Life Ain’t the Same in the Pecos League: A Rookie Manager Navigates Baseball’s Most Notorious Independent League

by Bill Rogan

Beginning with his quest to manage in the Pecos League, through all the ups and downs of the 2019 season, the author takes us on a journey in a league like none other in professional baseball. You'll understand what the players and the manager at the lowest level of Independent baseball deal with on a daily basis. You'll laugh at many of the stories and shake your head at some of the others. It is certainly true, Life Ain't The Same in the Pecos League.

Genres: Baseball, Sports

280 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 15, 2020

Reviews

[Morris Hoffman]

This is like no other baseball book around. It chronicles a single year (2019), virtually pitch by pitch, during which Rogan manages a baseball team at the lowest professional rung, where players (and the manager) make peanuts and drive their own cars to road games. Where the games in Arizona, Texas, and even the Mojave Desert are played in sweltering temperatures, and visiting teams are often not even given water. Where a manager grasping at the chance to manage professional baseball confronts men of all ages grasping for the chance to play it. Where the love of the game meets the realities of skill, and where hope is the only bountiful currency. It is a must read if you care about baseball, or about the human capacity to endure failure and pursue excellence.

[Kyle]

I was hoping this book would be like The Only Rule is it has to work. In a way it is similar, but the manager just isn't as good of a writer. Also, I don't understand his hate of California, which he brings up at times. It took me a year to read this book, I picked it up and put it down multiple times. Glad I'm finally done with it.

[Michael Bruch]

It is reassuring to know that baseball is played as a game somewhere in America...still.