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The Baseball Whisperer: A Small-Town Coach Who Shaped Big League Dreams
From an award-winning journalist, a real Field of Dreams story about a legendary coach and the professional-caliber baseball program he built in America's heartland, where boys come summer after summer to be molded into ballplayers—and men
Clarinda, Iowa, population 5,000, sits two hours from anything. There, between the corn fields and hog yards, is a ball field with a bronze bust of a man named Merl Eberly, a baseball whisperer who specialized in second chances and lost causes. The statue was a gift from one of Merl’s original long-shot projects, a skinny kid from the ghetto in Los Angeles who would one day become a beloved Hall-of-Fame Ozzie Smith.
The Baseball Whisperer traces the remarkable story of Merl Eberly and his Clarinda A’s baseball team, which he tended over the course of five decades, transforming them from a town team to a collegiate summer league powerhouse. Along with Ozzie Smith, future manager Bud Black, and star player Von Hayes, Merl developed scores of major league players (six of which are currently playing). In the process, Merl taught them to be men, insisting on hard work, integrity, and responsibility.
More than a book about ballplayers who landed in the nation's agricultural heartland, The Baseball Whisperer is the story of a coach who puts character and dedication first, and reminds us of the best, purest form of baseball excellence.
Clarinda, Iowa, population 5,000, sits two hours from anything. There, between the corn fields and hog yards, is a ball field with a bronze bust of a man named Merl Eberly, a baseball whisperer who specialized in second chances and lost causes. The statue was a gift from one of Merl’s original long-shot projects, a skinny kid from the ghetto in Los Angeles who would one day become a beloved Hall-of-Fame Ozzie Smith.
The Baseball Whisperer traces the remarkable story of Merl Eberly and his Clarinda A’s baseball team, which he tended over the course of five decades, transforming them from a town team to a collegiate summer league powerhouse. Along with Ozzie Smith, future manager Bud Black, and star player Von Hayes, Merl developed scores of major league players (six of which are currently playing). In the process, Merl taught them to be men, insisting on hard work, integrity, and responsibility.
More than a book about ballplayers who landed in the nation's agricultural heartland, The Baseball Whisperer is the story of a coach who puts character and dedication first, and reminds us of the best, purest form of baseball excellence.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published July 5, 2016
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520 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews
April 26, 2022
My Dad played for Merl Eberly and the Clarinda A's the season Ozzie Smith was on the team.
I grew up hearing some of these stories from my Dad so it was surreal to read them here.
I grew up hearing some of these stories from my Dad so it was surreal to read them here.
January 10, 2018
Tackett's a dull writer in places, but this is overall an okay book that does a good job of telling a story about the best ideals of what athletics can do for individuals and communities, and does some exploration of what makes communities thrive. It also focuses on the particular charms of baseball, as both a game and a perspective on life, and that's something I always find enjoyable. But the book is nevertheless flawed; it runs long and tends maudlin in places, and in many ways it's more a celebration of midcentury American civil religion (the titular "baseball whisperer" isn't a churchgoer, but "reads his Bible regularly," has a list of secular commandments he expects his players to abide by, with virtue being seen as obedience to their arbitrariness, the highest good is the ol' Weberian Protestant Work Ethic, etc) rather than the connection between baseball and community.
I'm sympathetic to many of the virtues and concerns expressed in the book, and am not shy about being a traditionalist myself. But this book ultimately presents those virtues and traditions in a flat, dull way, and what could have been a compelling story about baseball, community, redemption, second chances, duty, discipline, and virtue becomes, by the end, a "kids these days" jeremiad and work of flat Boomer nostalgia. An interesting subject, treated perhaps too sentimentally. I'm glad I read it, as the story of Clarinda, Iowa and its baseball team is quite intriguing and moving--but I only wish it would have been told by a better storyteller.
I'm sympathetic to many of the virtues and concerns expressed in the book, and am not shy about being a traditionalist myself. But this book ultimately presents those virtues and traditions in a flat, dull way, and what could have been a compelling story about baseball, community, redemption, second chances, duty, discipline, and virtue becomes, by the end, a "kids these days" jeremiad and work of flat Boomer nostalgia. An interesting subject, treated perhaps too sentimentally. I'm glad I read it, as the story of Clarinda, Iowa and its baseball team is quite intriguing and moving--but I only wish it would have been told by a better storyteller.
March 4, 2017
(1 1/2). I rounded this one up to two stars because goodness and morality and that kind of stuff rarely gets enough attention in today's world. I saw this book recommended in a Sports Illustrated issue quite a while ago. You need to be sports/baseball/somewhat sappy/ feel good reader to give this anything more than two stars. A nice story about a guy in nowhere Iowa who starts a low level professional baseball team and builds it into a nationally recognized program on the strength of his own integrity, talent and principles. He produced lots of players who got a cup of coffee or more playing real professional ball (Ozzie Smith-Jesse Stone's favorite being the most notable). A short and easy read, to some it will be very inspiring.
