A Year of Playing Catch: What a Simple Daily Experiment Taught Me About Life by Ethan D. Bryan (review)

Ethan Bryan's book is well-written, easy to follow and to enjoy. On New Year's Day, 2018, his daughters encouraged him to make the decision to play catch every day for a year. He accepted the challenge and his daily blog became material for his book. He is slightly serendipitous with the chronology of the year 2018, which does not detract from the storytelling. Given his training as a musician, the book according to the author is divided into three movements. The first movement is a chronicle of two ten-day family trips, the second movement (greatest part of the book) is named "therapy games of catch, finding a connection between tossing a ball and honoring the life and death of someone loved." (xiii) The third movement covers the final two days of Catch #365.

The book is a collection of 365 homilies about living a fulfilling life. As a faith-based educator and author, Mr. Bryan skillfully uses baseball as a framework for his messages. He is accurate in his use of baseball information, baseball strategies, and baseball background to tell his stories. He is a life-long fan of the Kansas City Royals, and he played college baseball as long as his skills would allow. He has a wide network of baseball colleagues with connections to set up his days of playing catch.

This book is most valuable as an invitation to the reader. Anyone who has ever played catch, or wished they had, will quickly identify with the vignettes and likely embrace what they are reading. The stories work as lessons and as gentle encouragement for the reader to personally reflect on their life experiences. The impact comes from the ease and receptiveness of the playing catch stories. A typical "lesson" is:

playing catch happens in the present tense, when life occurs.

We are wise when we impart rhythms into our lives that help us focus on life in the present tense.

(55)

catch is a dance of connection and conversation and creativity between two partners.

(66)

Bryan explores and celebrates the humanness of the game through his warm-up drills, imparting baseball knowledge and understanding.

Though was published in 2020, the work remains blissfully ignorant of the impending pandemic. I chose to review this book arbitrarily and without any knowledge of the author. It is the most unabashedly spiritual description of baseball I have read. The close of his acknowledgements says, "It is a joy to play and live out God's Great Story with you" (173). Reading such a collection of devotionals has been personally impactful during a very unusual and very trying time.