Triple Play

Sports Books

Harry the K

By Randy Miller, Running Press, 336 pp., $24.95, March 9

Coming out less than a year after Harry Kalas died in a Washington broadcast booth, Harry the K: The Remarkable Life of Harry Kalasis anything but a hagiography. Phillies beat writer Randy Miller expounds upon Kalas' "lifelong addictions — alcohol, cigarettes and carousing"; his taking up with eventual second wife Eileen while still married to his first; and the disintegration of his friendship with colleague Chris Wheeler. The biography also details Harry's declining health in his final months;he'd already suffered a"'silent' heart attack" months before calling the last pitch of the 2008 World Series. Miller interviews a wide array, but his narrative is full of redundancies and loose facts. In the end, loyal fans would rather remember Harry for kinder moments — like providing personalized voice-overs for fans' answering machines — and acts of generosity. —Andrew Milner

The Bullpen Gospels

By Dirk Hayhurst, Citadel, 340 pp., $14.95, March 30

Dirk Hayhurst is a major league pitcher, but not the kind anyone would grab for their fantasy baseball team. His career consists of only three starts and 22 relief appearances, and after recent shoulder surgery, he'll be out for most of the Toronto Blue Jays' 2010 season. Reviews for his debut book have been more promising: Sportswriters have offered high praise for The Bullpen Gospels, in which Hayhurst chronicles his 2007 season with the San Diego Padres. He gets along with his teammates, but he's set apart from them, too (he's older, he doesn't drink, he's saving himself for marriage. The highlights of the book are his teammates' stories, which could have been lifted straight from Old School — lots of booze, nudity, vomit, sex, pranks and nicknames. The Bullpen Gospels isn't groundbreaking like Jim Bouton's Ball Four or a tell-all like Jose Canseco's Juiced, but it's engaging and will get readers excited about opening day. It might also be the best baseball book since John Albert's Wrecking Crew. —Matt Hotz

The Eastern Stars

By Mark Kurlansky, Riverhead, 288 pp., $25.95, April 15

No author has ever been more at home writing about fish than Mark Kurlansky (Cod, Salt). Not that the skill comes in handy in a book ostensibly about the transformative effects of baseball on tiny San Pedro de Macorís (aka "The Cradle of Shortstops"). The book's examination of Dominican history — from pre-colonial through the bloody Trujillo dictatorship to the present — is enlightening. But the baseball sections of The Eastern Stars: How Baseball Changed the Dominican Town of San Pedro de Macorís — particularly those driven by reportage — are composed with what could graciously be described as an elementary understanding of the game. (That the book's appendix of San Pedro major leaguers is riddled with errors further torpedoes its bona fides.) Kurlansky doesn't seem to know what kind of book he wanted to write — a history, a sociological tract, a bio — and ultimately fails to deliver on the promise of the subtitle. He concludes with the lure of MLB money, which is just the starting point for this discussion. —Brian Howard