The Baseball Whisperer: A Small-Town Coach Who Shaped Big League Dreams

By Michael Tackett

“Field of Dreams was only superficially about baseball. It was really about life. So is The Baseball Whisperer . . . with the added advantage of being all true.” —MLB.com
 
From an award-winning journalist, this is the story of a legendary coach and the professional-caliber baseball program he built in America's heartland, where boys would come summer after summer to be molded into ballplayers—and men. 
 
Clarinda, Iowa, population 5,000, sits two hours from anything. There, between the cornfields and hog yards, is a ball field with a bronze bust of a man named Merl Eberly, who specialized in second chances and lost causes. The statue was a gift from one of Merl’s original long-shot projects, a skinny kid from the Los Angeles ghetto who would one day become a beloved Hall-of-Fame shortstop: Ozzie Smith.
 
The Baseball Whisperer traces the “deeply engrossing” story (Booklist, starred review) of Merl Eberly and his Clarinda A’s baseball team, which he tended over the course of five decades, transforming them from a town team to a collegiate summer league powerhouse. Along with Ozzie Smith, future manager Bud Black, and star player Von Hayes, Merl developed scores of major league players. In the process, he taught them to be men, insisting on hard work, integrity, and responsibility. More than a book about ballplayers in the nation’s agricultural heartland, The Baseball Whisperer is the story of a coach who put character and dedication first, reminding us of the best, purest form of baseball excellence.
 
“Mike Tackett, talented journalist and baseball lover, has hit the sweet spot of the bat with his first book. The Baseball Whisperer takes one coach and one small Iowa town and illuminates both a sport and the human spirit.” —David Maraniss, New York Times-bestselling author of Clemente and When Pride Still Mattered

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jul 5, 2016
• ISBN: 9780544386396

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 by Michael Tackett

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [e-mail] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

hmhbooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Tackett, Michael.

Title: The Baseball Whisperer: a small-town coach who shaped Big League dreams / Michael Tackett.

Description: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015037778 | ISBN 9780544387645 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780544386396 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Eberly, Merl. | Baseball coaches—United States—Biography. | Baseball—Iowa—Clarinda.

Classification: LCC GV865.E3 T33 2016 | DDC 796.357092–dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015037778

Frontispiece photograph courtesy of Nodaway Valley Historical Museum Archives, Clarinda, Iowa

Cover design by Martha Kennedy

Cover photograph © David Peterson

v3.0521

For Julie, Kate, and especially Lee,

the player who refused to give up

Foreword

MERL EBERLY CREATED a real-life Field of Dreams. From his small town of Clarinda, Iowa, he built a national baseball powerhouse that produced three dozen major leaguers, including a Hall of Famer, and more than three hundred players who signed professional contracts. He helped to develop thousands of others, not just to become better players but also better people. He did it with the help of the people of his hometown, his tireless and relentlessly optimistic wife and partner, Pat, and the family-like community that baseball can be. He worked on his dream for more than fifty years, never asking anything in return and never receiving a dime for his labors. He did it to provide opportunity, to teach life lessons, and to stay connected to the game he loved. A coach had rescued him, and Merl spent his adulthood doing the same for others.

For many players, college summer ball represents the final chance to get a shot at playing professionally. They play with wooden bats to replicate the experience of pro ball and hope a scout will be sitting in the stands on the night they are at their best. The schedules are intense, sixty games over two months, and the bus rides between towns can be five or six hours long. Teams are located in hamlets such as Butler, Pennsylvania; New Market, Virginia; St. Joseph, Missouri; and Liberal, Kansas. They provide the towns with a sense of purpose and belonging, and they also deliver a low-cost source of entertainment. Host families open their homes to players, providing surrogate parenting, transportation, and cheerleading along with free room and board. In Clarinda, Merl Eberly also tried to find summer jobs for the players, whether it was running a jackhammer, sweeping factory floors, or painting the outfield fence.

