Bookshelf Review: Fear Strikes Out

by Jimmy Piersall with Al Hirshberg. Atlantic Monthly Press/Little, Brown and Company, 1955.

Jimmy Piersall was a two-time All-Star who sent 17 seasons in the Majors…and one summer in a mental institution.

That’s the crux of this underrated autobiography from the mid-50s, well ahead of its time in discussing the issue of mental illness. Piersall’s frank rendering of his childhood, his overbearing (but always beloved) father, his mother, who was in and out of hospitals herself for “nervous exhaustion,” all came a time when such intimate problems were never discussed outside the house (or inside, in many cases).

Piersall recalls his struggles to maintain a sense of balance while striving to become the best, pushed by his dad, who wanted his son to be a major leaguer (and not just for any team, but for the Red Sox, as befits a resident of Waterbury, CT) and would allow nothing to deter that goal. When a teenaged Jimmy was injured in a pick-up football game, his dad nearly had a heart attack. This drive — and perhaps genetics — went a long way in explaining the son’s behavior. he obviously loved his parents very much, wanting to please them at the expense of his own desires and well-being.

The ballplayer takes us on a journey from his formative years through his first cautious seasons in the majors. An all-star outfielder, he became downright paranoid when the Sox decided to convert him into a shortstop. Piersall just knew they were out to destroy him and his future.

The next thing you know, it’s months latter and Piersall tells the story — of which he has no personal knowledge — through scrapbooks and the accounts of his patient wife and their friends. Of how he finally relented and went to see a doctor. Of how he was admitted to a mental hospital where he turned violent and had to be confined to a more secure facility. Of electric shock treatments. Of being “cured,” yet anxious about returning to society and baseball. And of how he ultimately succeeded and returned to enjoy a steady career, even if he did have the occasional bout of eccentricity.

Fear Strikes Out is an ‘as-told-to,” in this case to the very capable Al Hirshberg but I can’t help thinking that if this book was written now, it would have all sorts of diagnoses (was he a paranoid schizophrenic? Bi-polar?), lurid details, and more. As it is, Fear Strikes Out is a sensitive account of a deeply personal odyssey.

Piersall, who became an outspoken broadcaster for the White Sox, also wrote The Truth Hurts (1985).

Fear Strikes Out was turned into a feature film starring Anthony Perkins as Piersall (perhaps the worst imitation of a baseball player since William Bendix) and Karl Malden as his father.