A Tale of Two Hurlers

Last year, John Odom, a minor-league pitcher, gained notoriety for the first player to be traded for ten bats. At first, he played along with the deal and endured the chants of "Bat Man" and "Bat Boy" when coming to the mound. That didn't last long. He quit before the end of the season, and when his former manager tried contacting Odom in January to play ball this year, Odom didn't pick up his call.

Odom had died in November from an accidental overdose.

Matt McCarthy, on the other hand, left the minors and graduated from Yale and Harvard on the way to becoming a doctor. His memoir, Odd Man Out, depicts his year "playing with racist, steroids-taking teammates, pitching for a profane, unbalanced manager and observing obscene behavior and speech that in some ways reinforce the popular image of wild professional ballplayers." 

But, in the recent tradition of other "creative nonfiction" writers, it seems his story doesn't quite check out. Fortunately, a number of sports writers have noticed McCarthy's errors before Oprah made him her next Book of the Month selection.