Clarinda, a town of five thousand people located in the southwestern corner of the state, two hours from anywhere, is one of the smallest of those small places with a major college summer team. I know because my family lived it.

Our son made it to the college ranks, only to be cut during his sophomore year. He was devastated, yet refused to give up, writing to one hundred summer teams to ask for a chance. Only one of them said yes: the Clarinda A’s. It was during that summer that I learned a wonderful story about baseball and an even better one about life.

The Baseball Whisperer is the tale of a man, a town, and a team. It is the story of Merl Eberly, whose life was touched by a coach when he was a teenager headed for trouble. Instead, he became a standout athlete, playing four sports. His best was baseball, and he got his shot at the pros.

But this story is about much more than baseball. It is a narrative about a small-town America that people think lives only in myth. Players come to Clarinda from all over the country to find out how good they are on the field and what kind of men they will become. Eberly dedicated his life to providing opportunity for thousands of young men, all chasing the same dream he had harbored. He and the people of Clarinda changed lives. They did it without a glamorous setting or a lavishly funded program. They did it with their sweat and their hearts.

Merl Eberly, the quiet hero next door, was able to build a network of college coaches and pro scouts and then attract players from some of the highest-caliber collegiate baseball programs. These players come from manicured fields and fancy clubhouses to Municipal Stadium, where cornfields line the right-field fence, local businesses buy billboard ads in the outfield, and the county fair livestock pens sit across the street.

The players who make the trip learn about more than baseball, and that too was part of Eberly’s plan. He wanted to help young players become better men, learn the value of discipline and the selflessness of team play. He was stern. He demanded 100 percent effort, and when he didn’t get it, he would require punishing runs along the town’s bypass or endless loops in the outfield. Eberly admired George Patton and John Wayne and shared some traits with both men. He had standards and did not make exceptions for players who considered themselves above the team. While he was tough, he was never physically abusive and didn’t resort to profanity to make his point. Players also came to learn that he was demanding for their sake, not to feed his own ego. They discovered a softness and kindness beneath the tough façade. He found a way to tell players to trust their skills as he built their confidence, along with a lifelong kinship. It’s not about can we make them a better baseball player, Merl said. It’s about can we make them a better person. Some of the most famous coaches in college baseball became his disciples.

The town of Clarinda is a fitting place for an open embrace from people like Merl Eberly. Clarinda first opened its arms to slaves fleeing Missouri, and then to more than a dozen homeless children who were transported from Eastern cities to the Midwest in the Orphan Train Movement of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Clarinda is a place where values and commitment matter: for instance, the city council rejected a Wal-Mart for fear that it would change the town’s character by driving local merchants out of business.

The families and the players they host for the summers create enduring relationships. Some players have met their bride in Clarinda and also made their home there. Many write faithfully every year—even those who went on to the majors—sending holiday greetings and birthday cards to their moms and dads.

Merl Eberly was the heartbeat of Clarinda and a baseball whisperer, little known outside his town except to a circle of coaches, scouts, and the players and families who spread his legend. Players coming to get their shot left with much more, schooled not only in the game by Eberly but also in decency by the town collectively. In a sport that is dominated by money and cynicism and often treats players as mere commodities, Merl Eberly stood in opposition, forming citizen-athletes who carried a moral compass that he had instilled in them. He could have done it to make money, like those running dozens of other teams around the country. Instead, he invoked one rule for Clarinda management and coaches: nobody got paid. All funds went toward the players and the program.

Merl Eberly coached for more than four decades and served as his team’s general manager until his death in June 2011. The players who passed through Clarinda went on to become fixtures on SportsCenter and magazine covers, and they populate major league rosters and World Series play to this day.

I arrived in Clarinda, Iowa, like most people, driving along Glenn Miller Avenue, past the museum dedicated to the town’s most famous son, the renowned bandleader. My destination, Municipal Stadium, was less than a mile away. I was going there to see Eberly. Our son, reeling from being released by his college team only a few weeks before, was in the middle of an athletic and personal trial and renewal. He had written Merl and Pat Eberly, laying out his desire and asking for a chance. Merl was skeptical of a player who had been released. But Pat reread the letter and asked, Isn’t this just the kind of player we want here?

The experience was restorative, both on the field and off. Our son’s host family, Jill and Mike Devoe, who lived ten miles outside of Clarinda in a town of five hundred people, opened their home and their hearts to him, a kid who had grown up in metropolitan Washington, DC. Clarinda showed him a part of the country and an aspect of humanity that he had never seen. On the field, he proved he could compete on an even higher level. Upon his return to school, he made the team and became one of its top pitchers. More important, his faith in people was renewed.

The Baseball Whisperer recounts part of a journey that some parents make with their children all over the United States. It starts with that first baseball glove before Little League and goes on through travel teams and high school teams, the pyramid narrowing with each step. Some players move to the college ranks, still hoping that their days on the field won’t end yet. Playing in the summer, with wooden bats like the pros, they try to prove to scouts and coaches that they have what it takes.

Summer baseball programs offer an internship in life, one that pays in ways other than money. Clarinda is one of the smallest towns with such a successful program, and it works because the people of Clarinda represent a set of American values that we tend to think exist only in our nostalgia-driven imaginations.

In a time of increased specialization in sports, with travel leagues starting at ever-earlier ages, private coaches, and intense schedules, the program sustained for so many years by Merl and Pat Eberly still thrives because it honors the essence of the game and the best traits that players bring to a team.

When I met Merl and Pat Eberly and saw firsthand what they had built, when I watched a game at that stadium, with silos in the distance and corn as high as the right-field fence, I was convinced that they had created something that went well beyond baseball.

1

Changed Lives

WHEN PAT EBERLY woke up that morning and looked out at the gray skies and misty rain, she was alone for the first time in fifty-seven years. She had known this day was coming for at least a couple of years, though that didn’t really make it any easier. Merl, whom she had known since elementary school, the father of their six children, had died in this room in their home at 225 East Lincoln Street, and the void brought a singular kind of pain. The cancer that had been diagnosed in 2007 had finally, four years later, sapped his strength and ability to fight it. Though Merl never liked losing, this battle had been unwinnable.

When Pat rose from the bed, each step around the room brought another memory. She had moved the bed she had shared with her husband to the north wall from the west, where it had been for half a century, just enough of a change to make it bearable to stay in the room. She looked at the miniature grandfather clock on the wall, the one that a former player, Mike Kurtz, had given them, made from a cherry tree cut down on Kurtz’s farm in Oregon, Missouri. The pendulum of the clock was still swinging, but the hands had stopped at the time Merl’s body was taken from the house.

On the landing of the second floor outside the bedroom, Merl would do calisthenics first thing each morning, a series of jumping jacks, push-ups, and sit-ups. Heading down the steps, she could hear the groans of the old oak stairs, born of all those years of him running up and down for exercise or listening for one of the kids to come home at night. She would later decide to hang the large portrait of Merl at the bottom of the stairs. Her children questioned the decision, but came to agree that it was the best place for it because that was where Merl would stand to call up to them, mimicking reveille or shouting Time to do chores or Quiet down up there.

When Pat turned into the dining room, it was like walking into a museum of their life together, a time dominated by their love of baseball and family. She stood there, looking at their life’s work in the dozens of photos hanging on each wall. There were pictures of the men who had become major league baseball players, like Hall of Fame shortstop Ozzie Smith, Philadelphia Phillies star Von Hayes and Buddy Black, an All-Star left-handed pitcher who went on to be manager of the San Diego Padres. Smith’s place on the wall was special, and one striking color photograph in particular underscored how deep their relationship was. It showed Smith midway through his signature backflip at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, a display of athleticism that had endeared him to fans and his teammates. The lighting, the focus, and the contrast were all perfect, and it looked like a photo from a magazine. In fact, that is what it was. The photo was scheduled for the cover of Sports Illustrated to note Smith’s entry into the Hall of Fame, but never appeared because Ted Williams had died that week. The editors chose to put Williams on the cover instead. The photo was signed by Smith, one of only two copies.