May 25, 2021
book was good, story was awesome and something i had never heard before. book would definitely have been better if the author had any idea how to tell a linear story. man kept repeating the same stories over and over again in slightly different ways. it was good but repetitive.
September 5, 2023
Great baseball book about the minor leagues.
July 22, 2016
It's hard for this midwestern small-town girl, who got to go to Kansas City every summer to see the Yankees play when KC was essentially their farm club, to resist another small-town baseball story. And this one is an inspirational tribute to a baseball man who spent his summers drilling college athletes on the finer points of the sport, teaching them discipline and team play, and basically making ballplayers and men of them. While it traces Merl Eberly's early life, it focuses on the years from 1961-1997 when he managed the Clarinda (Iowa) A's, a team that traveled the midwest and attracted a host of major league scouts as well as players, like Ozzie Smith, who became stars. It's anecdotal, filled with engaging characters and their stories; the tone is inspirational, upbeat, and warm-hearted (the townspeople took in the players for the summer); while it moves rather slowly at first, one quickly becomes immersed; and the language is engaging and down to earth. A book for those who believe in the place of sports--especially baseball--in American culture.
September 4, 2017
Not impressed
I love baseball and learning more insight about the development required for many to reach the major leagues. But this narrative left me feeling flat. A handful of well known players passed through Clarinda on their way to the big leagues. I got bogged down in the details devoted to fund raising and networking. I didn’t see much baseball whispering divulged.
I love baseball and learning more insight about the development required for many to reach the major leagues. But this narrative left me feeling flat. A handful of well known players passed through Clarinda on their way to the big leagues. I got bogged down in the details devoted to fund raising and networking. I didn’t see much baseball whispering divulged.
December 1, 2018
The story of the Clarinda A’s is the story of baseball for baseball’s sake. "The Baseball Whisperer: A Small Town Coach Who Shaped Big-League Dreams" is the story of the man behind the team, Merl Eberly, and some of the key major league players who learned the sport or learned about themselves by spending a season or two in the scrappy world of collegiate summer ball. This is real-life Field of Dreams stuff, sure, and the book is a refreshing read. There’s almost a Norman Rockwell flavor to the Heartland setting.
But for every Ozzie Smith, who came to Clarinda as a long-shot hopeful with physical limitations and left to pursue a career that would land him in the Hall of Fame, there are hundreds and hundreds of wannabes and others who played the game because they loved it and, well, maybe. Just maybe.
Eberly worked on his dream for more than fifty years. Eberly hustled for sponsors, coached the athletes, found jobs for his prospects, and kept his coaxed his clunky “Blue Goose” bus on the road through repair after repair. More than anything, Eberly started with character development. He was the Uber Boy Scout of baseball—hard work and responsibility were taught right alongside knowing how to hit a curve ball.
Michael Tackett’s portrait of Eberly and the town of Clarinda tries to make a case that the All-American values are key to the success of the program and also to the players who made it to the big leagues—a list that also included current Colorado Rockies manager Bud Black, former longtime Philadelphia Phillies outfielder and first baseman Von Hayes, and former journeyman and infielder Jamey Carroll, whose story Is really the stuff of dreams. Carroll played in the minors for seven years before reaching the major leagues due to a fluke call-up by the Montreal Expos. He never returned to the minor leagues. Carroll’s career ran from 2002 through 2013 and he collected precisely 1,000 hits. Carroll was known for his “intangibles,” including his hustle and determination. Rod Eberly, Carroll’s Clarinda teammate at the time and Merl Eberly’s son, said Carroll “embodied everything my dad preached … Discipline, fundamentals, control your effort, because the effort is the one thing you can control. You can control how you show up every day on the field. He (Carroll) was a 100 percent guy all the time. He was very competitive. He hated to lose, a lot like my dad. He didn’t just say you needed to hustle, he did it.”
By its title alone, "The Baseball Whisperer" suggests that Merl had some secret sauce he could splash on his players and turn them into major leaguers. Ballplayers who joined the A’s were expected to take jobs and be good citizens of Clarinda (and house guests) in addition to working hard on their game. Merl wanted his graduates to be “complete” ball players and good people, too. It’s impossible to miss the lesson here that character counts as much as knowing the fundamentals of bunting or how to get extension on your swing. Tackett’s profile of Merl borders occasionally on reverence. “The old coach had an aura about him, a combination of fortitude, elegance, and athleticism, even as he reached his sixties and seventies. He was a player’s coach, and for three months he was also like their father. He carried himself with a sense of calm, and he passed baseball wisdom down like heirlooms, hoping that his players would do the same.”
