Book review: The Bullpen Gospels by Dirk Hayhurst

Never have reviews for a book been so misleading as for Dirk Hayhurst's tell-all memoirs about life in the minor leagues. The comments splattered on the back cover and on websites selling the book nearly universally call it funny, revealing, and an intimate view of baseball. While those descriptions are all accurate, they miss the mark by a wide margin on the essence of Hayhurst's work, a deeply personal story of his grapplings with his own life and the meaning of baseball within it.

This book is in all senses a modern-day version of Ball Four. Just as with Jim Bouton's classic diary of the 1969 Seattle Pilots season, Hayhurst reveals many tales of unusual behavior from his teammates and coaches. The stories range from bizarre to disgusting to reprehensible (appropriately upping the ante in the 40-year gap between the two books as public standards have changed) but all of these anecdotes are just filler, not the meat, in The Bullpen Gospels.

The parallels between the two books continue to the personal side of the story, as Hayhurst describes in great detail his very troubled family life as well as numerous mistakes and misconceptions he had about himself, his career, and his role in society. While Hayhurst's self-righteous arrogance is apparent in denigrating the behavior of his teammates, he doesn't shy away from revealing his own ignorance, fear, and shortcomings as a person.

The book contains a lot of intriguing stories of personal growth. My favorite regards Hayhurst bringing baseball cards of himself to a homeless shelter, thinking that autographing them for homeless people would brighten their day. He instead learns from one man there who lost his job and his wife to illness that the shoes on his feet were worth a lot more to the man than his autograph on a piece of cardboard.

Hayhurst, even more so than Bouton before him, is an extremely gifted writer. His accounts, especially the personal ones, evoke all of his emotions in the moment and make his own personal growth evident. He earns high praise for telling it like it is, even when it makes him look conceited or naive.

I rank this book as an absolute must-read. Hayhurst goes so far to call some ballplayers "dirtbag savages" and whether he's right or not, his opinion is a very interesting read.

For parents, please note that the book contains a small amount of vulgarity but numerous references to alcohol, drugs, and sex.

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