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I cannot understate how fortunate I feel to have had a chance to speak with Dirk Hayhurst on the Cover the Bases podcast. His book The Bullpen Gospels: Major League Dreams of a Minor League Veteran is receiving critical comparisons to classics such as The Catcher in the Rye and to the baseball standard Ball Four. I am convinced that many years from now I will pridefully point to this episode and exclaim, “I spoke for 40 minutes to Dirk Hayhurst about The Bullpen Gospels!”. 
This page turner will make you alternately laugh or cry, as Dirk presents both the camaraderie of being one of the guys trying to make it to the bigs and the hardships of reaching for the dream while surviving a dysfunctional family.
As readers, we are fortunate that this book is not just another pulp expose of what we have come to expect from “behind the scenes” baseball books, rather it is a thought provoking glimpse from someone who wants to deliver a critique of what it means to be a man inside the uniform of a major leaguer. We get to read about, and celebrate, the healing that he has experienced … only because he has shown us the pain and suffering he has endured through challenges on and off the field.
The title for this book comes from the column that Dirk had written for his hometown newspaper called the Canton Repository. The Bullpen Gospels does hint at the higher wisdom that Dirk uncovers during the most important episodes in the book. After having a difficult outing in front of the top management of the organization, he is confronted with this alcoholic brother’s desire to reach out to those he has hurt in the past. While Dirk is in no mood to forgive so easily, he comes to the realization that all he has been striving for is right in front of him. That the true measure of the person underneath the uniform, is how he deals with adversity.
Meanwhile, Dirk’s roommate Frenchy is distraught over his own perceived failings until Dirk can set him straight on the realities of baseball. It was at this moment that Dirk became aware of the wisdom that he had acquired within the game, as well as the vision to see what he would become if he bought into the sport as the single driving force in his life.
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