Casey never had a chance.
Having written two books about subterfuge in the Middle East, journalist Terry McDermott now has given us a nostalgic and witty tribute to the cunning and craft of baseball pitchers.
The major league hitter, he tells us, has few advantages. His task is to "identify and attack a pitch" coming at him at 90-plus miles per hour, "using an implement uniquely unsuitable to accomplish his task." He must cover a volume of 4.5 cubic feet (the strike zone) with 5 square inches of wood (the "sweet spot"). He must overcome the pitcher's ability to move the ball by "using gravity, wind, magic, deceit." In the early days of baseball, he notes, the pitcher was even allowed to take a running start at the batter!
McDermott organizes his nine chapters by alternating two thematic strands — the pitch and the perfect game — which springboard into reminiscences and anecdotes. Each chapter centers on a pitch (e.g., fastball) and describes how and when the pitch is thrown. McDermott's warm storytelling flair, however, will widen the appeal of this book. It feels like attending the ballpark with a favorite uncle who kibitzes all through the game about Mariano and the cutter, Carlton and the slider.
Consider McDermott's folksy eloquence as he describes a power hitter missing a Felix Hernandez curve: "He looked like he had just run off the road and was trying desperately to pull his car out of a ditch before a cop came along to ticket him."
In short, McDermott is a wonderful person with whom to share a baseball game.
He is equally companionable on a pitch-by-pitch recap of Hernandez's 2012 perfect game, one inning per chapter. A star on Mariners teams of "abundant misery, but few martyrs," "King" Felix has been one of baseball's best pitchers, a flamethrower with mastery of an assortment of pitches. Here, McDermott analyzes this faultless pitching performance as a tutorial in how to deceive batters.
His engaging narrative is never far from the "my life in baseball" theme. In just a few paragraphs, McDermott is able to capture the joy of traveling with his father on a private railroad car (from his hometown of Cascade, Iowa) to see a White Sox doubleheader in 1959. We get frequent wistful glimpses into his childhood; we hear about the powerful Cascade town team, about the sense of community created through baseball fandom. There is a strong sense of loss, as well. Nowadays he watches the Mariners online from Southern California, a solitary ritual.
"Off Speed" is a delightful book, a treat for statistics junkies (me) and readers who appreciate the human dimension of the sport (also me). You will learn what a rising fastball actually does and how rapidly a major league curve spins. You will also find McDermott with his sleeping infant daughter, sitting in soft intimacy of the near empty, vast and quiet left-field bleachers of Safeco Field to watch his beloved last-place Mariners.
Tom Zelman teaches English at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth.
