The Last Book I Read

I wonder why it is that the best seasonal diaries about baseball tend to be written by marginal relief pitchers? The classic of the form is, of course, Ball Four by Jim Bouton chronicling his efforts to revive his career as a knuckle-ball throwing reliever with the expansion Seattle Pilots in 1969. That book was preceded by Jim Brosnan's The Long Season, in which Brosnan provided a day-to-day account of his 1959 campaign, split between the St. Louis Cardinals and Cincinnati Reds. Matt McCarthy's Odd Man Out isn't quite up to the level of those two classics, but it's pretty close. It's the story of his single season taste of life in the very low minors, playing for the rookie league Provo Angels in 2002. McCarthy's "oddity" was that he was a Yale graduate (who would go on to medical school when his baseball career came to an abrupt end), while most of his teammates came from much less academically lofty backgrounds. One of the recurring themes was the subtle resentment he seemed to deal with at every turn from both teammates and coaches, though he hardly dwells on this as he tries to fit in. A good example of the sort of thing that rubbed teammates the wrong way: he tells them of the effects of steroids that have nothing to do with helping them hit a ball a little further, and they don't want to hear that. There's some nice insight into what might be called the "jock" mentality here, and McCarthy is no less susceptible for all his education. In fact, his story helps one understand just how deeply ingrained assumptions about athletics have become in the national character, for both good and ill. McCarthy certainly doesn't dwell on those things, just lets his narrative unfold for the reader to draw his own conclusions. I should mention that one of the other highlights for me is that the places he visits, the homes of the teams on the Provo schedule, are almost all places I've visited, including the likes of Missoula, Idaho Falls, Helena and other places up and down I-15 (even Dillon makes a cameo appearance). It's a bit of a kick to read someone else's impressions of these places, as he describes killing time waiting to head to the ballpark. Definitely a good read, especially as an antidote to the onslaught of winter and the long wait for Spring Training to come around again.