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Basic Oilheat Technician's Manual For introductory Oilheat burner and service training; also for NORA Silver Certification. The new edition is a complete upgrade from the prior manual and is in full-color with concise text and numerous "how-to" and "step-by-step" instructions with diagrams and photos. 356 pp in a complete firm cover spiral bound textbook ... Read more

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This forgotten novel is much better than the Lonigan Trilogy
This is a a little book a about a sensitive, young Irish Catholic in the 1920s trying to go to school, make a living and find a girl to fall in love with. This is the most autobiographical of Farrell's novels. A girl who's just as sensitive and intellectual as the main character enters the picture midway. Throughout the novel, the Farrell lets us get into the main character's head. Farrell explores obsolecence, the fear of being forgotten among the billions of other human beings, the fear of never having accomplished anything worthwhile; the seemingly inescapable destiny of ending of up a nobody in a world where your talents aren't needed - these are the deedpest worries of the protagonist. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

studded with diamond gems
"Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball."
--Jacques Martin Barzun
A bit maudlin, hokey, overly sentimental at times, and sometimes a bit too obvious in its observations, but nonetheless this is a grand appreciation of the game of baseball and the hold it's had on the American psyche since its beginnings, with a good bit of history -- American and baseball -- helping to tell Farrell's "diary." Farrell has seen and touched base with many of the greats of the diamond through the years.
A pure love of the game of baseball shines through, and Farrell also brings back the days when baseball players were genuine heroes who loved the game themselves and weren't the jaded malcontents they seem to be nowadays. Reading this made me want to go out and see a ballgame and pore through the boxscores in the newspaper. Favorite quote: Farrell talking about his Irish grandmother and how she became a rabid baseball fan: "She loved baseball and understood absolutely nothing about the game."
As an ode to baseball, I would rank this up there with the works of Roger Angell, Lawrence Ritter and others I may be missing.
Sidenote: As I read about Farrell and his brother attending White Sox games in the teens, I couldn't help but reference the kids in the movie "Eight Men Out."

Welcome back to the fold
After years of searching secondhand stores for "My Baseball Diary," I was delighted to find it back in print after a long hiatus. Farrell takes off his novelist's hat and delivers a straightforward homage to the game. Unlike George Will and others who have exhibited anunfortunate tendency to overanalyze baseball and lace their writing withsocial commentary, Farrell reminds us that we attach ourselves to the gameas kids, and forever after our love for it comes from childhood.

Mostremarkable are Farrell's clear and unadorned memories of the White Soxgames that he saw as a boy growing up on the South Side of Chicago. Hedevotes a great chapter to detailing a no-hit game he saw pitched by EdWalsh, one of his many childhood heroes. You feel with him the mountingexcitement as Walsh approached recording the final out of his gem.

Farrell also brings vividly to life the 1917 White Sox, the "No-HitWonders," who batted just .228 as a team but who went on to win theWorld Series handily. His admiration for the team is plain (and he writesconvincingly of the strengths of individuals on it), but he doesn't backaway from expressing the disappointment the infamous 1919 team deliveredhim. At the same time, we get from Farrell the point made much later byEliot Asinof in "Eight Men Out": that owner Charles Comiskey'seconomic abuse of the team contributed to the decision to throw theSeries.

Fans of the White Sox will appreciate the portraits of RaySchalk, Eddie Collins, Joe Jackson, Buck Weaver, Nick Altrock and manyothers. Farrell shows he was a close observor of the nuances of the gamefrom a young age and never slips into mere idolatry.

Overall the book isa fine evocation of baseball when the game and its players were moretightly integrated into the communities it served and fascinated. Farrellturns his writer's eye to the past and returns with memories bathed in thelight of childhood. ... Read more