This book was certainly well worth the time. I recommend it to any baseball fan.

George Gmelch's Inside Pitch uncovers the lives of professional baseball players behind the scene, from an anthropological perspective. What this means is that the emphasis is placed on observations. There is not much of extravagance, often arising from the glamorized life style of ballplayers. Rather, it is the unglamorized side of stories that interests us in this book. This is an academic writing (though very readable), and as such it might look like a little dry read, except on a few occasions like when Gmelch, with his old teammates, reminisces his own days as a ballplayer back in the 60's, and writing about such highly emotional events as the release of a minor leaguer.

The stories are told mostly from interviews of various people involved in the game, such as players, managers, scouts, people in management, wives of players, and even groupies. Being a former ballplayer himself, Gmelch does not miss those questions that would naturally arise from any curious baseball fans. Also it enables him to have comparative views on how things have changed from the days when he actually played, e.g., the increased role of money and the improved, yet somewhat less camaraderie-oriented (for the lack of better words) conditions surrounding minor leaguers.

Despite being an observer, Gmelch obviously can relate deeply to players, having gone through similar emotional up's and down's himself. After learning how much the players need to go through before only few among them eventually climb up to the topmost echelon of the baseball world, I came to find myself accepting of players being lavishly paid (still don't want another strike, though), especially considering that in many other outrageously paid occupations like cooperate CEO's and entertainers, breed, luck, and/or connection may play much greater roles than sheer skills, for which others are paying. That is the extent to which you would come to feel like rooting both for those who flourish in the glory of the major league and for those whose dream ends up being shattered after tremendous hard work and stiff competitions.

The purpose of this work, of course, is not to sensationalize or sentimentalize, so it is understandable that the tone of the narrative throughout the book is reserved to an extent, despite that many stories can be emotionally involved. For me, that takes something away from this highly interesting work. This is probably an unfair criticism from a student, being tired of reading too much academic work in an ivory tower. No wonder that two of the chapters I like most deal with players with unfulfilled dreams, including that of young Gmelch.

I highly recommend this book to those who wish to view ballplayers as human beings, just like us.

This book is an enjoyable read and highly informative. I have adopted it as a mandatory reading for my university course "Peoples and Cultures of the Caribbean."