Everyone is entitled to an opinion

I belong to a Facebook group focusing on baseball books. Once in a while, someone will post a question about the merit of a title. One of the most recent discussions seemed to focus on autobiography and memoir.

While I am fascinated by the whole concept of memory, when it comes to these types of books, I find them can be a bit suspect. A good number of the “authors” — I put the title in quotations because most of them work with a co-writer or ghostwriter in some cases where they don’t want to openly share credit — have had to overcome some form of adversity, whether an impoverished or abusive background (or both) or dealing with physical or emotional issues which put their career in jeopardy. Stories of perseverance are always a good sell.

Fortunately, not everyone is subject to misfortune. But unfortunately, they don’t make for compelling stories, as was the case, IMO, for NY Mets superhero David Wright in The Captain: A Memoir. Other than the injuries that cut a career that probably would have lasted more than 14 seasons, there’s no real drama to be found.

Most of these are produced by superstars but there are those who tried to capitalize on a fantastic rookie season or a prominent event. Two that come immediately to mind is Super Joe: The Life and Legend of Joe Charboneau, published in 1981. The Cleveland Indians wunderkind was out of the game the next year. The other was Teammate: My Journey in Baseball and a World Series for the Ages by David Ross, a backup catcher who batted .229 with 106 home runs over a 15-year career who had the good fortune to have a good showing for the Chicago Cubs in their long-awaited World Series win in 2016.

At the time when PEDs were all anyone talked about, Jose Canseco gave us not one, but two books — Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ‘Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big in 2006 and Vindicated: Big Names, Big Liars, and the Battle to Save Baseball two years later. Alex Rodriguez published the eponymous A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez in 2009. And let’s not forget about House of Nails:  A Memoir of Life on the Edge (2018). Books like this named names and dished the dirt as the subject tried to either justify or excuse his behavior.

Then there are those written by those stars where the main focus seems to complain about how the game has deteriorated since they were in the game, either on the field or due to the new statistics that seek to quantify every aspect of the national pastime, some would say at the expense of the “human aspects.” There’s almost a sour-grapes quality, even though most of these were written by ballplayers who benefitted from playing in the era of free agency, as opposed to those who missed out on the big bucks. A subgenre of this is books written by baseball journalists or broadcasters, pointing out flaws in the sport they cover, such as the Billy Ripken’s 2020 State of Play: The Old School Guide To New School Baseball.

Of course there are some truly great and inspirational memoirs out there such as Buck O’Neil’s I Was Right On Time and Hank Aaron’s I Had A Hammer. Sadly, I have found these to be few and far between.

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What are some of your favorite books in the area of autobiography and memoir, and why? It’s okay if you’re merely into celebrity culture and love hear the dirt. Just curious.