This book is about the trials and tribulations of minor league baseball, but if you're a baseball fan, there are some names you'll recognize, like Craig Breslow, Bobby Jenks, and Erick Aybar, who plays short for the Los Angeles Angels.
Whether it's fair or not, most baseball biographies these days are compared to BALL FOUR by Jim Bouton, and this book is no exception as is evidenced by the blurbs on the back cover. But Bouton was a major leaguer who spilled the beans on the after hours shenanigans his teammates got involved in, the author of ODD MAN OUT, Matt McCarthy, is a minor league pitcher for the Provo Angels and should more rightly be compared to Pat Jordan's FALSE SPRING. As I recall that was a much more serious book. The most obvious comparison is that a pitching coach tried to change McCarthy's delivery; Jordan was subjected to the same advice and it ruined his arm.
There are a lot of familiar names mentioned in ODD MEN OUT. The first one I noticed was Craig Breslow, a relief pitcher for the Minnesota Twins. McCarthy and Breslow were both left-handed starting pitchers for the Yale Bulldogs and amazingly both biophysics majors. Another would be Bobby Jenks, now a closer for the White Sox, who was a washout for the Los Angeles Dodgers, mainly because of a drinking problem and the fact that he'd threatened to kill one of his coaches. Then there was Joe Saunders, a first round draft choice for the Angels who gets preferential treatment and bothersome media coverage. It can't help but go to his head. There are at least a dozen other recognizable names. I just saw one of them play for the Los Angeles Angels at shortstop this weekend, one of the "Dominicans," Erick Aybar.
Surprisingly, the most fascinating character in the book is not a player. Tom Kotchman, Casey Kotchman's father, wins that accolade hands down. He berates his players when they lose, gives them the silent treatment on seventeen-hour boss rides when they lose again. He does Dice Clay impressions when they win and he wears an obscene talisman around his neck for good luck.
McCarthy also goes into elaborate detail about the relationships between the "Dominican" players and the Americans. The Dominicans would include anybody from south of the border, Mexicans, Venezuelans, and even a few actual Dominicans. The American players refused to shower with them because of their bawdy behavior while soaping up. It's pretty much a culture clash in other respects as well. One particularly amusing anecdote involved Ervin Santana, who now starts for the Los Angeles Angels. A coach Brian Harper, who caught for the Minnesota Twins in the 1991 World Series, was trying to teach his pitchers how to cover first base and Santana kept screwing up. Harper accuses Santana of a lack of teamwork, betting him he doesn't know McCarthy's name. The best Santana could do was "McCorksky" and that was McCarthy's nickname from then on.
Provo, Utah, home of the rookie league team, also provides some ammunition for McCarthy. Of course there's the Mormon factor to think about. He lives like a prince with one of the host families there but that doesn't stop him from referring to some of them as Jack Mormons, who conform to church conventions but drink and carouse on the sly.
Most of McCarthy's humor doesn't quite ring true. Although he gets drunk at one point and chews tobacco for the first time in another instance, most of the time McCarthy lives up to his bio-physics credential. He's just too much of an attaboy to tell an effective Jim Bouton anecdote.
Dave Schwinghammer unconvential mystery, SOLDIER'S GAP, is available on authorsden and at Amazon.com, new and used. Click here to post or read comments.
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