The unifying theme of Sammy Sosa: A Biography comes from a remark Sosa made: "My life is kind of like a miracle." He adds, "Pressure is when you have to shine shoes and sell oranges just to make sure there's enough to eat at the next meal." Gutman builds on this comment, noting how Sosa's family struggled to make ends meet, with the earnings of the children sometimes making the difference between eating and not eating on any given day. "My dream was to get to the United States any way I could," Sosa says. Part of his miracle is that he was noticed by scouts and that one of them, Omar Minaya, was willing to take a chance that his raw talent could be shaped into the skills a professional ballplayer needs to have.

To emphasize what a wonderful bit of luck this...