Get It Now Bullpen Gospels: Major League Dreams Of A Minor League Veteran: Major League Dreams Of A Minor League Veteran Developed By Dirk Hayhurst Available Through Digital Edition

baseball fan hasn't dreamed of what it would be like to play in the Big Leagues or imagined themselves in their teams home colours playing in front of thousand of friends, family and fans.
For the vast majority of us, this dream was never closer than our own mind, The Bullpen Gospels provides a first hand account of a prospect's journey toward this dream, While at times the book is insightful, it is always honest while leaving the reader smiling and laughing,

If you had the opportunity to listen to Toronto Blue Jays games during theseason or followed theSan Diego Padres or theToronto Blue Jays, the name Dirk Hayhurst should be familiar.
The former pitcher turned broadcaster/writer tells tales of his experiences through hisminor league seasons, While his story has some highs, it is mostly filled with lows, In his selfeffacing manner, the reader is left laughing at the authors misfortune while rooting for his to succeed, Dirk spins tales of the life of a prospect and the reader is invited into the locker room, the hotels and team bus, While there are a few stories of players you may know, it is certainly not a tell all memoir in the vain of Jose Canseco's Juiced.
Dirk is respectful but honest,

The reader quickly realizes that there is very little glory or money on the minor league trail, In the absence of money for entertainment, the boys in the locker create their own, There is no lack of pranks, jokes or adolescent behaviour serving as a background to the author's quest for his dream, The reader is provided a glimpse into what builds a team, the competition to succeed and the various ways you might run into a naked teammate.


What will the Baseball Fan Enjoy

The average Major League Baseball fan has little idea of what happens in the minor leagues.
The Baseball Fan will enjoy learning about what their favorite young players endured to get to the Big Show, The Baseball Fan will enjoy the cameo appearance from big name players that they know, In this volume, there are several stories involving Trevor Hoffman and it enjoyable to see the player somewhere other than the mound, Mostly, the Baseball Fan will enjoy that the book involves the actual game from the perspective of a player who made it farther than most of us ever will.
As a caution, the Baseball Fan that does not enjoy adult language may want to avoid this book despite my recommendation, There is moderately high use of adult language which may offend some readers,

Strikeout or Homerun

The Bullpen Gospels is an easy homerun, This behind the scenes look is both well written and honestly funny, There is appeal for the rabid fan as well as the nominal fan, I recommend this read to fill in the space between baseball games, The Bullpen Gospels is available at all major bookstores and online,

This is cross posted at sitelink Baseball Babble As a baseball fan I really enjoyed this book, It was super funny and just all around enjoyable, This book has been compared to Jim Bouton's "Ball Four," which I first read as a preteen and is still one of my alltime favorites, The comparison is somewhat unfair to "The Bullpen Gospels" Hayhurst's work is less consistently funny and by no means as shocking but is more personal and touching than Bouton's work.
Hayhurst is willing to reveal more of his own internal struggles than Bouton and includes his sad family history and its ongoing impact on his career.
As he lets the reader into this very intimate story, one feels connected to him in a different way than with Bouton and the difficulties of the Hayhurst clan become just as important to the reader as Dirk's career.


All in all, I found this a very satisfying book, as a baseball fan, as a reader, and as one who hopes the best for troubled families.
Be ready to laugh and be ready to shed a tear, One of the greatest baseball books of modern times hit North America's books stores this week, Shockingly, it was written by a guy who was more interested in growing up to be Trevor Hoffman, not Peter Gammons, Those aren't my words. They are the opening sentences of ESPN baseball analyst Jayson Stark's review of The Bullpen Gospels by Dirk Hayhurst,

The book is receiving rave reviews not only for its baseballrelated content, but also for Hayhurst's pained, personal story, But don't be confused. This story is neither an overthetop expose on today's players, nor a "aw shucks" feelgood tale, In fact, it is not easy to put this book into a single category,

Hayhurst use pseudonyms and composite characters to protect his teammates' identifies, This is raw stuff, some times cringeworthy, sophomorphic fun, other times cringeworthy pain, delivered like an automatic machine gun by a gifted writer, A particular passage about an octopus copulating a bagpipe had me laughing so hard I couldn't catch my breath,

Bullpen is compelling because of the style, or "voice" with which it is written, Hayhurst's style is disarmingly conversatinal and selfdeprecating exposing the reader to the lighter side of baseball, but also to his inner most fears and demons, He does so in a manner that makes you feel like you are in the room with him and his teammates shooting the breeze, The style draws you in, his stories are intoxicating, and the result is a spellbinding read,