But Merl’s record and career—and his own hustle—speak for itself. Baseball is mythical and poetic for lots of reasons. Tackett’s story is a strong non-fiction account of a town where legends are groomed and of the coach whose purposeful, character-first philosophy molded many big names. Merl Eberly died in 2011. The Clarinda A’s will start their 65th season in 2019.
But for every Ozzie Smith, who came to Clarinda as a long-shot hopeful with physical limitations and left to pursue a career that would land him in the Hall of Fame, there are hundreds and hundreds of wannabes and others who played the game because they loved it and, well, maybe. Just maybe.
Eberly worked on his dream for more than fifty years. Eberly hustled for sponsors, coached the athletes, found jobs for his prospects, and kept his coaxed his clunky “Blue Goose” bus on the road through repair after repair. More than anything, Eberly started with character development. He was the Uber Boy Scout of baseball—hard work and responsibility were taught right alongside knowing how to hit a curve ball.
Michael Tackett’s portrait of Eberly and the town of Clarinda tries to make a case that the All-American values are key to the success of the program and also to the players who made it to the big leagues—a list that also included current Colorado Rockies manager Bud Black, former longtime Philadelphia Phillies outfielder and first baseman Von Hayes, and former journeyman and infielder Jamey Carroll, whose story Is really the stuff of dreams. Carroll played in the minors for seven years before reaching the major leagues due to a fluke call-up by the Montreal Expos. He never returned to the minor leagues. Carroll’s career ran from 2002 through 2013 and he collected precisely 1,000 hits. Carroll was known for his “intangibles,” including his hustle and determination. Rod Eberly, Carroll’s Clarinda teammate at the time and Merl Eberly’s son, said Carroll “embodied everything my dad preached … Discipline, fundamentals, control your effort, because the effort is the one thing you can control. You can control how you show up every day on the field. He (Carroll) was a 100 percent guy all the time. He was very competitive. He hated to lose, a lot like my dad. He didn’t just say you needed to hustle, he did it.”
By its title alone, "The Baseball Whisperer" suggests that Merl had some secret sauce he could splash on his players and turn them into major leaguers. Ballplayers who joined the A’s were expected to take jobs and be good citizens of Clarinda (and house guests) in addition to working hard on their game. Merl wanted his graduates to be “complete” ball players and good people, too. It’s impossible to miss the lesson here that character counts as much as knowing the fundamentals of bunting or how to get extension on your swing. Tackett’s profile of Merl borders occasionally on reverence. “The old coach had an aura about him, a combination of fortitude, elegance, and athleticism, even as he reached his sixties and seventies. He was a player’s coach, and for three months he was also like their father. He carried himself with a sense of calm, and he passed baseball wisdom down like heirlooms, hoping that his players would do the same.”
But Merl’s record and career—and his own hustle—speak for itself. Baseball is mythical and poetic for lots of reasons. Tackett’s story is a strong non-fiction account of a town where legends are groomed and of the coach whose purposeful, character-first philosophy molded many big names. Merl Eberly died in 2011. The Clarinda A’s will start their 65th season in 2019.
June 7, 2017
Sgt. Joe Friday would have loved this book. Just the facts, nothing but the facts. It's pretty obvious that the author had no contact with the family and little contact with the ex-players. Merle Eberly's life is documented without any of the reasons why or thoughts behind any action that wasn't obvious. This book is the equivalent of moving a life into an Excel Spreadsheet. When I think Baseball Whisperer, I read it to understand the man and how he worked with the ballplayers and motivated them. Instead, I came away not liking him because of the strict unforgiving discipline. There is was little about the man the author knew, again other than the obvious. The unforgiving way Merle Eberly is portrayed goes against what I believe. I would never tell my child if he got arrested, don't waste your call on me. That isn't discipline the way I implemented it. My son is 28 now, he has never been arrested but he knows that if he is in trouble, he can count on me to come to his aid. I finished this book not knowing a lot more about Merle Eberly but knowing a great deal about Clarinda.
June 8, 2017
There's a fine art to covering a long life and career, especially one that isn't defined by historic events. Tackett isn't quite up to the task here, and his biography of small-town baseball coach Merl Eberley tends to ramble from story to anecdote.
What those stories make clear is that Eberly was one hell of a guy, a quietly charismatic figure who could bring an entire town together while teaching generations of college baseball players. Eberly seems to have excelled in bringing out the best in his players, whether they went on to be professionals or not. His combination of idealism and practicality makes his life an entertaining read, especially if you prefer a book with the relaxed pace of a baseball game.
