About the Book
It’s an exclusive club. Thirty
teams, 25 players each, 750 players in all. For every new player that
wins a place on the roster, another player is removed. A few talented
players have careers that cover more than two decades. Most last less
than three years. But for those who can retain a place on the roster,
the money is good – minimum wage is almost $450,000 a year. And
if they’re really superstars, they can end up with an annual eight-figure
salary. But there is more to it than money.
The men of baseball love the game
and they love the clubhouse. The game sometimes costs them their wives
and time with their kids. The clubhouse is where they bond as a team
and as a family. As with all families, it is a place of laughter and
anger, tragedy and loss, happiness and dysfunction. And what unites
that family is love. The love of a game called baseball.
This collection of encounters with
some of these men by sportswriter Larry LaRue takes the readers inside
the clubhouse and behind the scenes to share with the reader what these
men have accomplished and the price they have paid.
About the Author
Newspapers were part
of his life long before Larry LaRue started working for them at age 18. His
grandmother was a typesetter for a weekly in San Dimas, California, and he sat
in her lap while she’d run an old lead-type machine. He was first published at
10, when a San Clemente newspaper ran his story on Pookie, his dog.
He’s been writing ever
since. Five newspapers, a business journal and an entertainment magazine
wrapped around brief careers as a window washer, bouncer, and private
investigator. Always, he wrote.
There was a book on an
American Capuchin priest who performed exorcisms in New York and Iowa, another
on political cartoonists, a novel based on a news story he followed, and a book
of major league baseball anecdotes. All wound up in a drawer or a closet.
Since 1976, there’s
been another constant in his life – George Cunningham. As co-workers,
backpackers, entrepreneurs, political opposites, writers, photographers and
friends they have pursued projects and dreams together.
Reader Publishing
Group may be the best yet for George and Carmela Cunningham, and LaRue was one
of the first to leap on their backs.
Currently a writer
with the Tacoma News Tribune covering the Seattle Mariners, LaRue’s sports
writing can be found at http://www.thenewstribune.com/sports/mariners/ and you can follow him and see his photography on Facebook
at facebook.com/kwlarue, Twitter at @LarryLaRue and the News Tribune Mariners’ blog at http://blog.thenewstribune.com/mariners/.
His most recent
ambition hasn’t changed in 35 years – LaRue is writing projects he hopes
Cunningham can use to get him out of the newspaper business.
Find the Author
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