The grit and realism starts right from the prologue,

"I was the team's long relief man, A nonglorious pitching role designed to protect priority pitchers, If the starting pitcher broke down or the game got out of control, I came in to clean up so the bullpen wasn't exhausted, Despite feelgood semantics supplied by the organization, my main job was mopping up lost causes, Why waste a talented pitcher when there was a perfectly useless guy for the job I could pitch five innings in a blowout or face one batter in the seventeenth inning.
Put it this way: if I could have done any other role successfully, I wouldn't have been the long man, "

Usually, when I review a book, I take notes to remind myself of things I might want to weave into the review, That approach was hopeless with this book, There are far too many memorable moments to keep track of, Below is an excerpt of a comparatively tame episode amongst the many:

"As we made our way to the pen, fans splashed against the stadium's fenceing, begging us for autographs.
We signed everything from hats and programs to ticket stubs and sandwich wrappers, It always boggles my mind how fans will fight all over themselves at a chance to get one of our names scribbled on their souvenirs, If only they knew what we were under these jerseys, Just hours before the game, the team debated the question of when a protein shake should be consumedbefore or after sex During, we decided, if you have a hand free.
"

Hayhurst is currently with the Toronto Blue Jay organization, but on injured reserve, He has been in the bigs with both San Diego and Toronto after ayear up and down minor league career bouncing between A, AA, and AAA.


Mark Ahrens
sitelinkwww, booksonbaseball. com When someone asks me my favorite sport I usually say rodeo to be different, But giving a more traditional answer, its baseball, I like baseball because its about working as a team and an individual, Its about achieving your personal best and learning how to be a part of a whole, Its about math, statistics and historical moments, Its relaxing one moment and being on the edge of your seat the next, Theres room for personality and individualism while still giving of yourself and setting your teammate up for success, Baseball is fascinating and I truly enjoyed this inside look, I purchased this book after reading several glowing reviews, I hoped that Hayhurst would expose a behindthescenes look into the minor league experience with honesty and intelligence, Unfortunately, sad to say, I was disappointed,

There was far too much sophomoric, rowdy behavior, complete with all of the expected predictable elements including downloading porn from the Internet, drunken behavior and fart jokes.
Really guys Has anybody really not already heard about these wornout juvenile shenanigans

I was more interested in Hayhursts personal story, coming from a maladjustedto put it mildlyhome with few alternative choices had he not chosen to pursue baseball.
Hayhurst seems like a decent guy and he does grow personally, For the entries on his personal growth alone, I gave the book three, For the tired poop jokes, zero, I watch a whole heck of a lot of baseball games, and I am, of course, aware that all the players are people outside the context of being baseball players, but I don't think about it too much.
This book is a reminder that I probably don't want to know those people, but good grief, are they hilarious in their offensive habits,

Hayhurst is a nobody grinding his way up through the minor leagues, The narrative which is his true story, though I think most all of the names are changed or composite characters used follows hisseason, wherein he goes through quite a bit of an existential crisis as he struggles and reaches the point where it may be time to give up on baseball.
In fact, he finds himself in the big leagues in, but that's not the point of the story,

In Hayhurst's own words, his book is about what baseball isn't, The story is not a complex one, but it is his, and he approaches it with the insight and thoughtfulness that one doesn't expect from an athlete.
He is probably unusual in having the gift of being able to write about this there doesn't seem to be any reason to believe it was ghostwritten or something, because he's consistently a bit of an outcast for being the intellectual sort of type who's above it all.
His agent points this out, noting an instance where Hayhurst is obviously different from other baseball players on the basis of using fuck and Narnia in the same sentence.


He is part of the fray and yet he is above the fray, and over the course of this year he deals with demons from his own family as well as the Baseball Reaper, to come to some sort of triumph, which is not to say he became one of the best baseball players of all time, but he does seem to have become the best baseball player that he could be.


I actually would have liked if there was a bit more to the story, Some things that seem important are glossed over for instance, as he harps on the beats where his season's success dovetailed into his regular life, he

goes right past when he meets his future wife.
Maybe he was a little embarrassed by it, since it began on the Internet, I am not really sure, but I think it would have added something to the story if he was also on the journey where he gets the girl which he does at the same time that he rebounds from nearly washing out of highA into becoming a part of the AA championship team.


Oh, and the thing about this book: it's freaking hilarious, The raunchy and debauched stories that he relates from his minor league teammates are sexist, homophobic, and occasionally gross for more normal reasons, Immature frat boy pranks rule the day, But it's still funny, and Hayhurst's detached observations of these are part of the fun, Inside looks at the Kangaroo Court are a particular treat, .