Most of the photographs were inscribed to Merl and Mrs. E. The players had come during college summers from across the country to a place most had never heard of, Clarinda, Iowa, to play for a man whose reputation had been spread through word of mouth by players, coaches, and scouts, a whispered kind of fame.

Another wall was reserved for photos of the family, featuring the three sons wearing the uniforms of three different professional teams, posed as players do for baseball cards, and their three daughters, including an exhausted Jill breaking the tape after winning a race just as her father had taught her to finish—with no effort left to give.

Enough reflecting, Pat thought, and promptly got busy, the only way she knew how to be and the only way she was going to get through this day. She went through the checklist in her head. She had always been the detail person in her partnership with Merl. She wanted her husband’s body dressed in his gray suit and his favorite baseball-dotted tie. For the floral arrangement for the casket, she chose roses. Merl had sent her roses each year for their anniversary, one for every year of their marriage. The previous October he had sent a total of fifty-six. For this day she wanted one red rose to represent her, six white ones for their children, eleven pink ones for the grandchildren, and five yellow baby roses for the great-grandchildren. She even made a seating chart for special guests at the funeral service, then laughed to herself about her obsessiveness.

Rick, their oldest son, had been up since 5:30 after a sleepless night. He drove in the dawn’s light to the family timber hunting ground, about five miles from his boyhood home. The orange sunrise began to pour up from the broad horizon, the way it does in the middle of the country. He walked the fence line to gather himself, saw clouds forming, and hoped there would be no rain. The woods had been a special place for him and his father; for more than a half-century, they had bonded there while hunting pheasant or deer or fishing nearby. They could talk the whole time or not say a word, and the experience was almost the same. They were only twenty-two years apart, so their relationship was particularly close. A rooster pheasant crowed in the distance, announcing the morning and reminding Rick he had to head back.

The family had decided to hold a private burial before the funeral so that the service could be a celebration of Merl’s life. A limousine was parked on the east side of the house to lead a procession of cars to the cemetery, behind a police escort. As the family gathered in the caravan, Joy, the fourth of the six children, still couldn’t really take in the fact that she would never hear that voice again, the one saying, There’s my baby girl, or, Hey, kiddo, whenever she saw him. Even worse, she would never feel the warmth and strength of the bear hugs Merl gave her, with those huge hands, hands that always made her feel safe. They were also the hands that administered punishment, but embraces far outweighed spankings. When she held them one last time, she didn’t want to let go.

Joy’s three brothers and Merl’s six oldest grandsons raised the casket into the hearse, each wanting to make sure he had a hand in lifting Merl’s body. When they arrived at the gravesite, rain started to fall more steadily. Tears from heaven, Jill said. The minister read a passage from the Bible. Pat and her six children sat in chairs near other family members and a few close friends, including Smith, Hayes, and Jose Alvarez, another alumnus of the Clarinda A’s who went on to star in the major leagues, stood under a tent. They touched the casket before it was lowered, then returned to the cars to drive to the church.

They entered the side door of St. John’s Lutheran Church and headed to the basement to regroup. Pat had thought they would have the service in the family church, Westminster Presbyterian, which had a capacity of just over two hundred, but her children finally persuaded her that it would be much too small. Their baseball family was too large. It was good advice. The larger church was packed with mourners, who filled the sanctuary’s choir loft, the adjoining chapel, and the balcony; in fact, a video hookup was needed in the basement to accommodate the overflow crowd.

As Pat scanned the pews each person triggered a separate memory. The central themes of the life she’d had with Merl were all there in one place—the man, the town, and the team that they built.

