“Youth baseball is the experience of parenting,” says Emmy-nominated television host and award-winning author Teresa Strasser. “It’s a microcosm of parenting on the diamond—you can't protect your kids from striking out, from throwing wild pitches, from anything.”
She pauses.
“And no one knew that better than my dad, who lost his son.”
Strasser—often recognized from such previous roles as host of TLC’s While You Were Out and co-host of The Adam Carolla Show, and who moved from Hollywood to Arcadia with her husband to raise their family—found much more than just a kids’ baseball game during a recent Arcadia Little League season. She and her dad, Nelson, sat on the sidelines cheering on her oldest son, Nate, and his team of 9- and 10-year-olds. They had recently lost Morgan, Strasser’s brother, to cancer, and a few months later, her mom.
Together, through cheering for home runs, yelling encouraging words, and talking smack about other teams, they ended up forming a grief group of two.
Eighteen months later, Strasser debuted a book that’s both hilarious and optimistic as well as poignant, chronicling stages of grief and life in general—and all set against the backdrop of that Little League season.
Like all her other successes, the book Making It Home: Life Lessons From a Season of Little League, was an immediate hit. Baseball great Cal Ripken, Jr. said, “This is a story about a team that becomes a family and a family that becomes a team. It is a wonderful book that powerfully captures how we work through life’s challenges with baseball as a backdrop.”
David Mickey Evans, the writer, director, and navigator of The Sandlot, said, “Making It Home knocked me out of the park.”
This is Strasser’s second book. Her first, Exploiting My Baby: Because It’s Exploiting Me, was a Los Angeles Times bestseller and optioned by ABC.
Strasser shares that Making It Home was often written during 10-hour stints while Nate was away during weekends at baseball tournaments.
Of course, it wasn’t always smooth sailing.
“On tough days, I'd set a timer, and I’d tell myself you have to sit here for two hours!” she says.
“I also used about a thousand index cards, just moving around elements of the story.”
It was a true labor of love, and although Strasser says she won’t rule out ever writing another book, as she closes the chapter on this one, she says, “It’s like having a kid—the minute you do it, you think I’m never doing that again!”
Making It Home: Lessons From a Season of Little League is available at bookstores nationwide and on TeresaStrasser.com. A version narrated by Strasser is available on Audible.