The Long Season: The Classic Inside Account of a Baseball Year, 1959 – A Relief Pitcher's Honest and Witty Diary of Trades and Teammates

by Jim Brosnan

A timeless classic from baseball's golden era, legendary pitcher Jim Brosnan's witty and candid chronicle of the 1959 Major League Baseball season, which set the standard for all sports memoirs to follow.

Arguably the greatest sports memoir ever penned, The Long Season was a revelation when it was first published in 1960. Here is an insider's perspective on America's national pastime that is funny, honest, and above all, real. The man behind this fascinating account of baseball and its players was not a sportswriter but a self-proclaimed "average ballplayer"—a relief pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals. Called "Professor" by his teammates and "Meat" by his wife, Jim Brosnan turned out to be the ideal guide to the behind-the-scenes world of professional baseball with his keen observations, sharp wit, and clear-eyed candor.

His player's diary takes readers on the mound and on the road; inside the clubhouse and most enjoyably inside his own head. While solving age-old questions like "Why can't pitchers hit?" and what makes for the best chewing tobacco, Brosnan captures the game-to-game daily experiences of an ordinary season, unapologetically, "the way I saw it"—from sweating it out in spring training to blowing the opening game to a mid-season trade to the Cincinnati Reds.

In The Long Season, Brosnan reveals, like no other sportswriter before him, the human side of professional ballplayers and has forever preserved not only a season, but a uniquely American experience.

"One of the best baseball books ever written. It is probably one of the best American diaries as well."—New York Times

 

 

 

 

Genres: Baseball, Sports, Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1960

Reviews

[Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

REREAD

Question: Who was the first major league baseball player to write a book that was an accurate portrayal of what it was like to go through a season – and offseason?

Answer: Jim Bouton, right; No, wrong.

Ten years before Bouton’s book, Ball Four, saw the light of day in 1970, Jim Brosnan had published The Long Season, a book that he wrote in diary form about the 1959 season. It made some waves because it was an abrupt departure from the sanitized baseball books written by ghostwriters that had preceded his book.

Brosnan liked and respected baseball players, but he broke the mold by humanizing them and making them more interesting. He described their daily lives rather than writing fiction that pictured them as all-American heroes and role models.

It had the effect of opening the door for Bouton’s book, as well as many other tell-all baseball books. However, here is where Brosnan’s book differs from those of Bouton and all the others that followed: He wrote his book without the collaboration of a professional writer.

While Jim Bouton was somewhat of an outsider on his team even before he published his book, and a pariah afterwards, Brosnan’s teammates generally liked him, even after he wrote his book. One reason for this is that, unlike Bouton, he did not discuss his teammates’ personal lives or their extracurricular activities while on the road away from home. Any hints in that direction by him, and there are only a few, were made without naming names. Some of his teammates did criticize him, but for that reason they did not ostracize him as the Yankees did Bouton.

His teammates liked him, but that doesn’t mean that they understood him. Although he stood 6-4 and weighed 200 pounds he did not look like a typical baseball player. He wore horn rimmed glasses and smoked a pipe and thus looked more like a college professor than an athlete. But the big difference was that he kept a small library of books in his locker and he read them while the team flew from one city to another or on trains used for short trips in the east – and he used big words. His teammates would have been further puzzled if they knew that his mother, a nurse and piano teacher, taught young Jim to play classical music, and that he studied Latin for seven years.

Because of his personal appearance and reading habits, it was Frank Robinson who dubbed him “Professor” after he was traded to the Reds during the middle of that 1959 season.

He wrote very little that could be construed as harsh about players, but he didn’t pull any punches when he wrote about his St. Louis manager, Solly Hemus. Brosnan had been traded from the Cubs to the Cardinals the previous year and pitched well for them working out of the bullpen. However, he got off to a bad start in 1959 and he and Hemus disliked each other. Brosnan felt the manager was misusing him and Hemus questioned Brosnan’s effort.

In June, as noted earlier, the Cardinals traded Brosnan to the Cincinnati Reds. Prior to this trade Brosnan had pitched for two bad teams, the Cubs and the Cardinals, and under the leadership of Reds manager Fred Hutchinson and away from Hemus, he finished the season strong. Two years later, working out of the bullpen, he helped lead the Reds to their first pennant in twenty-one years. However, that’s another book and another review.

