Book: The Complete Game, by Ron Darling (2009)

Here’s how much I enjoyed this book. I would recommend it even if it weren’t written by a member of your 1986 World Series champion New York Mets.

Darling, who had a solid journeyman career, revisits nine innings he either pitched himself or observed closely as an Emmy-winning commentator for the Mets, plus an extraordinary bonus from his days at Yale. “Pitchers are considered the non-athletes of the game,” he notes, and as such are often the most isolated players. The book takes you inside their process as they face every conceivable situation – a must-win game, an injury, an inning in which the wheels come off, a session on the hill late in life’s season when the pitcher finds himself wearing a May hat in August. Casual baseball fans will like The Complete Game. Hardcore ones will devour it.

Here’s Ronnie promoting the book with my fellow Mets fan Jon Stewart on The Daily Show.