Matt McCarthy’s  Odd Man Out: A Year on the Mound with a Minor League Misfit
published last year is a very funny and seemingly very honest look at his trip through a season in minor league baseball.  McCarthy graduated from Yale University in 2002 and was drafted in a very late round as left handed pitcher that same year. The book is his memoir of his time in professional baseball.

Before I get much further in the book, I need to point out some external controversy surrounding the piece.  Last March, 2009 that is, the New York Times published a story questioning the truthfulness of McCarthy’s work.  The piece called into question many direct quotes and some characterizations of conversations.  It came down to, of course, one person’s word against another but of course this was at a time when a few other authors truthfulness was also being questioned.

After reading the book, and rereading the NY Times piece, I feel like I can see where the middle ground really is.  The problem is McCarthy’s piece is billed as straight non-fiction, and not the memoir it actually is.  Having written a book where I had to discuss the nature of conversations instead of the actual words that were used, I understand the difference.  McCarthy’s notes and memories portray a very vivid picture of what the minor leagues are like.  Had he changed a few more of the names, so that they weren’t quite as recognizable, perhaps there would have been no issues whatsoever.  The important part of the book is the over all sense of the time and place, and less the individual words that were said.

The picture McCarthy paints of the minor leagues is that of young men, free from real responsibility, trying to figure out what they need to do to be major leaguers and what they need to do become men- but being very sophomoric in the process.  Do you young men make fun and try to put down everything?  The ones I have known certainly do, if even only in their public persona.

McCarthy doesn’t avoid painting himself with the same brush, though at moments he does stand away from the more disturbing bits of action, which of course is a position that comes with time.  After reading the Times article, of course I read the book with a bit of doubt- but I have to say if the words were not exact, I think the feeling McCarthy imparts about his experience gets right at the heart of the minor league experience for most of these young men.

There is a struggle to win and a struggle to develop.  There is a struggle to make friends, while at the same time knowing that any one of the guys in the locker room could take your place.  McCarthy discusses hating the new guy who just showed up, because it means less pitching time for himself, and one more obstacle on the road to becoming a major league pitcher. There is also the struggle between being the guy who puts the organization first, and the guy who puts himself first, as seen through working with his pitching coach and changing his arm angle. How in just a handful of starts can you really determine your entire future?

The book is packed with adolescent humor, and off-field antics as well as crazy stories from minor league parks.  That is the reason Jonathan Mahler referred to it as being part Ball Four
and part Bull Durham.

There are names of some folks that you will recognize- they are big leaguers now- Odd Man Out actually could have been just as good with pseudonyms. The crazy hot-head manager described in the book, who in real life took great offense to its publishing- is just a one dimensional characterization seen by one player. We don’t see the coaches discussions with his coaching staff- we don’t know what he’s actually trying to do when we see his antics. And that is true for many of the characters, especially “the star” Joe Saunders. McCarthy had little interaction with Saunders- and so writes about perception, not reality. Is too much made of the coaches ranting? Perhaps. But if that’s mostly what you see, then that’s mostly what you think the person is.

This is just one guys experience. A guy who was drafted so late that he had little chance of making to the big leagues. McCarthy though shows little animosity, and despite his Yale pedigree only brief moments of disdain for any of the adolescent behavior. He, after all, isn’t above chugging a twelve pack in a parking lot before a long bus ride, or laughing at a rather shocking scene involving a hot dog bun and a piece of a teammates anatomy. We are reminded that he has left all of this behind, to go onto medical school, but even at those moments the book seems to be filled with a longing for the freedom that came with being a young minor league baseball player. He knows his pitching wouldn’t have had as much of impact on the world as his current profession, yet he acknowledges how much he loved it.

Odd Man Out: A Year on the Mound with a Minor League Misfit is a great summer read. Its a fun picture of how grueling the minor leagues can be by someone who lived it. If you make it to big leagues from the late rounds, you went through much of this, no doubt. And before you yell at that guy who mis-played a ball, you need to realize they weren’t always rich millionaires- they were just kids with dreams.