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    The Baseball Whisperer: A Small-Town Coach Who Shaped Big League Dreams
    The Baseball Whisperer: A Small-Town Coach Who Shaped Big League Dreams
    The Baseball Whisperer: A Small-Town Coach Who Shaped Big League Dreams
    Audiobook8 hours

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

    Written by Michael Tackett

    Narrated by Mike Chamberlain

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    Clarinda, Iowa, population 5,000, sits two hours from anything. There, between the corn fields and hog yards, is a ball field with a bronze bust of a man named Merl Eberly, a baseball whisperer who specialized in second chances and lost causes.#160;The statue was a gift from one of Merl's original long shot projects, a skinny kid from the ghetto in Los Angeles who would one day become a beloved Hall of Fame shortstop: Ozzie Smith.The Baseball Whisperer#160;traces the remarkable story 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 (six of which are currently playing). In the process, Merl taught them to be men, insisting on hard work, integrity, and responsibility. More than a book about ballplayers who landed in the nation's agricultural heartland,#160;The Baseball Whisperer#160;is the story of a coach who puts character and dedication first, and reminds us of the best, purest form of baseball excellence.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateJul 5, 2016
    ISBN9781681681498

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    Reviews for The Baseball Whisperer

    3.5/5

    24 ratings9 reviews

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    • 4/5
      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.
    • 3/5
      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.
    • 3/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 2/5
      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.
    • 3/5
      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
    • 3/5
      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.
    • 3/5
      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.)
    • 5/5
      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.