What those stories make clear is that Eberly was one hell of a guy, a quietly charismatic figure who could bring an entire town together while teaching generations of college baseball players. Eberly seems to have excelled in bringing out the best in his players, whether they went on to be professionals or not. His combination of idealism and practicality makes his life an entertaining read, especially if you prefer a book with the relaxed pace of a baseball game.
May 24, 2018
This is an endearing story of a boy who was heading down a road to perdition when he met a coach who guided him in a different direction. When that boy grew to manhood he found a wife who was a kindred spirit and together through baseball they inspired character, responsibility and ethos in their family, community and generations of ball college ball players. This book felt as if "Field of Dreams" actually happened in a small town in Iowa and in a way it did. "I see great things in baseball. It's our game, the American game. It will repair our losses and be a blessing to us." Merl and Pat Eberly lived this quote and helped pass the purity of the game to the next generations.
October 17, 2022
From my dad’s to read list. Unfortunately I liked the idea of this book better than the book itself. Starting with Merl’s funeral almost made me give up right there. I wasn’t looking for a tear jerker; I wanted baseball. I am glad I read it though. It is amazing to hear how much one person can shape a life. It made me want to be better. I thought of my dad a lot while reading this. He was also the kind of person that made you want to do better. He would have wanted more baseball in this book too!
October 2, 2018
My main reason I read this book is that I'm a huge fan of baseball, and I'm from Iowa and have played on the field that was built in Clarinda by the man in this book. It was interesting reading about some of the history in a town that isn't to far from me, and it was also interesting hearing about all the different players that have passed through there. Overall though, the book kind of repeats itself over and over, and it seems to jump around a bit from different anecdotes and stories.
July 23, 2017
Amazing story
I loved the story. I didn't like the writing style but it was just a preference thing. Very well studied. I would recommend the book. Not too long. Kindle version said I was at 80% when the book finished. Just so you know if you are trying to get a quick read, it's pretty quick and easy.
I loved the story. I didn't like the writing style but it was just a preference thing. Very well studied. I would recommend the book. Not too long. Kindle version said I was at 80% when the book finished. Just so you know if you are trying to get a quick read, it's pretty quick and easy.
September 16, 2018
I thought it was an excellent book on the baseball life in a small town. Coach Eberly was a tough as nails, but compassionate man. Reading about the college summer teams reminds me of the Valley League in Virginia. Small towns and great fans coming to support the players. Very engaging narrative.
June 23, 2025
This is an uplifting story about Merl Eberly, the manager of a summer collegiate baseball team in Clarinda, Iowa. The book highlights Eberly's approach to molding such future MLB stars as Ozzie Smith, as well as the nurturing atmosphere of Clarinda.
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October 13, 2025This book had great stories. It really telled who Merl was a person and a coach. It talked about his coaching career and his life off the field. Overall this book a good because it had many good stories.
September 5, 2017
Pure baseball
Excellent baseball story if you're a true fan of the game. I hope younger players take the opportunity to read this for the lessons they could learn.
Excellent baseball story if you're a true fan of the game. I hope younger players take the opportunity to read this for the lessons they could learn.
September 7, 2017
!
A great inspirational read about a coach with high moral fiber and a mentor to many young men . The story awakened memories of my youth in a Risingsun, Ohio!
A great inspirational read about a coach with high moral fiber and a mentor to many young men . The story awakened memories of my youth in a Risingsun, Ohio!
July 13, 2018
Repetitive, repetitive, repetitive.
July 23, 2018
Five stars because I just really liked it. Not because it is such a wonderfully written book or a can't put it down book. Just liked it. Enjoyed reading it and finding out about Clarinda, Iowa.
July 23, 2018
Better reported than told, and almost too sad to bear. Let's strive to be as irreplaceable as Merl.
September 13, 2018
A nice baseball story. Somewhat repetitive at times.
March 6, 2020
This is a lovely little tribute to a man who changed lives through baseball. It would have probably been a better magazine article, as there was lots of repetition and uninteresting tangents.
March 13, 2020
I think this would have been a better long form magazine article than a book. Not enough depth for a full book. Unless you live in Iowa or played for Merl Eberly, you should pass on this book.
June 7, 2020
Nice tribute to a man dedicated to “the game”. A bit repetitive in spots but if you like baseball and feel good stories read the book.
July 23, 2020
Repetitive Narrative
Two chapters in and there’s nothing left. This is to baseball what miniature golf is to the PGA. Don’t bother.
Two chapters in and there’s nothing left. This is to baseball what miniature golf is to the PGA. Don’t bother.
August 12, 2020
I enjoyed reading this book. I learned about the game of baseball from a college coach!!!
Read
October 15, 2020Loved it.
December 10, 2020
You have to really, really like baseball to enjoy this book, but what an extraordinary man.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews