Collateral Bloggage What passes for thought around here…

Wordful Wednesday: Catcher in the Wry

Sometimes I have to read a book just for the title. In this case, Catcher in the Wry, by Bob Uecker, gave me an opportunity I couldn't pass up: It gave me a title I could pass off as a classic (at least verbally) when I was really reading about baseball.  Awesome.

Of course, it only bears homophonic similarity to Salinger's book, as far as I know (having not read the latter). And it's about a side of baseball you probably don't read much about: the scrubs. In fact, to hear (or read) Uecker tell it, it's probably better being a scrub, because it's not such a letdown when you have to stop playing.  I actually think he's got something there.

Uecker certainly made good for himself when his playing career ended after six seasons, and he has no illusions that he was the star of any of the teams he played for. But that didn't stop him from having a good time. (By the way, he reportedly was a halfway decent defensive catcher in spite of what he says.)

The prankster part of him was what lived on when his playing days were over. He made the rounds as a television personality (making frequent appearances on Johnny Carson), a comedian, and a TV/movie star (-ish).  Between all these, he settled in as the Milwaukee Brewers radio color man in 1971, a post he still holds today.

If you know him at all, it's probably from his appearance as the Indians' play-by-play man in Major League (his most famous line:  "Juuust a bit outside!" - warning on the link here, there's some "colorful metaphors" written on the page.  Now try not to look for them.  Oh, and there may be a passing reference to a donkey in the clip.).

Or perhaps, like me, you remember Uecker from a string of Miller Lite commercials from a time when I thought beer was a foul-smelling-and-tasting concoction adult men drank after they forgot how good Pepsi tasted. (This is still the opinion I hold today.  And just for the record, all cola beverages taste the same to me, or at least close enough that I think people who fuss about them need therapy.)

One of my personal favorites that I've been misquoting (well, quote-combining) for years is this one:

The book, you say? It's pretty much what you'd expect, being a baseball memoir. Uecker comes from a different time, before the big salaries and bigger egos, and that's a point in his favor. He's truly marvelous at self-deprecating humor, as evidenced especially by his captions on the obligatory scrapbook section of the book. One, showing him sliding home, quips, "Here I am trying to score from second on a three-base hit; out on a close play." Evidently he was less than gifted at swiftness.

I was hoping to find in the book, and my hopes were well-founded, Uecker's famous quote about catching the knuckleball:

"The easiest way to catch a knuckleball is to wait until it stops rolling and then pick it up."

All-in-all, it was an enjoyable read, and it's a book about baseball, so that counts for something.

I guess I should mention what possessed me to pick this one up (I had to order it through InterLibrary Loan). It's really quite simple: I saw him on TV during a recent Brewers game (I'm a Mariners fan, but I'll watch just about any baseball that's on). Googled him. And here we are.

As I mentioned, the title was one thing that attracted me, and it's very tempting right now to request his later book, Catch 222, for the same reason.  But I shall refrain, for now, in the hopes of finishing my library backlog.