"Bigger Than the Game" by Dirk Hayhurst

Bigger Than the Game by Dirk Hayhurst was an interesting follow up book to his first two books Out of My League (which I reviewed here) and The Bullpen Gospels about his journey as a professional baseball player.

This most recent book was set during a baseball season Hayhurst lost to injury and in the process had to deal with the mental pain caused by not being able to play.

In terms of his injury rehab program, it was both remarkable and entirely believable reading about how some medical programs would have a seemingly guessing based approach with the "sure, can't hurt" principle to getting better and then other approaches would be highly methodical. What ultimately got Hayhurst better was care at the Andrews Clinic in Birmingham, AL with rehab direction done there by Kevin Wilk under Dr. James Andrews. While many of the stories of his time there are fairly mapcap and entertaining, Hayhurst detailed some pretty remarkable work done on high profile athletes done at the clinic.

Overall, it was an entertaining book on the experiences of a player in the world of professional baseball.

"Out of My League" by Dirk Hayhurst

I finished a few days ago reading Out of My League by former MLB pitcher Dirk Hayhurst and thought it pretty compelling.

The book follows up on The Bullpen Gospels from Hayhurst (which I reviewed here) and chronicles the author's following season experiences. Just as the first book was about more than playing baseball, Out of My League is best when covering Hayhurst's life in relation to his parents and fiancee as well as his transition to the Big Leagues.

Hayhurst details MLB as a challenging place socially where each rookie (while highly paid) is expected to: be deferential to veterans, show that they belong, not act entitled and follow a host of other "unwritten rules" that they're not supposed to ask about, but rather "figure out with experience." Perhaps it was a function of the team playing out a losing season (and might have been exacerbated by Hayhurst not being drafted highly), but the environment described seemed to not really gear towards succeeding. The point is made in the book that playing well can change everything, but it did seem a pretty lousy situation for someone to be called up into and then try to find footing both on and off the field.

This writing about struggling in the Major Leagues was made all the more profound with Hayhurst describing the transition in relation to people outside the game. The story was told of him giving up a long bomb to Manny Ramirez and his mom viewing it as something exciting because he got on SportsCenter (while in crushing defeat). Additionally, acquaintances would either want something from him (tickets, signed baseballs, etc) or to simply be part of the discussion of how great it must be in the Big Leagues. There's also a compelling story of Hayhurst unloading on his fiancee (now wife) after a rough game... and her reaction in pointing out how the author was letting this realization of a lifelong dream change him for the worse.

On the whole topic of baseball-related writing, I found surprising that the recent April 2 issue of Sports Illustrated had both a (very good) story by L. Jon Wertheim on book-writing Mets pitcher R.A. Dickey and a small piece on recent baseball books, but no mention of Hayhurst's book. It really was very solid writing from him that details how there's much more going with baseball players than we as fans see on the field.

"The Bullpen Gospels" by Dirk Hayhurst

Recently finished reading The Bullpen Gospels by Dirk Hayhurst and found it to be an entertaining read from the former minor (and briefly major) league relief pitcher.



I heard about the book from a New York Times piece by Tyler Kepner titled "Far From a Storybook Ending, a So-So Pitcher Turns the Page" and felt that the book content could be divided into (A) that on the hijinks in and around a minor league clubhouse and (B) that on Hayhurst's life with both his family and around the experiences that mean something to him.

The stuff around baseball itself was somewhat interesting and entertaining to me, but really just solidified something I had already thought was the case... it's a hard road being a minor league athlete. Unless it came as a signing bonus, you're not making much money, but have tremendous pressure on you... both to succeed and advance to "become a real major league player" and to fulfill fan expectations of you (love how minor league players get in trouble for giving away baseballs).

The interesting part of the book to me came from the content about Hayhurst's family with the alcoholic brother, father who suffered a debilitating injury and mother who was just tired of iut all. This twisted background mixed into the story of Hayhurst's stories of extreme kindness with giving away his boots to a homeless guy and bringing the three year old cancer kid into the bullpen to demonstrate that the actual wins and losses in baseball just not that important.

To this point, the intro quote to the book (which was later echoed in a conversation with allstar Padres closer Trevor Hoffman) seemed to encapsulate his view with the quote "for all the great things baseball is, there are some things it is absolutely not. And that is what this story is about."

Overall, it was a nice read... and is followed up by the just recently released Out of My League from Hayhurst.