Reseña del libro "Monroe City Blues (en Inglés)"
Johnny DiAngelo is a talented eighteen-year old pitcher from Brooklyn, NY who dreams of playing baseball in the major leagues. In 1963, he gets that chance when he is signed by the Washington Senators and drafted to their Class D League located in Monroe City, Georgia. Johnny's bus trip down South is very confusing to him. Segregation and enforced rules that were different for Whites and Negroes were foreign to a Brooklyn boy like Johnny. The natural beauty of the small towns he passed through were filled with the racism that permeated the South for almost two centuries. The Monroe City Blues team's catcher, Lyle Agee, is the first black player in the history of the Southern Baseball Conference. He and Johnny become close friends, which make them and their teammates the target of the white supremacist group in town, who will stop at nothing to preserve the "Southern way of life." The coach of the Blues team is Henry "Dobie" Carey, a 70-year old ex-minor league baseball pitcher. Dobie becomes a mentor and father figure to Johnny, Lyle and their teammates on The Monroe City Blues. They all must stand up to Bryce Bodine, the son of the town's wealthiest man and the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan in Monroe City. Bodine and his friends use intimidation, threats and even violence to show their bigotry. Dobie, by his example and words, help Johnny and Lyle deal with the harsh realities they will face in life. He not only coaches them about baseball, he also teaches them about becoming good men. While in Monroe City, Johnny can't help but fall in love with Emily James, who works at the local luncheonette. As the daughter of a career Air Force officer, Emily has lived in many places around the world, but has never met anyone with as big of a heart as Johnny, or as she calls him "Johnny Angel." Set against our National Pastime of baseball during the 1960's; an extraordinarily volatile period in modern American history, Monroe City Blues is a tale of friendship, love, loss, loyalty and tolerance. Most of all, it's about never giving up on your dreams.
