Editorial Content for The Tao of the Backup Catcher: Playing Baseball for the Love of the Game
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
Like all sports, the national pastime revolves around stars, followed by the rest of the regulars and then the benchwarmers. Somewhere in the last group is the backup catcher, a man who gets into maybe one game a week if he’s (un)lucky because the main guy is always behind the plate unless he gets hurt or needs an occasional day off. For every Yogi Berra, there’s a Ralph Houk who appeared in just 91 games over an eight-year career with the Yankees.
Throughout THE TAO OF THE BACKUP CATCHER, we are told how Erik Kratz and his fellow backups must have a real love for the game to keep at it for so long, fully realizing they will never enjoy the careers they had expected. These athletes were often the best on their little league teams through college, believing they were on their way to being a high draft pick with a huge signing bonus and unlimited potential.
"THE TAO OF THE BACKUP CATCHER is quite earnest in its portrayal of this unique position on a team and in an organization, basically providing bodies for the 'real prospects' to gain experience."
Kratz was not one of them. A strong family man, he and his wife had a five-year plan that obviously kept getting extensions. He became a baseball lifer, bouncing around the minors starting in 2002. Along the way --- as Tim Brown reminds us several times --- Kratz played for some 30 teams, scattered across the U.S. (plus one in the Dominican Republic). A look at his page on Baseball-Reference.com is at once startling and amusing.
We see the tenuous life of an itinerant ball player. How long will he be around this particular team? How will he handle the practical and emotional effects when it comes to being traded or released? How will he be received by new teammates and front-office personnel? How long should he keep going, knowing there’s a family at home missing him, and vice versa?
We get to know Kratz as a dedicated professional who understands what his role is and accepts it. All he can do is be prepared for the day when he sees his name in the starting lineup. In the meantime, he will catch bullpen sessions, work with pitchers, listen and observe, and basically do “whatever it takes,” satisfied just to have a job doing --- in some cases --- the only thing for which they have training.
The baseball cinephile will recognize a couple of similarities, intended or not, to Crash Davis in Bull Durham. There’s the concept of the difference in the number of hits needed over the course of a season that could substantially boost a player’s batting average and make him a more appealing candidate for promotion. There’s also an episode where a catcher, annoyed with his pitcher’s attitude, alerted the hitter to what was coming, resulting in a home run.
THE TAO OF THE BACKUP CATCHER is quite earnest in its portrayal of this unique position on a team and in an organization, basically providing bodies for the “real prospects” to gain experience. But Brown practically beats the reader over the head with the notions of sacrifice, humility and, ultimately, acceptance. There are repetitive references to Kratz’s career path in terms of moving around and dealing with frustration amid his love for the game. Without those, this could have been a substantially shorter book.
Brown served as co-author on Rick Ankiel’s 2017 memoir, THE PHENOMENON: Pressure, the Yips, and the Pitch that Changed My Life. The odd thing about THE TAO OF THE BACKUP CATCHER is that the voice is not Kratz writing in the first person, so in a sense one wonders why his name appears in the co-author role.
Teaser
In baseball, there are superstars, stars and everyday players...and then there are the rest. Within the rest are role players, specialists and journeymen...and then there are the backup catchers. THE TAO OF THE BACKUP CATCHER is about them, the backup catchers, who exist near the bottom of the roster, the end of the bench, and between the numbers in a sport --- and a society --- increasingly driven by cold, hard analytics. It is a story of grown men who once dreamed of stardom and generational wealth. Instead, they were handed a broom and a deeper understanding of who wins and why, who stands tall and who folds, and who will invest their own lives in catching bullpens and the back ends of doubleheaders.
Promo
In baseball, there are superstars, stars and everyday players...and then there are the rest. Within the rest are role players, specialists and journeymen...and then there are the backup catchers. THE TAO OF THE BACKUP CATCHER is about them, the backup catchers, who exist near the bottom of the roster, the end of the bench, and between the numbers in a sport --- and a society --- increasingly driven by cold, hard analytics. It is a story of grown men who once dreamed of stardom and generational wealth. Instead, they were handed a broom and a deeper understanding of who wins and why, who stands tall and who folds, and who will invest their own lives in catching bullpens and the back ends of doubleheaders.
About the Book
This fascinating book chronicles the unsung men of baseball who serve the job, the hardships they face, and their love for a game that would not always love them back --- told partly through the experiences of an MLB veteran.
In baseball, there are superstars, stars and everyday players...and then there are the rest. Within the rest are role players, specialists and journeymen...and then there are the backup catchers. THE TAO OF THE BACKUP CATCHER is about them, the backup catchers, who exist near the bottom of the roster, the end of the bench, and between the numbers in a sport --- and a society --- increasingly driven by cold, hard analytics.
THE TAO OF THE BACKUP CATCHER is a story of grown men who once dreamed of stardom and generational wealth. Instead, they were handed a broom and a deeper understanding of who wins and why, who stands tall and who folds, and who will invest their own lives in catching bullpens and the back ends of doubleheaders.
Backup catchers survive in part because every team needs one. They are necessary, once or twice a week. They prosper because the game, like the world around the game, still needs good souls, honest efforts, open eyes and ears, closed mouths, compassion for the sad parts, a laugh for the silly parts, and a heart that knows the difference. Backup catchers are sports’ big brothers, psychologists, priests, witch doctors, player coaches, father figures and drinking buddies, all wrapped in a suit of today’s polycarbonate armor and yesterday’s dirt. They come with a singular goal --- to win baseball games. They play for the greater good. After that, they play for themselves.
A reverie on loving the grind and the little things baseball can teach us, THE TAO OF THE BACKUP CATCHER profiles Erik Kratz, Josh Paul, AJ Ellis, Bobby Wilson, Drew Butera, Matt Treanor and John Flaherty, to name a few.
Audiobook available, read by Justin Price
