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Coming to a book store near you.
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Feinstein, Moose & Glav
John Feinstein, the wonderful author of the unforgettable 1987 best-seller "A Season on the Brink," about coach Bobby Knight and the champion University of Indiana Hoosiers, has been on the Glavine-Mike Mussina trail for nearly a year now, picking the pitchers' brains for a book about them to be released before the 2008 season.
The following is my interview with Feinstein about this project and these two intriguing figures.
When did you come up with this book?
Actually, the concept came to me in 1999. I wanted to write a book about pitching, using someone who was not only great at doing it but who was also really smart, who could describe what he does and how he got to be so great.
My original choice was David Cone. I thought he'd be perfect. But, unfortunately for me, I ultimately learned that he already had a commitment to do a book with (the famous "New Yorker" writer) Roger Angell.
I then revisited the concept this winter and boiled it down to four pitchers: Glavine, Mussina, John Smoltz and Jamie Moyer. I eventually decided on Tom and Mike. I knew them both very well and I liked the idea of one Met and one Yankee, one lefty and one righty, both fairly deep into their careers, and who made huge changes by signing with New York teams — and, for a time, struggled, Tom more on the mound, Mike more in the clubhouse.
Were they immediately receptive
to doing it?
Tom was much easier to sell. Mike had a lot of questions, such as: "How much time will this involve?" and "How often will you need to see me?" Mike is very careful. I needed to talk to him three, four times until he agreed. But once he committed to it, he was terrific.
What have you learned about them?
Well, they both have sneaky senses of humor. Tom is very dry, while Mike is razor sharp. Mike has a T-shirt that sums him up totally; on top, it reads, "National Sarcasm Society," but underneath reads the line: "Like we really need your support."
Tom is more easy-going; I can talk to him before one of his starts and he doesn't mind at all. But if you try that with Mike, he might bark at you.
Both have really good memories, although Mike is more precise, knows his career down to the exact numbers.
Their approaches are different, though. Like Tom has never had trouble working with a catcher. In fact, Lo Duca told me that Tom is the easiest pitcher he's ever worked with, that Tom has shaken him off just one time in two years. On the other hand, Mike will shake off his catcher around 50 percent of the time.
Who's the smarter one?
Funny you should ask that. I joked with Tom one day that I thought Mike was smarter than he is, and Tom, in typical fashion, laughed and agreed.
But the truth is, there is no smarter pitcher than Glavine in the game and if the Mets young pitchers have any smarts they will follow him around and learn from him, everything from how to throw a proper bullpen to how to throw the perfect breaking ball.
In fact, Jamie Moyer told me that for years he carried a videotape around of Glavine's Game 6 clincher in the 1995 World Series (a one-hitter over eight innings), that he considered it the definitive game of a lefty who doesn't throw hard but was as close to perfect as anyone can be.
Are you interviewing only Glavine and Mussina for this book?
Not at all. Paul Lo Duca (who will go through Tom's 300th win pitch by pitch), Rick Peterson, Jorge Posada, Joe Torre, Ron Guidry and Willie Randolph, among others, will play roles in the book. I talked to all the important people in these pitchers' lives. There's a lot of back story, which is what I've always done in my books. |
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I was going to say "no", but the alternatives look like (a) overpaying in a weak free agent market, (b) having two of Pelfrey, Humber, and Mulvey in the 2008 rotation, and (c) trading for a better pitcher, which would probably cost us one of the three pitching prospects plus Milledge (or maybe Gomez).