Member Review

Alou is about baseball great Felipe Alou in his own words. The intro to the book is by none other than Pedro Martinez. Felipe and 2 of his brothers (Matty and Jesus) were the only 3 brothers in the major leagues to share an outfield. Felipe is often credited as the first Dominican to reach the major leagues, but he says that it was Ozzie Virgil Sr who did it before him. The book is interesting and has a lot of great stories and facts about Felipe and his family. His last name is actually not Alou, but Rojas. He never faced a lefty pitcher until he was a professional baseball player because in the Dominican Republic being left handed was considered a curse so they were all right handed. (Or if they weren't, tried to be.) He has a 4th brother, Juan, who stayed home to protect his home in the Dominican Republic and ended up becoming a pretty great civil engineer. There is a lot of information about Felipe's family as well - he has 11 children and has been married 4 times. Tragically one of his sons died while he was diving into a pool by breaking his neck and Felipe talks about what it was like to find out about that while he was playing ball and having to fly straight home to the funeral from a game. This was a really interesting read and I enjoyed it.

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review, I was not otherwise compensated.