5.10.07 Book Blog I: Pray for Rain: A College Baseball Story
This entry was posted on 5/10/2007 4:54 AM and is filed under uncategorized.
I have been reading as many books as I can about Division III sports (there are just a few), about college baseball (even fewer), and about baseball in general (many). Every once in a while I will post something in this space about a book that I think is interesting. Today's entry is the first in an occasional series.
Jason Wuerfel is vice president and director of baseball operations for the Traverse City Beach Bums, a Frontier League team in Traverse City, Michigan, that plays in Wuerfel Park and whose two chief officers are John (CEO) and Leslye (CFO) Wuerfel, Jason's parents. An English major at the University of Michigan, Jason pitched for the Wolverines from 1999 to 2003. A couple years later he published his debut novel Pray for Rain: A Baseball Story.
I stumbled across Jason's book while searching Amazon for something else. Nothing about the book is auspicious. It was written by, well, a kid. The name of the publisher appears nowhere on or in the book. (Amazon says it was published by Lulu.com--is that better or worse?) No blurbs from other authors or baseball players anoint the back cover. I bought the book because it was the only contemporary college baseball novel I could find.
And it turned out to be terrific--wonderful dialog, interesting characters, and a good enough plot hung on the scaffolding of an academic (that is, baseball) year. I really do recommend it.
Pedant that I am, I found myself focusing on the ways in which Division I baseball at Michigan (as portrayed in the novel) differs from Division III baseball at Rhodes.
A few examples:
>Coop, a star pitcher, says to Sam, a freshman without a baseball scholarship: "Coaches have to justify their decisions about who they give these scholarships to, and they can't do that and give a ton of playing time to walk-ons. The athletic department would be all up in their ass with questions like, 'why the hell did you give that kid a fifty percent scholarship to sit on the bench?' . . . You'll have to be one and a half times better than a scholarship player . . . if you want to make the team."
>Benny, a player who gets by more with grit and hard work than with talent: "I take easy classes and I do the bare minimum to stay eligible. I consider baseball my major, and I need all the time I can to study. If I worked harder in class, stayed up late at night studying, or sacrificed my good eating habits to stuff in time to meet with professors, how would that affect my baseball performance?"
>Pete, on one of the team's rare bus trips: "I can't believe we have to play the day after we sit on a bus all day."
>"Scout Day was an entire day during Fall Ball reserved for scouts to come in and take a look at some of the squad's top prospects. Nearly every major league organization would have a scout in attendance . . . to rate: speed, throwing, fielding, hitting, and hitting for power." Elsewhere in the book, the narrator, a fourth-string catcher named Squat, complains on behalf of his friend Benny, "The scouts are too stupid to see who's a baseball player and who isn't. The only reason they draft anybody these days is based on raw talent, which is bullshit anyway. I would take real talent over raw talent any day; there is a big difference between an athlete and a baseball player."
One other thing about Jason Wuerfel's Pray for Rain that I really appreciate is the collection of well-chosen epigraphs that open each chapter. Here are my favorites:
Whitey Herzog: "A slick way to outfigure a person is to get him figuring you figure he's figuring you're figuring he'll figure you aren't really figuring what you want him to figure you figure."
Gene Mauch: "I'm not the manager because I'm always right, but I'm always right because I'm the manager."
Lefty Gomez: "I was never nervous when I had the ball, but when I let it go I was scared to death."
Vernon Law: "Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, and the lesson afterward."
Roger Kahn: "Losing after great striving is the story of man, who was born to sorrow, whose sweetest songs tell of the saddest thought, and who, if he is a hero, does nothing in life as becomingly as leaving it."
Harold Wilson: "Courage is the art of being the only one that knows you're scared to death."
Jason Wuerfel is vice president and director of baseball operations for the Traverse City Beach Bums, a Frontier League team in Traverse City, Michigan, that plays in Wuerfel Park and whose two chief officers are John (CEO) and Leslye (CFO) Wuerfel, Jason's parents. An English major at the University of Michigan, Jason pitched for the Wolverines from 1999 to 2003. A couple years later he published his debut novel Pray for Rain: A Baseball Story.
I stumbled across Jason's book while searching Amazon for something else. Nothing about the book is auspicious. It was written by, well, a kid. The name of the publisher appears nowhere on or in the book. (Amazon says it was published by Lulu.com--is that better or worse?) No blurbs from other authors or baseball players anoint the back cover. I bought the book because it was the only contemporary college baseball novel I could find.
And it turned out to be terrific--wonderful dialog, interesting characters, and a good enough plot hung on the scaffolding of an academic (that is, baseball) year. I really do recommend it.
Pedant that I am, I found myself focusing on the ways in which Division I baseball at Michigan (as portrayed in the novel) differs from Division III baseball at Rhodes.
A few examples:
>Coop, a star pitcher, says to Sam, a freshman without a baseball scholarship: "Coaches have to justify their decisions about who they give these scholarships to, and they can't do that and give a ton of playing time to walk-ons. The athletic department would be all up in their ass with questions like, 'why the hell did you give that kid a fifty percent scholarship to sit on the bench?' . . . You'll have to be one and a half times better than a scholarship player . . . if you want to make the team."
>Benny, a player who gets by more with grit and hard work than with talent: "I take easy classes and I do the bare minimum to stay eligible. I consider baseball my major, and I need all the time I can to study. If I worked harder in class, stayed up late at night studying, or sacrificed my good eating habits to stuff in time to meet with professors, how would that affect my baseball performance?"
>Pete, on one of the team's rare bus trips: "I can't believe we have to play the day after we sit on a bus all day."
>"Scout Day was an entire day during Fall Ball reserved for scouts to come in and take a look at some of the squad's top prospects. Nearly every major league organization would have a scout in attendance . . . to rate: speed, throwing, fielding, hitting, and hitting for power." Elsewhere in the book, the narrator, a fourth-string catcher named Squat, complains on behalf of his friend Benny, "The scouts are too stupid to see who's a baseball player and who isn't. The only reason they draft anybody these days is based on raw talent, which is bullshit anyway. I would take real talent over raw talent any day; there is a big difference between an athlete and a baseball player."
One other thing about Jason Wuerfel's Pray for Rain that I really appreciate is the collection of well-chosen epigraphs that open each chapter. Here are my favorites:
Whitey Herzog: "A slick way to outfigure a person is to get him figuring you figure he's figuring you're figuring he'll figure you aren't really figuring what you want him to figure you figure."
Gene Mauch: "I'm not the manager because I'm always right, but I'm always right because I'm the manager."
Lefty Gomez: "I was never nervous when I had the ball, but when I let it go I was scared to death."
Vernon Law: "Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, and the lesson afterward."
Roger Kahn: "Losing after great striving is the story of man, who was born to sorrow, whose sweetest songs tell of the saddest thought, and who, if he is a hero, does nothing in life as becomingly as leaving it."
Harold Wilson: "Courage is the art of being the only one that knows you're scared to death."