Baseball's Great Expectations: Candid Stories of Ballplayers Who Didn't Live Up to the Hype

by Patrick Montgomery, Pat Gillick (Foreword), Bob Elliott (Foreword)

Stories of baseball idols and heroes are oft-repeated, but what about those players who everyone thought would be the next “great one” and have since disappeared from the sport? What happened after they failed to meet the weighty expectations placed on them? In Baseball's Great Candid Stories of Ballplayers Who Didn't Live Up to the Hype, Patrick Montgomery brings out from the shadows nine of those players who were once poised for greatness. They include a player who received a then-record-breaking MLB Draft signing bonus, a left-handed pitcher who was ordained to be the next Sandy Koufax, the only catcher to go straight from high school to the major leagues during the MLB Draft Era, and more. Drawing from his extensive interviews with the players, family members, general managers, executives, scouts, and more, Montgomery shines a fresh light on these players and provides a candid perspective on the major leagues. Players reflect on their careers, what went wrong, how they feel about baseball now that their playing days are over, and, for many of them, how they have found new purpose in their lives. Baseball’s Great Expectations reveals an often-overlooked side of professional baseball, of the struggles with injury, mental exhaustion, pressure, temptations, and sometimes just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The path to baseball stardom is not as glamorous as it is sometimes made out to be, and this book reveals just how difficult the journey truly is.

Genres: Baseball, Sports

214 pages, Hardcover

Published March 5, 2024

Reviews

[Dave · Rating 2 out of 5]

Skipping the “what if” tales of Cale Iorg, Ron Necciai and Brien Taylor, mostly because I know how it unravels, I plodded through the rest of the selected ball players’ stories. The paradox here is that if anyone truly makes a roster in MLB, it is a Herculean feat since so few accomplish it. However, since the draft and subsequent signing bonuses are tiered, expectations are attached accordingly and irrevocably. Most of these guys were can’t miss prospects that missed, leaving the age old question of what separates a successful major leaguer from one who’s not, yet unanswered. Perhaps it’s the struggle to outperform one’s own expectations. Maybe it’s a lack of confidence after tasting failure or even the failure to make adjustments. To be sure, for some it’s a spate of injuries unpredictable in the realm of athletics. At any rate, this book is somewhat dry and overly ambitious, for its length does an injustice to the hundreds, if not thousands, of stories that easily could have qualified. Joe Charboneau, Lance Dickson, Nick Adenhart, Mickey Moniak to name a few. Good content, average delivery, and for the love of the game, please hire an editor. SO MANY NOTICEABLE SPELLING ERRORS particularly with a few baseball names. That’s like when people used to print Ryne Sandburg on Cubs memorabilia instead of Sandberg. Drives me bonkers and baseball credibility is shot.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been a diehard baseball fan for nearly 60 years and one thing that is always puzzling to me is when "can't miss" prospects do miss. Ballplayers who are expected to become stars or superstars sometimes end up being journeyman ballplayers at best, and sometimes, don't even make the majors. The author, in a fascinating book, addresses this issue with his look at 9 ballplayers who didn't live up to expectations.

Death or injuries are things that have sometimes sidelined "sure thing" stars but the other reasons are quite fascinating. Sometimes, it was just them being in the wrong place with a team that wasn't a good fit for them. Lots of other reasons.

The author certainly did his research, in many instances, speaking with the players themselves, as well as family members, people association with major league baseball such as general managers or scouts. Of particular interest is what happened to those players after their baseball careers, a sort of "where are they now" and how they feel about the game after everything that happened.

Baseball fans will love this one. Highly recommended!!

[Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received a digital ARC of this book from Edelweiss.

This book was an absolute slog. I came in with excitement and eventually got to the point where I finished it because I had gotten the ARC and didn't want to ruin my ability to get another ARC from Edelweiss due to not finishing. The premise of this book is really good, but the writing quality is surprisingly poor. Not in the sense of "this has a lot of errors", but in the sense of "this sounds like some random blog post from 2006." Some of the players spoke with Montgomery, but I never walked away feeling like I got to know the player or why they failed, or what they might do differently. Much of the book felt like a recitation of facts and stats (with the odd dig thrown in at today's game). Hopefully someone else will do this topic justice, because the rise of the internet and the attention given to prospects now makes this a rich source of baseball stories.

[Susan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I brought the book home for my husband and avid baseball fan since 1967 the plotted through the first 2 1/2 ball players are a tedious and irrelevant testament to a great effort and expectation.

[Jim Blessing · Rating 2 out of 5]

Somewhat boring book about baseball players.

[Korey · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 1/2

Great premise, but not much more info than Wikipedia and just fucking rife with spelling errors

[Kelly Newman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this for sports bookclub . It's a fast read plus I learned about a lot of things I didn't know.