Little League Heaven: The Legend of Odie Sweeny
by Richard C. Wagner
Published by PublishAmerica, LLLP
Click on book
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Reviewed by Patty Inglish, M.S.
This warm tribute comes from one of Coach Sweeney's own champion Bay City Cardinals, Richard "Ruby" Wagner. Writing from the heart, he tells how he became a ball player and caught the lessons of Odie's field for life.
Ruby earned a 30-year editorial career, and this type of success is consistent among the players Odie coached for a record 38 years in a Texas Little League. These men and women became CEOs, lawyers, scientists, and even a three-star general. Lt. General Steven R. Polk, USAF, who wrote the book's foreword. Greater than this, they took Christian principles from the ball field into their work.
This story is a scrapbook of the founding of Gulf Coast Little League, led by the tireless "Papa Bird" Sweeny. After long hours in the oil field, Odie went straight to the ball field and his young players, encouraging and cheering them on in both victory and defeat. He bestowed nicknames to make them feel special and fathered them as God showed him the way. This is the biblical extra mile, and the multitalented father figure went much further. He exemplified Christian love an joy in the rewards of hard work and clean fun to future generations, and taught the best sporting behavior in the league: no Cardinal was to burst into anger at a game and none was to gloat over the other team's loss. We need more of such character in America.
Ruby's tale made me laugh at the Cardinals' antics and Odie's adventures of owning a pool hall and raising the Matagorda County Livestock Show from his one-clown "Odie's goat-ropin' rodeo." The book's snapshots rounded out the story and left me wanting more.
Boys and girls through middle school will enjoy this stimulating look into Little League. And if they already play, it will give them an appreciation of the effort freely given by volunteers, and of the treasures they can bring away from it now and in the future.
This story would be a good selection for a family reading night, for lessons that cannot be learned from modern computer games.
Armchair Interviews says: A good-news sports story for all ages.