Just Tell Me I Can't
How Jamie Moyer Defied the Radar Gun and Defeated Time
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- $21.99
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
An extraordinary -- and surprising -- memoir from Jamie Moyer, who at age 49 became the oldest pitcher to ever win a game in the major leagues.
Long-time fans of the National Pastime have known Moyer's name for more than 25 years. That's because he's been pitching in the bigs for all those years.
With his trademark three pitches - slow, slower, and slowest - the left-handed Moyer is a pinpoint specialist whose won-lost record actually got better as he got older -- from his 20s to his 30s and into 40s. He's only a few wins shy of 300 for his amazing career.
But this is where the book takes an unusual turn. Moyer was just about finished as a big leaguer in his mid-20s until he fatefully encountered a gravel-voiced, highly confrontational sports psychologist named Harvey Dorfman. Listening to the "in-your-face" insights of Dorfman, Moyer began to re-invent himself and reconstruct his approach to his game. Moyer went on to become an All-Star and also a World Series champion.
Yogi Berra once observed that "Half of this game is 90% mental." And Moyer's memoir proves it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Whether you love baseball or don't know the infield from the outfield, this unusual memoir told in the third person is nevertheless riveting. Pitcher Moyer entered the record books in 2012 at age 49 as the major league's oldest pitcher to win a game. Despite myriad disappointments and nasty injuries over the course of his career, he keeps coming back and seems only to improve with age: he won more games in his forties than twenties. His success is largely attributed to his mental discipline, a quality he learned to hone from his mentor, the late Harvey Dorfman, who validated the role of sports psychology in baseball. In many ways, Moyer's story testifies to the importance of mental discipline in baseball. The story is made lucid with the help of co-author Platt, former editor of the Philadelphia Daily News, who lived with the Moyer family during the writing process. Together, the two cover the wins and the losses, plus the development of the Moyer Foundation's Camp Erin, the largest collection of child bereavement camps in the country. This is an appealing story of a sportsman with a good heart and a strong mind.
