Acosta (Paperback)

ACOSTA is a story about the entire Acosta family, but especially about Oscar Acosta, the feisty pitching coach who first turned around the Chicago Cubs and then the Texas Rangers followed by a minors Yankees team, before dying in an auto accident in the Dominican at age 49. The parents of Oscar and his sister Yolanda were immigrants who came to the U.S. from Mexico to work on other people's ranches in southeastern New Mexico. That Oscar, who everyone assumed would follow in his father's footsteps, should be discovered in high school and make his way up the ranks in professional baseball is a fascinating story in itself. But in addition to a central thread about Oscar, there is also the story of his father, who, after years of poverty, succumbed to a temptation that would have shattered a less loving family, and Yolanda, who chose to forgive the perpetrator of a heinous crime in order to avoid a lifetime of negativity and despair.