As they waited in the basement they were joined by three former professional players who credited their time in Clarinda with launching their careers. There was Smith, the former shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals, who had come to Clarinda in the summer of 1975 as a player with promise, waiting for his opportunity to play for the team that Merl managed, the Clarinda A’s. Smith arrived as a 140-pound, five-foot-nine-inch shortstop who had been ignored by Division 1 college teams and professional scouts. It took one session of hitting ground balls to Smith for Merl to see a talent that others did not.

Von Hayes was there too. He had played twelve years in the major leagues and was once traded for five players. He came to Clarinda in 1978, only to be intimidated by the skill of the other players. He asked Merl to release him and to consider giving him a chance the following year. Merl agreed to let him come back—he always had a soft spot for kids with genuine desire. Hayes returned the following summer, and within two years he was playing in the big leagues.

Alvarez also stood among them. After playing for Eberly, Alvarez went on to pitch for the Atlanta Braves, and more than twenty years later he saw his son, Seve, play center field in Clarinda. For Alvarez, Eberly filled the hole left by an absent father who never came to see his son play in the big leagues. Merl told me, ‘One summer in Clarinda will change your life,’ Alvarez said in his eulogy. And in so many ways, it really did—because of Merl.

Merl’s impact on these professional players at a formative time in their lives stands in such contrast to the caricature of the entitled athlete. Their time with him engendered a sense of mutual friendship and obligation that would outlast playing careers, some marriages, and fame.

Other players, spanning six decades of baseball in Clarinda, were waiting to join the Eberly family in the church. Merl had been so proud of these men who came to Clarinda as boys, especially the ones who had come the furthest and made something of themselves, perhaps because they reminded him of himself, a man who a lot of people thought would never amount to anything.

Townspeople who had helped Merl sustain his team were there as well. Families who had opened their homes to players to live for the summer, to watch over them, feed them, and cheer them, people like Mike and Jill Devoe, were there. Jill’s parents had hosted A’s players when she was a child, giving her summer big brothers, and she and Mike went on to do the same, giving their own children the experience of taking someone into their home, providing support and comfort, expecting nothing in return. Owners of many of the small businesses in town whose contributions over the years kept the program alive, like Larry and Shira Bridie, came as well. The Bridies ran Weil’s, a clothing store on the town square that often provided the uniforms for Merl’s Clarinda A’s. They gave Merl money, they hosted players, they attended the games, and they wholeheartedly bought into Merl’s dream of what the team could do for the town. Former classmates from Clarinda High School, including those who never thought Merl’s marriage to Pat would last, sat among the crowd. Colleagues from the Clarinda Herald-Journal were there too, including the people who hired Merl back in the 1950s. Merl would spend thirty years writing and selling ads for the Herald-Journal.

Then there were the baseball people, the scouts, the coaches, along with the men affiliated with major league teams and executives from the National Baseball Congress (NBC). They couldn’t miss this moment to honor a man who embodied for them baseball’s most virtuous dimensions, like trust and honor and the spirit of what it means to be part of a team.

When the family walked up the stairs, they saw a crowd of six hundred people who had come to honor Merl. Ryan, the sensitive, broad-shouldered middle son who had taken over coaching the team a few years after Merl stepped down, looked around the church and took a measure of the lives his father had touched, the people who felt compelled to travel from across the country to pay their respects. He had been a part of his father’s dream from his days as an A’s batboy to his signing of a professional contract with the New York Yankees, to his return as the man who would replace his father on the field as the manager. When his other family members spoke and sang at the service, he thought about how strong his father had made all of them.

The two oldest great-grandsons wore their Cubs jerseys to honor Merl’s favorite team—her dad had always loved an underdog, Joy remembered. He had listened to the Cubs on the radio as a child, then on the superstation WGN with Harry Caray delivering the play-by-play, the team’s futility never quite pathetic enough to override Merl’s loyalty.