In 1963, Brosnan was traded to the Chicago White Sox. He pitched well for them, leading the pitching staff in saves and finishing with a low ERA of 2.82. However, that was to be his last season.

It occurred because the White Sox management wanted him to stop writing even though for the most part he was writing magazine articles during the offseason. But management, because the articles were about their team and baseball in general, said it was a distraction.

The upshot is that a clause was inserted into his contract the following year that prohibited him from writing. He refused to sign. His response was that he didn’t need baseball, that he was a writer and that he could make a good living doing it. At age thirty-three, still an effective major league pitcher, he retired.

The years that followed proved him right; he was a writer and he did make a good living doing it.

[Peggyzbooksnmusic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Started reading 02-28-25.
Cringe every time chewing tobacco is mentioned. That killed my favorite Padre, Tony Gwynn :(

Finished 03-10-25. Rated 4 stars. What a great book to read just before the beginning of Major League Baseball. A non fiction written by pitcher Jim Brosnan and published back in 1960. Follows his year in baseball in 1959. His nickname was "The Professor" as he was always reading and the style of his writing is filled with intellectual insight into the strategy of baseball. Lots of humor which made this a fun read.

Some of my favorite quotes:

"A player who loves his craft and has the patient determination to do the best job he can creates a personal efficiency that is as much a pleasure to watch as it is a help in winning ball games."

"SOME players who go to spring training know they have the club made. Others think they do. Half of those invited only hope to. They don’t have a chance."

His observation on legendary Willie Mays of the San Francisco Giants:
"incapable of preventing Mays from taking an extra base if he so desires. “Not this year. No sir!” said Mizell in the spring. “You all will see.” Bravo! Hold him to triples this season, Will, and he’ll never lead the league in stolen bases." LOL!

"Pitchers are constantly convincing each other that they could play the outfield better than the assigned outfielders, who, naturally, think they could outpitch most any man claiming the job and title and responsibility that goes with being a pitcher."

"Baseball writers as a rule are by no means abnormal. Some people even claim that they are human."

Huge thanks to my Goodread friends in The Baseball Group for recommending this title!

[Bruce McClure · Rating 5 out of 5]

Currently on my annual reading of this wonderful book. I crack this one annually around this time in order to get myself ready for the new season, a tradition I share with many baseball fans around the country. The Long Season has been regarded as a pioneering work of sports non-fiction since its publication in 1960. Authored by the late Jim Brosnan, a pitcher for the Cubs, Cardinals, Reds and White Sox from 1954 to 1963, The Long Season, is a candid, thoughtful chronicling of a year in the life of a professional athlete.

The book is 60+ years old but is still entertaining and a valuable asset to any baseball collection. Brosnan writes intelligently and with great wit. The best portions are the bull pen dialogues during games among the pitchers, catchers, and coaches. No, this isn't a tell all Jim Bouton book but there is great insight into the life of a major leaguer of a by gone era well before the players association.

I was impressed with Brosnan's insight into the game (he recognized that ERA was far more important than games won and that the rules on awarding wins to relief pitchers were arbitrary). The reader realizes the financial value attached to the label of a pitcher. Starters get paid the most, closer's next, and long men the least so wins will still be meaningful at contract time despite their misleading nature. I was also surprised to read that even in 1959 pitchers like Brosnan were complaining about all of the hurdles a pitcher had to overcome in his era: the lively ball, bigger players, better bats, a shrunken plate and strike zone, and smaller parks. Sound familiar?

As one progresses in the book, one becomes enmeshed in the season and can imagine being on the team with Brosnan, experiencing it firsthand. The images conjured by the author remind readers of a time gone by in our grand old game. In turn they connect us to the present-day game easily; and those images remind us that while baseball has changed a lot over the years, it really hasn't changed much at all, has it?

