The Rules of the Game: Simple Truths Learned from Little League

Sporting News, The, May 6, 1996 by Steve Gietschier

(By Kurt Hohenstein. 221 pp. Thomas Nelson Publishers $12.99).

Read this book and you will begin to wonder how a father can profess so much that is right and do so much that is wrong. Hohenstein has his Little League manager's head screwed on right, and yet he wrote this book in orison and is still there, having been incarcerated after being convicted of theft. He does not shy away from his guilt or make excuses, but he's not forthcoming about the particulars either. So readers may come away a bit disappointed or at least curious.

Still, this book is not about a state senator going to jail, but rather about the values that can be learned by absorbing the lessons baseball has to offer honestly and openly. Hohenstein has not written solely of the romance of parents playing catch with children, nor has he produced a didactic primer on how baseball can teach us to live a successful life. Rather, he has nicely combined some stories from his years as a youth manager with reflections on how satisfying and rewarding youth sports can be when they are done right.