Where Nobody Knows Your Name: Life in The Minor Leagues of Baseball
Click on the Link Below to Purchase — Amazon.com
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Well known Washington Post columnist and author John Feinstein wants us to believe that no one knows their names. He tells the story of life in AAA baseball, mostly in the International League, during the 2012 season. He follows several players, a manager, and an umpire and a broadcaster. He shares the struggles of these men as they attempt to get to–or back to–Major League Baseball. The Show. It’s a life so grand and intoxicating–but it’s also the career pinnacle for these individuals. These are their stories….
Mr. Feinstein spins the tale masterfully. He includes the back stories and first and second-degree stories of players and friends, and families of the players as their paths cross. The timelines move back to get the history, and forward to let you know the results. The stories are revisited and continued in later chapters. Sometimes, that makes the timing difficult to follow–and difficult to pick up which player and which season he’s talking about at any given moment. There are also some inaccuracies: He does tell us that Coca Cola Field is in Buffalo and Coca Cola Park is in Allentown, but he then gets it wrong several times in later chapters. Also, there’s a mention of a sign outside the IronPigs clubhouse containing a vulgarity that I can’t imagine Ryne Sandberg or Kurt Landes permitting–at least not for very long.
I decided to purchase spend the time reading the book because of the stories of Scott Elarton and Scott Podsednik and umpire Mark Lollo. All names we’ve known at Coca Cola PARK. Because they come in contact, stories are also presented about Tug Hulett and Rich Thompson, although they’re not featured.
Feinstein introduces us to the main “players” with short capsules, then proceeds to an Introduction prior to Chapter 1. The Introduction is set in Allentown, at Coca Cola Park (he gets it right this time) on June 2, 2012 during a double-header with Pawtucket. The scene is described in great detail. The IronPigs had won game one, and were leading in game two against spot starter Tony Pena Jr. Whack-an-Intern is being played along the third base line. And Mark Prior comes in to pitch for Pawtucket.
I was there. I remember that night. I suppose Mr. Feinstein is trying to describe how far from the Majors AAA baseball is by describing the scene at Coca Cola Park that evening. To his credit, he’s also describing how close it is, as he points out that spot starter Pena was only pressed into action because the original starter Ross Ohlendorf had opted out of his contract and was starting in Arizona for the Diamondbacks. But in his efforts, Feinstein trivializes the 13,300,743 people who attended AAA baseball games in 2012. They weren’t all there to see what-an-intern. If it were that easy, other minor league sports would be able to generate that level of attendance as well.
Mr. Feinstein thinks “nobody knows their names.” Well, I know their names. I would venture that at least a couple of those 13 million people do, too. I knew who Mark Price was that night, and why he was there. If you choose to buy this book and read it–and I think you probably should–it’s not because you don’t know their names. It’s because you do.
The people–and that’s the key word, people–in these stories and their struggles in the game of baseball are interesting and relevant. It’s important to remember that they are, all, just people. Mr. Feinstein does a fine job humanizing them and telling their stories, despite cheap tactics such as the Introduction.
@Kram209
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