[James Klagge · Rating 4 out of 5]

My annual pre-season baseball book--to get me in the mood.
The author is a highly literate baseball player, which is not common. He began the book--a memoir of his 1959 season as a pitcher--with a glossary of terms. Most were familiar to me, but it indicated his interest in the language of baseball. Kathy and I have also commented on this when watching TV coverage of the Washington Nationals. The color commentator (F.P. Santangelo) seems to always come up with new phrases, like: "He's sittin' dead red." I think that means that the batter was expecting a fastball. Much of the "baseball" portion of the book was thoughts and discussion about how to approach various hitters--what to throw to them, and when. Brosnan emphasized the sheer contingency of a pitcher's success and failure. Everybody--coaches, other pitchers, hitters--have views, often conflicting; but even when there is agreement, there is the further matter of whether the pitcher can deliver what is attempted, what the batter expects (it's a 2-sided "game" after all), how the fielders are positioned, how the wind is blowing, etc, etc. But some of the book was taken up with "life"--on and off the field. The best part was his extended discussion of how to make and chew tobacco--who knew that chewing gum was involved?--and spitting it. This is a part of baseball lore that must be passing away--probably for the better! Another part of baseball that seems to be passing away is odd-ball nicknames, and even nicknames at all. Among the players with nicknames he mentions are: "Goofy" Joe Adcock, Gus "Ding Dong" Bell, "Flakey" Brandt, "Smokey" Forrest Burgess, "Uncle Marv" Grissom, "Cocky" Jackson, "Sad Sam" Jones, Sal "The Barber" Maglie (for often pitching high and inside), Don "Tiger" Newcombe, "T-Bone" Phillips, Leon "Daddy Wags" Wagner, and of course his own nicknames, being somewhat intellectual, were "Four Eyes" and "Professor". (His wife's nickname for him is "Meat"!) You just don't hear clever, descriptive nicknames any more (in baseball). We now have ones like "A-Rod" and "K-Rod". Oh, well...
Here's a recent review of the book from a long perspective: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a fabulous baseball book. Well-written, insightful, thoughtful, and down to earth. To think that it was written about a season close to 60 years ago is amazing to me, as it still rings modern.

We can set aside the contractual issues over $20,000 a year, and no agents, and a few other things, but the core of the game comes to light. Brosnan put together a great diary that ranks up there with the best diaries of any subject.

I would add that those looking for the kind of story that Jim Bouton wrote in Ball Four won't find it in this book. Brosnan's story is less salacious but no less honest.

[Spiros · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ah, the pernicious persistence of preconceived notions: whether because of Ted Williams' famously ventilated dicta regarding the stupidity of Major League pitchers, or from being exposed to BULL DURHAM at an impressionable age, I have always found myself surprised to find that my favorite Baseball memoirs have been written by pitchers rather than catchers. Satchel Paige, Jim Bouton, and especially Bill (Spaceman) Lee have written the memoirs that have drawn me closest into the mysteries of the National Passed Time; to that list add the progenitor of the modern Baseball memoir, Jim Brosnan. There is a definite progression from Brosnan to Bouton to Lee; all were journeymen pitchers who exposed facets of the Game that the Powers That Were were uncomfortable having revealed: the references to sex, drugs, and the stupidity of management become more pronounced from Brosnan, writing in the early sixties, to Bouton, writing in the early seventies, to Lee, writing in the eighties and nineties. Brosnan is probably the most talented writer of the three, Lee the most entertaining.
Over the past few decades it has become increasingly commonplace for sanctimonious pricks such as George Will to opine that "Baseball belongs to the fans". The great value of these memoirs is that they make the case that Baseball belongs every bit as much to the men who play the games, the men to whom the games are in fact their lives as well as livelihood. Also, I particularly enjoyed the fact that Brosnan's wife always addresses him as "Meat", which I find to be wonderfully endearing.

(Only 3 1/2 months to Spring Training...)

[Joshua · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was torn whether to rate this as a 2 or a 3. It is definitely an interesting look into mid 20th century baseball, from an insider's perspective, but it often gets bogged down in unnecessary details. What I found most surprising was the way that baseball was portrayed as a fairly unathletic endeavor. Most of the players are more concerned with chewing tobacco, drinking, and fooling around. There rarely any instances where players exercise or train. In the end though, I found myself struggling to finish this book, but I think if it were shortened and written less like a diary it would be a compelling read.

[Patrick · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just not very interesting.

[Mickey Mantle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just fantastic. Brilliantly taking subtle shots at the unique lives of professional ballplayers and their World.
Brosnan looks at this as a job. A job he really does not cherish for much more than a paycheck. It is so apparent he was going to do more with his life....and he did.
This is the precursor to Bouton's Ball Four. 10 years earlier. Seems Bouton enjoyed the game a lot more plus the absurdities surrounding it.
A great read. The author expresses all kinds of emotion while trying to nonchalant things. He played for two mediocre teams in 1959. Spot starter. Most of the season in the bullpen. The writing style just screams I am part of this, but remain aloof.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a better read than ‘Ball Four’ the most famous of the player-tell-all baseball diaries. It covers Brosnan’s 1959 season with the Cardinals and the Reds, as he was traded mid-season.

