[Note: My spring baseball roundup appears on Bookreporter.com and is reposted here as individual reviews for your convenience.]
It’s somewhat unusual for an active player to write a book. Such things are often left to the relative safety and reflection of retirement. But no one ever said R. A. Dickey was your run-of-the-mill athlete. You only have to hear him on an NPR interview to get a sense of his intelligence and sensitivity. That’s why Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity and the Perfect Knuckleball
Wherever I Wind Up received the most pre-publication buzz of any baseball title so far this year (with the possible exception of John Grisham’s Calico Joe). When word began to circulate that Dickey would reveal his story of having been sexually abused as a child by a female babysitter and a male cousin, I feared this would turn into a lurid selling point. Such a revelation would be a watershed moment; it was unheard of for an athlete to be that open about such an issue. And indeed Dickey has said this book served as a cathartic device, an opportunity to admit what to him had been a shameful and confusing part of his life — and the first time he had ever spoken of it. It is not in the purview of this article to get into psychological considerations, but listening to those interviews, you get the sense that it has been a cleansing experience
But the abuse is not the sole subject of the book. Dickey had other, more germane, issues that face an athlete, such as spending more than the usual number of years in the minors before finding a permanent spot in the Mets’ pitching rotation. The mental wear-and-tear of worrying the direction in which your career is going is daunting for any player, let alone one with a wife and four kids to consider. But Dickey’s faith — a main point in the book — has helped him survive thus far and, hopefully, will see him through a long and successful career.
is available on Amazon.com,
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