The Baseball Book Club discussion

Share your thoughts on this book by Doug Harvey on his life and career.

I'll just post my review here - aptly titled and I gave it three and half stars for being mildly entertaining, but it shows four here.

Review:
Doug Harvey was considered to be one of the best umpires in the game in a 30-year major league career that spanned from 1962 to 1992. It is even more impressive when one considers that Harvey did not attend umpiring school as most other umpires do who make it to the major leagues. Stories from his career, from high school games to the World Series, are told in this memoir co-written with Peter Golenbock.

The title of the book will tell the reader what the tone of the stories will be like – they are all about himself and many of them will tell the reader that he believes he was one of the best umpires because he believed in listening and fairness. Not many will truly argue these points, but he does frequently remind readers of these points. At times, that repetition took away from the theme of the stories he was trying to tell.

These are all short stories, rarely taking up more than two or three pages in the hardcover edition. With a long career, one can imagine that he shared stored about many of the players and managers that he had to eject from games. While not every story results in a player or manger being tossed from the game, most of them do involve that in some manner. It is only appropriate that one of the better stories about these ejections involved his ejection of Walter Alston, the legendary manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, in a late season game. Harvey realized that he had not ejected a single person from a game that season, so in order to prove to the league offices that he hasn’t softened, he ejected Alston on a seemingly minor offense. Alston, after hearing Harvey’s reason for the ouster, played along and took it gracefully.

Another aspect of Harvey’s life that he talks about frequently is his drinking. He notes that often after games, there wasn’t much to do so he and his fellow umpires would usually enjoy a few at the hotel bar. This was especially true when he was a rookie and he would join his crew chief there instead of leaving him alone with his drinks. I bring this up because that is how the book reads – like the reader is sitting at the hotel bar with Harvey after a game holding a drink and listening to Harvey tell all of these stories of ejecting players and managers.

While the book was entertaining enough and I liked most of the stories, the repetition of how good an umpire he was did start to wear a little thin by the end of the book. He is one of only a few umpires that have been enshrined in the baseball Hall of Fame – that alone says he is one of the best and there was no need to repeat this. Otherwise, if a reader likes to read about an umpire’s power over a game, then this book comes recommended.

I gave it around there as well. I’ve read enough celebrity memoirs that I can tell when one is written well and one is ghost written not very well. This one was somewhere in the middle. One thing that irked me was that Harvey kept referring to himself as the best to do it. I would think that players wouldn’t like that very much. Sadly though this one was written better than the one Mendel just picked up- a ghost written book from Armando Galarraga and Jim Joyce written poorly by Daniel Paisner.

Here’s my review which in fact is 3.5 but shows 4 stars here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I agree with both of you! I read it about a month ago, so it’s not so fresh with me. But I can summarize it as this “I was better than everyone and I was always right. And I’m not humble about it”. Definitely some interesting stories, but not much depth, as is this case with many of these memoirs.

I have to admit, what I found most interesting were the stories from before he became a major league ump, the struggles and such. I was surprised to find out he reffed professional basketball.

I found that interesting as well. I guess just like the players, the umpires at that time had to find a winter job to pay the bills.