🎥 GG Book Club: Little League's sanctuary comforts a grieving father and daughter

An in depth convo (on video!) with Teresa Strasser discussing her poignant, emotional & often hilarious memoir, Making it Home: Life Lessons from a Season of Little League

Among the myriad takeaways from Teresa Strasser’s engrossing memoir, Making it Home, perhaps the most important is this: don’t instantly judge other parents or kids in Little League … and in life. You may have zero clue what is happening internally.

Imagine losing your brother and mother in a four-month span. Imagine not having a stable familial backbone to lean on, only a messy childhood to replay.

This is Strasser’s narrative. It’s a poignant journey of searching for a grief group, only to find it in her own backyard. Making it Home tells the story of how Strasser and her father, Nelson, were embedded front and center over the course of her son, Nate’s, first season of Little League kid pitch. Teresa and Nelson not only find sanctity in baseball’s metaphors and life lessons, they find a rejuvenated connection.

I recently chatted with Teresa all about Making it Home, and we went DEEP. From the powerful things said and unsaid to her father to her husband meticulously and hilariously crafting a Little League draft strategy, it’s all here. In video form!

See below for highlights from our conversation, and order Making it Home here.

Strasser is a comedy writer and host whose work has appeared at such places like TLC, MTV and the Los Angeles Times.

5:10: How puberty is the great equalizer in youth sports, and a great anecdote about Teresa’s son Nate pitching to an NFL legend’s ginormous son

9:10: On Teresa’s decision to channel her past grief into written form

10:59: All about PMS - Pitcher’s Mom Syndrome

13:47: How the most chill Little League coaches played baseball at a high level

18:25: (Tissue alert): On the similarities between Teresa’s late brother Morgan and her son, Nate

23:36: How Teresa and Nelson approached grief differently and coalesced at the baseball field

30:38: Cal Ripken Jr.’s blurb about Making it Home, rooted in baseball being family, nails her message … and helps her book soar!

32:30: Inside the crazy spreadsheets and metrics used for drafting 4th graders

39:19: Teresa urges parents to appreciate all the long car rides and on-the-go meals

41:23: How the season of Little League strengthens Teresa’s relationship with her father

47:27: How the true hero of Making it Home is Nelson Strasser

Thanks for watching, and please let me know if you have a book you’d like to nominate for a future Good Game Book Club discussion.