The family lined up for seating in order of age, according to Pat’s chart. The six children and their families sat with Pat in the front pews on both sides. A large photo of Merl was placed on an easel. The entire Clarinda A’s team from 2011, each wearing the team jersey, stood along the south wall so others could sit. This was not a part of Pat’s script. The players came up with the idea—and the emotional impact was powerful. Just the sight of them made Joy weep. Her husband, Dave Cox, would cry

Reviews for The Baseball Whisperer

[spacechick365 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was a cool story about baseball in the midwest. It was interesting how Merl coached and brought the entire community into the Baseball world. His love for Baseball lived in the folks on his minor league team and his kids. This was a fun inspirational story.

[samsattler · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Merle Eberly, a gifted athlete from little Clarinda, Iowa, developed a deep love for the game of baseball when he was just a kid – and that love and respect for the game burned in the man’s heart right up until the moment he died. So have a lot of us, you say? Well, consider this: Merle spent as much time playing and coaching the game of baseball for the Clarinda A’s (four decades) as he did working the job that put food on the table (small-town newspaperman) for him, his wife, and their six children. And there is little doubt that coaching baseball was the position Merle considered to be his real life’s work.For good reason, Merle was a man who believed in second chances. If not for the coaches who saw enough in him to challenge him to use sports to turn his own lazy approach to life around, Merle’s life would have turned out much differently than it did. Sports saved Merle from himself and showed him what he was capable of achieving, even in a small town whose five thousand citizens sometimes feel as if they live two hours from just about everything. What the town did have was a baseball team, a team that everyone in town was proud to call its own.Merle, a natural catcher because of his size, was an essential part of that team, as player and coach, for over forty years, and he used the team countless times to pay forward the favor done to him by those high school coaches so many years earlier. Before it was over, Merle and the Clarinda A’s were synonymous – and today a bronze bust of Merle Eberly is prominently displayed at the team’s ballpark, a ballpark that sits snugly between corn fields, auction barns, and hog yards just as it always has.An immediate goal of Merle’s when he became a player/manager for the A’s was to bring his team to national prominence by successfully playing against such a high level of competition that the A’s could not be ignored. He succeeded in that goal to such a degree that college coaches from around the country soon felt comfortable sending Merle “projects” of their own during the summer months that the college programs shut down for the season. These “projects” were players either on the verge of breakthrough to a higher level or those who needed to be tested against better competition once and for all to determine what could be expected of them by their coaches. Merle ran a tight ship. He expected a lot from his players, a complete dedication to the game while he coached them in Clarinda, and players unable or unwilling to live up to Merle’s standards were sent packing. The second chance they got from Merle to turn their careers around was usually the only second chance he gave his players – misbehavior in a town as small as Clarinda is impossible to hide, especially since every player on the team lives with a host family for the summer. Drugs, drinking, and all-night partying were firing offenses. So how good was Merle’s program? Without the Clarinda A’s, baseball may have given up on Hall-of-Famer Ozzie Smith before he had a chance to show what he could do despite his small size. And Ozzie was not Merle’s only major league success story. Other major leaguers who played for Merle include: Buddy Black, Von Hayes, Jose Alvarez, Scott Brosius, Andy Benes, Cal Edred, Chuck Knoblauch, Brady Clark, and Andrew Cashner. Many of Merle’s players became lifelong friends to Merle and his wife Pat. Over the years they helped support the program with financial help and the kind of moral support that money can’t buy, and when Merle died in 2011 many of them were among the 600 people who attended his funeral.The Baseball Whisperer is much more than just another baseball book; it is a book about life - an example of how to make the most of life while at the same time giving back to the community that made it all possible. Merle Eberly was a remarkable man, and baseball was lucky to have him for as long as it did. We all were.