There was no sensationalism here, just solid writing and useful perspectives and insights. Brosnan had a solid ten year long pitching career in the 1950’s and 1960’s and then went on to write for magazines well into the 1980’s. His sports articles for Boy’s Life, which I eagerly read as a kid, were better than anything out there in the 70’s and 80’s.

4 stars. Some flashes of literary brilliance. One of the better books that I have read for my 100 Book Baseball Project.

[Kaleb Springer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really cool format, essentially the diary of Brosnan throughout the season, awesome book for baseball fans; maybe the most authentic one you’ll find

[Gregory · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book interesting to read as baseball history, but much less so on its own merits. It's neat to have a close look at what baseball was like in 1959, but the pace is awfully slow and there is a lot of pitch-by-pitch discussion that gets old. There were three points of particular interest for me:

First, Brosnan unwittingly sees how sabermetrics will eventually be important. He talks about the problems of standard statistics while remaining tied to them (because they meant salary). And he actually has a coach suggest looking at old issues of baseball magazines to see how opposing players have done, which makes it amazing that no one really bothered.

Second, some things truly never change. As a pitcher, Brosnan thinks the ball is juiced. He makes fun of old-time players (like Rogers Hornsby) who insist the game was better in the past. You could picture much of the action taking place in any number of baseball movies you've seen.

Third, the casual racism is even starker because Brosnan, who analyzes everything, never bothers to ask himself about it. He thinks of an African American player, "Best to find out if he was stuffy about being a Negro. Some of them are" (179). He refers to teammate Orlando Peña (though never actually using the tilde) as a "bean bandit" and even puts that term in his glossary in the back as a "Latin-American player."

[Harold Kasselman · Rating 4 out of 5]

So, I finally got around to reading this baseball first of a kind. It's a diary of the 1959 season by an occasional starter but mostly relief pitcher. The book is 60 years old but is still entertaining and a valuable asset to any baseball collection. Brosnam writes intelligently and with great wit. The best portions are the bull pen dialogues during games among the pitchers, catchers, and coaches. No, this isn't a tell all Jim Bouton book but there is great insight into the life of a major leaguer of a by gone era well before the players association. I was impressed with Brosnam's insight into the game(he recognized that ERA was far more important than games won and that the rules on awarding wins to relief pitchers were arbitrary). The reader realizes the financial value attached to the label of a pitcher. Starters get paid the most, closer's next, and long men the least so wins will still be meaningful at contract time despite their misleading nature. I was also surprised to read that even in 1959 pitchers like Brosnam were complaining about all of the hurdles a pitcher had to overcome in his era: the lively ball, bigger players, better bats, a shrunken plate and strike zone, and smaller parks. Sound familiar?
This is a good book for kids of all ages, from 9-92. RIP James

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a baseball card of Jim Brosnan in a Cincinnati Reds uniform. He was a spectacled fellow with horn rim glasses. His teammates called him the professor. He was always talking about words and their meanings. Turns out he was a fair baseball pitcher and a pretty good writer. He starts the season with the St. Louis Cardinals and is eventually traded to the Reds. This book is his diary of the 1959 baseball season and paints a very realistic picture of what it was to be a ball player in that era. Bros was both a starter and a reliever and did better with the Red Legs than the Cards. You get a lot of insight on how pitchers throw against the batters of that time. The San Francisco Giants were playing in Seal Stadium a minor league park, awaiting the opening of Candle stick. Brosnan's manager with the Cards was not only a player coach but had some racist tendencies. Several years later, Brosnan writes a second book chronicling a pennant season with the Reds. I plan to read that.

[Matt Moran · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Catchers, of course have underdeveloped brains or they would never have chosen that particular job, but X-rays of their heads would probably be useless. Masochists are what they are. A man must love to get banged up if he deliberately chooses to be a catcher."

Insightful at times and a fun book, an obvious precursor to 'Ball Four.' Unlike Bouton (who I think really was a social outcast) Brosnan comes across as cerebral (for a baseball player) but still personable, and without a ghostwriter or an ax to grind.

SI listed this at #19 on their "Top 100 Sports Book of All Time" list. A little high.

