Covering Home; Lessons on the Art of Fathering from the Game of Baseball

Beltsville, MD: Robins Lane Press, a division of Gryphon House, Inc, 2000. Presumed First Edition/First Printing. Hardcover. Very good/very good. xii, 114, [2] pages. Inscribed on half-title page. DJ has slight wear and soiling. Mr. Petrash knows what he is talking about, having been a single parent of 2 sons and a daughter after a divorce, combined with his day job as a teacher. The book has nine lessons, just like the number of innings in a regulation game. He also has some extra inning advice if it goes longer. Jack Petrash interweaves advice and insights on how to be an effective, loving father with anecdotes and allegories of baseball. Using terms and illustrations from baseball, Petrash shows that to be a good father takes similar qualities required to be a good player: be present, establish routines early in a child's life, keep bad situations from escalating out of control, and avoid dwelling on parental failures by focusing on successes. Covering Home is one of the most reader friendly, accessible, and effective "how to" books on parenting ever written specifically for Dads. Winner of the National Parenting Publications Award. Willie Mays said that good players can play with their bodies, but great players play with their hearts and minds as well. The same is true for fathering. In Covering Home, author Jack Petrash combines a love for children with his love for the game of baseball to give fathers, or fathers-to-be, a new perspective on raising children.From the first few pages of Covering Home… There is a place where out passionate commitments converge, and it is there that fathering and baseball intertwine. The lessons that I have learned in one have instructed me in the other; how in fathering as in baseball you have to work on fundamentals, develop good habits, avoid errors, work on your control, and always keep in mind that you can't win them all… In the busyness of modern times where both parents work and travel and go back to school, fathers are repeatedly covering home. Knowing when to cover home is essential. It requires knowledge of what should happen in a given situation but also an awareness of what could go wrong. Whether it's an overthrow, a passed ball, a snow day or a sick child, we need to be alert, as well as ready and willing to act… Like baseball, fathering is a path of development…[It] will call on us to grow in ways we never imagined.