[acvickers · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I always enjoy a good sports story, especially it is inspirational. As I have said before, I'm not a huge audiobook fan but still I like to give them a shot. This one is pretty interesting, despite the fact that I still believe I'd much rather read it than listen to it. Merl Eberly is an interesting man, who helped mold the likes of Ozzie Smith and countless others (not to ruin anything, read to find out who else). This book reminds me of the purity I felt when playing the game and just in general the way the game should be played. If you are a sports fan, especially a baseball fan, and especially especially if you are a fan of the history of the game, this is more than worth your time. You won't be disappointed.

[sleahey_3 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This is an account of a small town and its embrace of a coach, his college league baseball team, and the successes, challenges, and values of the people involved. Unfortunately, the audiobook is narrated by a reader who certainly projects, but whose voice has very little inflection, resulting in monotony. Furthermore, the text is quite repetitive, pounding home the message of the importance of Coach Eberle's traditional values and the impact they have had on his players. The first few accounts of players who were touched by his influence were moving and informative, but the many stories are pretty similar, and indeed the same people are described many times in similar ways. As interested as I was in learning about how the college league functions, I felt that this full-length book would have been more effective if it were shortened and part of an anthology.

[thewanderingjew_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Baseball Whisperer: A Small-Town Coach Who Shaped Big League Dreams***, Michael Tackett, author; Mike Chamberlain, narratorThis CD is about a really nice man, Merl Eberly, who dedicated his life to baseball and baseball players who needed another chance. He took young men who had been underserved, and perhaps who had underachieved, those who had been rejected by baseball, and in some cases life, and he gave them another chance if he believed that they still had what it took to be a successful baseball player and a responsible man. He demanded obedience to his rules; and he helped to get them jobs and housing so they could train. He made many a champion by giving them a second and even third chance, because he knew what it was like to make it and lose it, to love baseball above all else and fail to secure a future in the game. He deserves his status as a hero to baseball and those he helped.He and his wife Pat gave these men a strong foundation by teaching them and demanding from them, good values and respect for rules. Merl maintained a strong standard of discipline and if the young men didn’t, there was often zero tolerance. They would be asked to leave if they were found wanting. Together, Merl and Pat did wonderful things for young men who might have wound up in dire trouble, absent their special effort, interest and concern for their well-being. They gave them hope for a better future, including a model to emulate and a guide to live by as men. I found the book to be geared to men and women who had a great love and understanding of baseball. My husband enjoyed listening to it far more than I did, because he is a man of a certain age who could identify with some of the men mentioned, and he understood that era of baseball with its different code of behavior. It is about a time when the love of the game was first and foremost; today it is more about the love of money. We both enjoy minor league baseball, as a family, and we often attend the games in Cape Cod that the book highlights. We have all the paraphernalia, shirts, hats and balls. Long live the Cotuit Kettleers, and long live the summer college leagues and people like Merl Eberly who possess a clearer vision of possibilities and provide opportunities for others. Long live the Clarinda A’s, of Iowa with their strong ethics and sense of morality!I would recommend the print book over the audio, although it is read clearly and well by the narrator, because the material is a little dry and a little repetitive. If you aren’t completely immersed in the book, you might zone out as I did. It is not as easy to go back to a particular place on a CD as it is in a book in order to clarify something you miss.***I received this CD as part of the Early Reviewer’s Program on librarything.com

[thornton37814 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Merl Eberly owned and managed the Clarinda A's, a semi-professional baseball team. Over the years many future professional baseball players made their way through the ranks. Merl developed a good relationship with college baseball coaches across the country who would send some of their best to Merl to make them better players. Merl sounds like an incredible man. Clarinda, Iowa sounds like a wonderful small town. I listened to the High Bridge Audio version of this book which I received through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program with the expectation of an unbiased review. I really got tired of hearing the same things repeated about Merl and Clarinda as the reminisce changed from one former player to the next. I can only listen to the same thing so often, but I was determined to make it further than through the second CD. When I got to the seventh, we discovered Merl loved baseball right to his final breath, which was really no surprise. I suspect this book works better in print than on audio. It took me awhile to adjust to the narrator's lack of enthusiasm in reading the narrative. It was almost like listening to a news reporter rather than a sports reporter. This one is probably only for the die-hard baseball enthusiast or fan of the Clarinda A's or a fan of one of the former players who makes frequent appearances in the book.

