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6 baseball books for mid-season reading

These new releases should provide a good selection for summer reading.

5. ‘I’m Keith Hernandez,’ by Keith Hernandez

  • By Ross Atkin

Keith Hernandez writes with frankness and honesty in his baseball memoir, which covers 17 years in the major leagues, mostly with the Cardinals and the Mets, and during his current broadcasting career as an analyst on Mets telecasts. His playing days came with high expectations, as evidenced by the sizable signing bonus he received right out of high school. He delivered by earning more Gold Gloves for fielding excellence (11) than any first baseman in history, five All-Star selections, and a 1979 batting title and shared MVP award. Well after laying down his glove and bat, Hernandez still has the ability to engage readers with thoughts on batting slumps, his worries about a fixation on home runs, and his concerns about baseball's escalating use of statistical analysis.

Here’s an excerpt from I’m Keith Hernandez:

“The TV news guys have cleared out of the booth, and I’ve had breakfast.

“Now I’m preparing. There are stat sheets – pages and pages of stat sheets – to ‘assist’ me. I flip through and circle the handful of categories, like clutch stats, I may reference during the game. The rest is mostly gobbledygook. I mean, do I really need a listing of who’s currently got the lowest ERA in MLB for night games? Can we just play the baseball game already? As a former player who studied the intricacies of the game from the inside – while it was happening to and around me – I have little patience for the grossly abstract. 

“Play the game, and I’ll react as it unfolds.”

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

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