Odd Man Out

When Jim Bouton write Ball Four back in the 70s there was an uproar from inside the baseball community. Players, coaches, ballboys and the birds that eat the popcorn scattered about the bleachers after games were all aflutter, squawking about Botuon's disrespect of the sanctity of the locker room. How dare he let people know that his teammates showered with their clothes off.

Tsk, tsk, Jim.

The reaction is still echoing almost 40 years later and the dismantling of the clubhouse commandments has become a common trend. Jose Canseco, Pete Rose, et all, have put into print what was once put into secret.

While those two characters are hardly commendable people, they are still brave enough to do what few else have done: squeal.

Matt McCarthy is kind of like their kid brother. McCarthy, who penned Odd Man Out a few years after leaving the Angels' minor league system, gave us access to the farm. He introduced us to people who, at times, can seem almost mythical, the players we watch hustle around the bags in order to exchange their OBP for stacks of hundos. We got to see Bobby Jenks at his surliest, Joe Saunders at his cock-of-the-walkyiet, and Erick Aybar and Alberto Callaspo at their best-friend-with-benefitiest.

The behind-the-scenes locker room scenes were memorable, as was McCarthy's arrival, first, at spring training and then in Mormon Provo.

But the rest was simply ho-hum. I liked the book, but at times it dragged, McCarthy's use of dialogue simply eh.

And then again, at other times, I was laughing out loud and quoting snippets to my wife.

While the writing was occasionally iffy, it was an overall pleasant read.