[linda555-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is mostly about a baseball coach and the small town he lived in. Not heavy on the details of the game so you don't have to be a baseball fan to enjoy this book. Very inspiring.

[wickabod · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed Michael Tackett's story of the Clarinda (Iowa) A's -- a college summer league baseball team -- and their longtime manager Merl Eberly. Baseball is in my veins, and I've always loved college summer league ball. It's a special level of ball that involves host families, full community support, and players with part-time jobs. It's about small-town America; hopes and dreams; hard work and integrity; and the pursuit of excellence. The baseball is played at a very high level, but there's a purity and sense of fun that make it special. Many of these kids will play professionally one day, but for now they're still kids spending their summers playing ball for free. It's a perfect sort of way station between college baseball and the pro ranks.Not all the kids who Merl mentored achieve major-league stardom, and some never even reach the minors. We hear about both the successes and the disappointments. Some players go on to become coaches or umpires; others become lawyers or teachers. They become parents and grandparents. This book is about all of them, and the man who taught them dedication and helped them become better players and better men . . . on and off the field.It's an interesting book and the narrative moves along smoothly. Eberly seems like genuinely remarkable man, and the town of Clarinda seems like a special place. This is a nice story, told with affection. Tackett's son played for the A's, and he clearly has fondness and admiration for the Eberlys, the team, and the community. That said, there's a lot of repetition and the prose often becomes downright corny (sorry for the Iowa pun!). There's a certain one-note "gee-whiz" tone that I found grating, and the book lacks nuance and complexity. Still, it's recommended reading for baseball fans and non-fans alike.(Thanks to Houghton Mifflin and HighBridge Audio for an advance copy via a giveaway. Receiving a free copy did not affect the content of my review.)

[qstewart_5 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A biography of Merl Eberly, the Baseball Whisperer, that every fan and lover of the sport of baseball should have in their library. It is a story of a man with a troubled childhood who ran into a coach who turned him around and started his love for sports and in particular baseball. He made it to the big leagues, but did not stick and he returned to his home town of Clarinda, Iowa to settle down and play some summer ball with a local team.He became manager of the Clarinda A's and began to teach young men the game and through that also taught them how to be men. Soon college coaches were sending players to him who had some promise of being good college players and even possibly going on to the majors. Merl's story also becomes the story of Clarinda because to help with the team Merl housed the players with the families of the town. Small town families were opening their homes to big city young men who may have never seen a corn field until they had looked over the fence of the baseball field that they would spend the summer playing on. Merl's story is of a coach who was strict and expected his rules to be followed. He wanted his players to respect the game and to respect other people. He as not above sending players home if they broke the rules or did not show the respect he expected. He was caring man and his home was open to his players and his wife was his partner and aide in all of this, many times feeding several of the players along with her family. Merl's family and the families of Clarinda gave many of these young men their first real taste of what being part of a family was really about. The A's won a national championship and many players left the program and went on to the majors (two being Ozzie Smith and Von Hayes). Throughout the book Tackett uses the words of Merl's ex-players to express that they not only learned baseball, the also grew up and became men under his tutelage. But by the mid-1990s Merl could see that things were changing and that money and winning were becoming more important then the game. He always wanted his players to keep that Little League player from their past in the back pocket and to have fun playing the game. But that was disappearing as corporations entered into the professional game and he decided it was time to step down. But he did not leave the game. He became the general manager and continue to work with the Clarinda A's. This is how I remember baseball. I recall it as a team sport and not a stage for multi-million dollar players to be in the headlines more often then not for something off of the field. Merl loved the game and he respected the game. Tackett helps to recall those glory days and out of the cornfields of Iowa gives us another baseball hero. All lovers of the game should read this one.