrity status – only not when you’re playing single-A ball with no fans, long bus rides, bad food, too many roommates, and the stress of wondering if you’re good enough to survive— every day is ONE BIG STAT- as we used to say on the trading floor- the highs are high and the lows are suicidal. The highs are hitting the ball with power and accuracy, keeping your weight balanced, making a great play in the outfield.. the lows are going 0-4 at the plate, making throwing or fielding errors, and getting injured diving for a ground ball up the middle… this book is all about dealing with the elation and the anguish of choosing to play one of the most daunting professional sports…

It’s every parent’s dream to have their son or daughter follow in their own successful professional footsteps. There is a moment when the reader thinks that the baton has been successfully passed from one generation to another— that John is going to carry on the family name through his batting average. What gives this book its raw, beautiful power is that it is a timeline… the reader starts to sense impending doom… and sure enough it happens one sunny day in June of 2006 during extended spring training when John opens his locker and finds his uniform is gone.. in that moment of agony he knows that he’s been cut from the team. The courage it took to walk out of the locker room past his teammates, then listen numbly to the managers telling him why he’d been released, and finally calling his father with the news that his career with the White Sox was over before it ever really even got started, is what gives this book so much authenticity. For Rick the news is devastating — not because he is disappointed in his son but because he couldn’t protect him from “the system.”

In my humble opinion, this book should be on the bestseller list as it is a powerful story of how lady luck should have smiled on both father and son… Rick thought that John’s chances of making it were excellent because decades earlier Rick had paid it forward— he absolutely believed that his coaching and fathering would give John an edge.. but in the end the owners decide who stays and who goes..

The epilogue is that Rick continues to enjoy a successful career in publishing while John, after graduating from Harvard, is busily chasing his next dream to become an entrepreneur – in January of 2008 he will launch eFieldhouse.com – an amazing online network community for professional baseball players and other pro athletes who want to stay connected – both on and off the field— for life.

In my humble opinion, John Wolff made it to “the show.” He made it to his own show— the one that requires character, courage, tenacity, and a great deal of intestinal fortitude. In a word, HE ROCKS.

“Harvard Boys” should be on everyone’s Christmas list. It is THAT GOOD.