Bookshelf review — For your convenience: Turning Two

[Note: My spring baseball roundup appears on Bookreporter.com and is reposted here as individual reviews for your convenience.]

In Turning Two: My Journey to the Top of the World and Back with the New York Mets, Bud Harrelson, a staple of the pennant-winning Mets of 1969 and 1973, offers a “throw-back” to the days when sports autobiographies/memoirs were above dishing the dirt.

He may not have been a superstar along the lines of a Tom Seaver, or a slugger like Tommy Agee, or a high-average hitter like Cleon Jones, but Harrelson was perhaps the heart and soul of the team, a gutty little player who smoothly handled shortstop and was the glue of a solid defensive infield.

The “highlight” of his career came in the 1973 playoffs when Pete Rose, the rock-solid Cincinnati Red, ran into him at second base trying to break up a double play. Shoves ensued, followed by punches — Harrelson’s great line: “I hit him in the fist with my face.” — and one of the most famous bench-clearing incidents in baseball.

Harrelson was the only Met to be a member of their only World Championship teams: in 1969 as a player, and 1986 as a coach. He also served as manager, compiling a fairly impressive record before the team went into the tank and he was fired.

But there is no bitterness in him. Indeed, he has produced the kind of book many memoirists describe as “something they would like their kids to be able to read,” that is, without scandal, with lots of cheer and upbeat, and few (if any) cussing.

Harrelson is ably assisted in his project by Phil Pepe, the always-busy author and former sportswriter for the New York Daily News.

[Note: My spring  roundup appears on Bookreporter.com and is reposted here as individual reviews for your convenience.]

Tagged as: Bud Harrelson, New York Mets