From the humble heights of a Class-A pitcher's mound to the deflating lows of sleeping on his gun-toting grandmother's air mattress, veteran reliever Dirk Hayhurst steps out of the bullpen to deliver the best pitch of his career--a raw, unflinching and surprisingly moving account of his life in the minors.

I enjoyed the visualizations, maybe a little too much, and would stop only when I felt I'd centered myself. . .or after one of my teammates hit me in the nuts with the rosin bag while my eyes were closed.

Hilariously self-effacing and brutally honest, Hayhurst captures the absurdities, the grim realities, and the occasional nuggets of hard-won wisdom culled from four seasons in the minors. Whether training tarantulas to protect his room from thieving employees in a backwater hotel, watching the raging battles fought between his partially paralyzed father and his alcoholic brother, or absorbing the gentle mockery of some not-quite-starstruck schoolchildren, Dirk reveals a side of baseball, and life, rarely seen on ESPN.

My career has crash-landed on the floor of my grandma's old sewing room. If this is a dream come true, then dreams smell a lot like mothballs and Bengay.

Somewhere between Bull Durham and The Rookie, The Bullpen Gospels takes an unforgettable trot around the inglorious base paths of minor league baseball, where an inch separates a ball from a strike, and a razor-thin margin can be the difference between The Show or a long trip home.

"It's not often that someone comes along who is a good pitcher and a good writer." --King Kaufman, Salon

"After many minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years spent in the bullpen, I can verify that this is a true picture of baseball."

--Tim McCarver

"There are great truths within, of the kind usually unspoken. And as he expresses them, Dirk Hayhurst describes himself as 'a real person who moonlights as a baseball player.' In much the same manner, while The Bullpen Gospels chronicles how all of us face the impact when we learn reality is both far meaner and far richer than our dreams--it also moonlights as one of the best baseball books ever written."

--Keith Olbermann

"A bit of Jim Bouton, a bit of Jim Brosnan, a bit of Pat Jordan, a bit of crash Davis, and a whole lot of Dirk Hayhurst. Often hilarious, sometimes poignant. This is a really enjoyable baseball read."

--Bob Costas

"Fascinating. . .a perspective that fans rarely see."

--Trevor Hoffman, pitcher for the Milwaukee Brewers

"The Bullpen Gospels is a rollicking good bus ride of a book. Hayhurst illuminates a baseball life not only with wit and humor, but also with thought-provoking introspection."

--Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated

"Dirk Hayhurst has written a fascinating, funny and honest account on life in the minor leagues. I loved it. Writers can't play baseball, but in this case, a player sure can write."

--Tim Kurkjian, Senior Writer, ESPN The Magazine, analyst/reporter ESPN television

"Bull Durham meets Ball Four in Dirk Hayhurst's hilarious and moving account of life in baseball's glamour-free bush leagues."

--Rob Neyer, ESPN.com

"If Holden Caulfield could dial up his fastball to 90 mph, he might have written this funny, touching memoir about a ballplayer at a career--and life--crossroads. He might have called it 'Pitcher in the Rye.' Instead, he left it to Dirk Hayhurst, the only writer in the business who can make you laugh, make you cry and strike out Ryan Howard."

--King Kaufman, Salon

"The Bullpen Gospels is a funny bone-tickling, tear duct-stimulating, feel-good story that will leave die-hard baseball fans--and die-hard human beings, for that matter--well, feeling good."

--Bob Mitchell, author of Once Upon a Fastball

Hayhurst, who pitched quite credibly for Toronto last season, was kind enough to send me an advance copy of his book, The Bullpen Gospels, which is due out at the end of March. With stellar reviews from Keith Olbermann, Rob Neyer, Tim Kurkijan, Tom Verducci, and Trevor Hoffman, among others, the book hardly needs my seal of approval to cement its place in baseball's literary canon.

But it sure has it. The Bullpen Gospels is hilarious, touching, unflinching in its honesty, and unapologetic in its basic decency. Major league athletes are expected to be confident to the point of arrogance - in fact, we think of it as essential to their success -- but in Gospels, the author turns a hard, narrow focus on his own self-doubt. The hilarious minor-league antics and touching tales of stepping out of his uniform to act like a real person, I had come to expect from Hayhurst's "Non-Prospect Diary", but I wasn't prepared for the raw honesty regarding offseason life back in Ohio or the nagging self-doubt that regularly accompanied the pitcher everywhere, including the mound.

I was even less prepared for the extent to which I related to that part of the story and how many of the same experiences I had myself had - the messed-up family life, the sometimes crushing self-doubt. And, most of all, the way that those things cause the desperate need to prove oneself by succeeding to the fullest in one's career - how that drive for success leads to ever-greater outward success without ever fixing the problems that caused that desire for success in the first place - because, how can it?

But, in a way, that's the point - strip away the media persona and the trappings of the professional baseball player, and what is a minor-league player? A young man, probably in his early-to-mid 20s, with sporadic but near-crippling self-doubt, equally intermittent feelings of invincibility, a desperate need to prove himself without a full understanding of why, little money, and, playing the percentages, serious father issues. And here I thought that all Dirk and I had in common was our love for comic books.

None of this is to take away from the fact that The Bullpen Gospels is very much a baseball book. The ball scenes are exciting, the moments of team camaraderie genuine and memorable, and the bullpen hijinx hilarious. I have no doubt that the former and current players who have extolled how accuratelyGospels captures the essence of playing baseball for a living are completely right. But I thought the book was much more than that. As Hayhurst himself mentions in his conversation with Trevor Hoffman late in the book, it's not only about what baseball is, but also what it's not.

It's difficult to write an autobiographical book in which you are fair about yourself. I speak from experience - although I was a biochemistry major in college, I lacked the scientific inspiration to do my honours thesis in that field, so I fell back on my other major, English, and wrote a book of creative autobiographical non-fiction. I had the stories to tell but not the willingness to make myself look bad, nor the dishonesty to make myself look good, so I ended up writing as little about myself as possible. But full credit to Dirk - The Bullpen Gospels tells the stories that make him look good and doesn't shy away from the ones that make him look bad. I can't believe I spent the 2009 season rooting for a guy who yells at his grandmother to shut up!

As a lawyer, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the unbelievably hilarious Kangaroo Court scenes -- some of my favourites in the book - where players bring one another up on "charges" -- ranging from the effects of eating too much Mexican food to talking about oneself in the third person to rank stupidity -- and try them before a jury of their peers.

I can't encourage you enough to pick up a copy of The Bullpen Gospels. You will speed through it and, if you are like me, gain a new appreciation for ballplayers, not for the work that they do, but for the men that they (at least, some of them!) are. You will laugh your tail off on one page and, quite possibly, tear up on the next. Most of all, laughing with the guys on the team, suffering through uncomfortable bus rides and fleabag motels, experiencing the agony of letting a game slip through your fingers, the despair in getting busted down a level, and the joy in victory, you'll feel like you - an ordinary person - are a ballplayer. But you'll also feel like the ballplayer is, for once, an ordinary person.

Blue Bird Banter.com

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.