[Gregory · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun baseball book. I can see why it was considered edgy when it came out in 1960, long before Jim Bouton's Ball Four. Lots of amusing stories and anecdotes, but almost nothing on baseball strategy or tactics. I think one gets a good sense of what major league baseball life was like in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

[Brett · Rating 2 out of 5]

I know a lot of people love this book but I couldn't stand the author's odd writing style. Didn't finish.

[Clay Kallam · Rating 5 out of 5]

OK, I'm biased.

I first read this book when I was 12 or so, a couple years after the Giants had relocated to San Francisco. Back then, the NFL was an afterthought and baseball was truly the national pastime.

I subscribed to The Sporting News, Baseball Digest and anything else I could find, and I gobbled up the stories of the heroic individuals who played baseball. They were noble athletes, striving to win games despite the cost to their bodies, and they were true exemplars of American manhood.

Then I read "The Long Season."

And re-read it. And re-read it. Many, many times. It was funny, well-written, revelatory and made me feel like I understood the reality of major league baseball and the men who played it. (As it turned out, "The Long Season" wasn't quite as realistic as all that -- I had to wait for "Ball Four" to learn the truth.)

So after being forced to pack up books to get new carpet, I came across a copy of "The Long Season,"the book, and decided I needed to read it again.

It was just as good.

"The Long Season" is essentially a diary of the 1959 baseball season by a journeyman pitcher named Jim Brosnan. He was 29 years old and played for the St. Louis Cardinals.

The book begins with his contract negotiations, which are far, far different than today's. Players were tied to a team in perpetuity, unless the team released them, and there was no such thing as arbitration or free agency. Players took what was given, and negotiated with experienced businessmen without the aid of agents.

Baseball players were still well paid -- in today's dollars, Brosnan made about $150,000 -- but most worked in the offseason, which partly explains the length of spring training. Few players had been to college, as myriads of minor leagues sucked up teenagers and put them on the field. (Brosnan, for example, was signed at age 17 -- and threw 228 innings that season. Yes, it was a different world ...)

So Brosnan, who smoked a pipe and read books, brought his cynical and sometimes dyspeptic world view to the world of professional baseball in 1959, and the book opened the eyes of fans to what the game/business was really like. Naturally, many were offended (not the least the owners) by his candor, and thought that revealing baseball players were actually human beings would damage the sport.

Now it must be said that having been a baseball fan at the time makes the book more fun to read, because I have hazy memories of many of the players mentioned, so it's possible that a younger reader would be less interested, but Brosnan is an excellent writer and his wit and humor shine through.

And of course, those who might wonder how the game was different 60 years ago will find the book fascinating. There were doubleheaders, real back-to-back doubleheaders, and a lot of them. Players shared rooms on the road, and there were no charter flights. Air-conditioned clubhouses in St. Louis in the summer? Not happening ...

And since people are people and baseball is baseball, there's much that hasn't changed. And neither has my high opinion on "The Long Season," which may have had more to do with my lifelong love of sports than any other book I ever read.

[Shay Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very entertaining behind the scenes look at the 1959 baseball season written by a middling relief pitcher named Jim Brosnan. Brosnan sounds to me like a cross between Ring Lardner and the back of a bubble gum card, if the bubble gum card were being used as a book mark inside a volume of Twain.

It's less about scores and all the usual Joe Shlobotnik Story stuff than it is about the way players look at the world, spend their time, and experience the ups and downs of their profession which is surprisingly like most jobs, except that thousands of people cheer or boo you while you're doing it. There are good bosses and bad, enjoyable co-workers and not so much--all the types we all know and deal with, except these wear spiked shoes.

Because the book was written at the end of the 1950's, some of the stuff that was par for the course then jars now, like the endless drinking and the casual racism. Nonetheless, it's a good read, especially if you are old enough--and baseball fan enough--to remember the players who turn up in this book. It's a bygone era presented without the usual soft-focus.

