Here's the Catch: A Memoir of the Miracle Mets and More

Description

Ron Swoboda wasn't the greatest player the Mets ever had, but he made the greatest catch in Met history, saving a game in the 1969 World Series, and his RBI clinched the final game, making him a Mets legend. The Mets even use a steel silhouette of the catch as a backing for the right field entrance sign at Citi Field. In this smart, funny, insightful memoir, which is as self-deprecating as a lifetime .249 hitter has to be, he tells the story of that magical year nearly game by game, revealing his struggles, his triumphs and what life was like for an every day, Every Man player, even when he was being platooned. He shows what it took to make one of the worst teams in baseball and what it was like to leave one of the best. And when he talks about the guys he played with and against, it's like you're sitting next to him on the team bus, drinking Rheingold. This is a book anyone who loves the game will love as much.

Ron Swoboda played right field for the Mets from 1965 to 1970, the Expos in 1971 and the Yankees from 1971 to 1973. Afterwards he was a TV sportscaster in New York City, Milwaukee and New Orleans, where he provided color commentator for telecasts of the Marlins' AAA club and now lives.

To hear him tell it, former New York Mets outfielder Ron Swoboda is a lucky man; fortunately for the reader, he is also a witty writer with a highly developed self-deprecating sense of humor. In a year that will see an explosion of Mets books, this is an unexpectedly good one. Ron, why did you wait so long to write it? --Booklist Here's the Catch is a winner. All that is revealed surrounding his time in baseball, including two-plus seasons as a New York Yankee, comes from Swoboda's heart. How Swoboda reinvented himself, as his playing options dwindles, into a career in TV sportscasting is nothing less than fascinating. --Utica Observer-Dispatch "Perhaps the most memorable image from the 1969 World Series is right fielder Ron Swoboda splayed on his side following his diving catch in the fourth game. Swoboda's memoir, fittingly titled Here's the Catch, centers on his career-defining snag, but it's more than that. At its core, the book is a quirky, gruff, intermittently lyrical exploration of the precarious life of a marginal major leaguer -- one who quotes Victorian poetry in one sentence, then likens his on-field performance to whale dung in the next." --Newsday A rollicking memoir...with tales of Swoboda's remarkable relationships with some of baseball's greats -- the colorful Casey Stengel, Gil Hodges and Tug McGraw. There's a fair amount of locker-room humor and fast-paced accounts of memorable games, including that 1969 catch. --The New Orleans Advocate This is a loving look back at an exciting life and mediocre career for which the author refreshingly expresses great gratitude. A Mets book anyone can enjoy. --Spitball