Take Bull Durham, get rid of the sappy love story and the peripheral junk, and add to it tons more about the daily grind of being a rookie-league pitcher, and you have Matt McCarthy’s Odd Man Out, one of the best books I have read so far this off-season.

McCarthy tells an engaging story of his experience playing collegiately at Yale and then getting drafted by the Anaheim Angels. What results is a behind the scenes look at the experience of a 21st round pick as he travels to Mesa, Arizona for Spring Training, Provo, Utah for his first full season as a professional ball player, the off-season back in New England and back to Mesa for his second and final Spring Training.

Now don’t go feeling bad for McCarthy – despite only playing one year as a pro, he’s doing pretty well. After hanging up his spikes, he went to Harvard Medical School and is currently an intern at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City.

Matt McCarthy

But let’s talk about the book – I don’t know whether or not it was some kind of alignment of the stars that caused me to read the book on the day that the Alex Rodriguez news broke – but it certainly wasn’t the most joyous day in Mudville when A-Rod admitted to having used steroids and performance enhancers. Nevertheless, as pundits are talking about how this is the darkest day in baseball and one of the sport’s greatest scandals, Odd Man Out was the perfect book to push back the clouds of doom and gloom that covered the baseball world today.

McCarthy drew me right into his story – he has a very matter of fact tone to his writing, and he does a tremendous job using conversation and dialogue to engage the reader. Having read a fair number of books, I really realized how great of a tool this is to make a book more interesting. McCarthy kept a journal of his minor league experience, which in turn created the foundation for this exceptional work.

Odd Man Out is the story of baseball from the bottom-up – having your life changed by a phone call, going to a new town to play ball, and playing with a group of guys who run the gamut in terms of personality – all in hopes of making it to the Major Leagues. It is Ball Four from the other side of the food chain – the minor league experience, expertly chronicled and told, although it won’t leave your mouth wide open from the crazy exploits that you thought were thrown in for shock value.

McCarthy is amazingly detailed and intricate in his narration of his time in pro baseball. In a world that most people will never experience, McCarthy brings the reader right into the fold. In a world where tell-all books are the rage, McCarthy manages to put the reader in a pro ballplayer’s shoes without throwing any of his teammates or coaches under the bus. This is what reality reading should be – and hopefully serves as an example to other authors as to how to achieve a successful book without leaving a trail of mud and blood behind.

Odd Man Out is a definite read in my book – I don’t think you’ll be disappointed by it at all. McCarthy has created a real gem with this one – one that every baseball fan should get a kick out of reading.

UPDATE 3/3/2009: The New York Times has an article which suggests that a lot of the content of Odd Man Out may be more fiction than fact. I believe you may have to be a subscriber to see the full content, however.