[Bear · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ten years before Jim Bouton wrote "Ball Four", Jim Brosnan wrote a similar book called "The Long Season". Like Bouton would do later, Brosnan kept a diary of his day to day life as a ballplayer. Like Bouton, he was considered the "intellectual" of the team, was traded in mid-season, and told you more of what being a ballplayer was like more than the other standard biographies. Both even have the same initials.
But unlike "Ball Four", "The Long Season" isn't fun to read. "Ball Four" reads like a book and "The Long Season" reads like a diary. Today we did this, the next day the same. It's dry where "Ball Four" was funny. It doesn't make you feel like you want to be a ballplayer as the later book did. Bouton told great stories, Brosnan just tells you what happened. Brosnan doesn't go as far as Bouton did to tell you what ballplayers were up to, but there are some surprising admissions and the same repeating of the stupid things managers and coaches tell them.
Maybe it would have been different in 1959 reading it then, but the book wasn't a big seller then either, not like "Ball Four" was. I wouldn't say not to read it, but don't spend much money on it.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written and refreshingly literate and witty for a book penned by a professional athlete. This book provides a very good perspective on what life was like for a major league ball player in the more simple and insular world of the National League circa 1959. It is considered by some as the prototype and precursor for Jim Bouton's much more explosive and controversial 'Ball Four' approximately ten years later.

A current reader should be prepared that the book suffers a bit due to its age, having been authored 64 years ago. Its a book of its time. The prose is sprinkled with thinly veiled misogynistic
musings and borderline racist comments. There is one more blatantly racist comment also.

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had heard of this book since I was a young boy, but had never read it. For some reason I decided to buy it and was very pleasantly surprised. This book takes you right down to the bullpen, the field, the clubhouse and the personal life of a professional baseball pitcher. There is pressure with each pitch, it must be perfect or there will be consequences. The fun banter in the bullpen, among the players was interesting and entertaining. Some of my favorite discussion involved how to pitch particular players. Relationships are always critical. Freeloading, another interesting topic. I was a small boy during the period where this book was written and it certainly exceeded my expectations.

[David L. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to read this book so many years ago when it and I were much newer but I never got to it. When Jim Bouton passed away, I thought of Jim Brosnan and how I'd never read either of his books. It was entertaining to me to read about a season that was 60 years ago, peopled with players that I used to follow with such passion. I can barely tell you anything about baseball today but I knew and recognized most of the players Brosnan played with and against. The ten year old boy in me was entertained.

[Tom Gase · Rating 3 out of 5]

At the time it came out, this book was probably considered one of the best ever as it’s a journal of the 1959 season from Cardinals and Reds pitcher Jim Brosnan. But I feel it’s been done so many times since then it wasn’t all that great for me and sometimes I really didn’t like Brosnan and even wondered if he was a little racist?? Still good stories on players like Stan Musial and Frank Robinson among countless others.

[Anthony Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A charming and unique diary of the 1959 season, the book offers a snapshot of what baseball was like in 1959, and the reader today will be surprised to hear many of the same complaints about bullpen use, pitch counts, and advanced stats that we hear today. The book is of its time, so some of the dialogue, particularly around race, may read a little off to a modern ear, but it isn't deeply problematic. A quick read, I finished it in a day or two.

[J.b. Likeric · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finally read the book after getting my hands on it recently. Maybe I read too much hype about it. I enjoyed the read and cruised through it, but it was not as good as Ball Four from my view. Don`t get me wrong, it was fun to read, but didn`t reach what I was expecting. That is why I rated it a 3. Liked it, but not outstanding.

[William · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s been compared to Ball Four. The only similarities are the topic and the format. Brosnan’s words are jarring in the way he describes Black and Latin players. And there’s nothing deep or intriguing, no social commentary beyond his disrespect for nonwhites. Occasionally good on pitching strategy. It reads like he wanted to write a nonfiction version of the Southpaw series.

[Dan Lalande · Rating 3 out of 5]

A dozen years before Jim Bouton's lid-lifting 'Ball Four,' another nervy Jim - Brosnan, a middling middle-reliever- wrote this boldly factual account of life in the trenches of major league baseball. A working class sometime-hero, Brosnan tenaciously captured the seasonal grind of the late pre-free agency era, adding day in-day out tarnish to the golden mantle of 1950's baseball. He comes at you on paper as he did on the mound: plainly but doggedly, with occasional snap.

[John]

Writing this review more than 5 years after reading this book. I definitely liked this book more than Ball Four and Boys of Summer. I am going to read it a second time soon to see if it still holds up to what I remember and if so will give a more detailed review and rating. Rome, November 5, 2022.

[Leonard · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable book. I first started getting interested in MLB about this time and many of the players mentioned in the book brought back memories of that time.