3 Nights in August: Strategy, Heartbreak and Joy. Inside the Mind of a Manager

[Majordave]

This was a pure baseball book. A fantastic read and I hated to put it down and was sad when I finished it. Since I coached/managed for 20 years before I got into umpiring at age 43 I could really identify the pure baseball point of view. This book was a collaborative effort by Buzz Bissinger (author of Friday Night Lights) and Tony La Russa about a 3 game series between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs in St. Louis during the 2003 season. It also includes a chapter about the 2004 National League Championship season at the end of the book.

It was so different in focus and approach from any other baseball book I have ever read. It really delves into the decision making and game preparation that La Russa and pitching coach Dave Duncan must endure in their labor of love as a coaching/managing collaborative duo together for over 25 years. I have always respected how they coach and manage and how La Russa's (and to a large extent Duncan's as well) teams approach the game. The information presented is not always flattering to La Russa but he wanted his story, his methods, presented as they are, warts and all. He is an extremely successful manager in all categories and facets of the game except for World Series Championships.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. There is a chapter at the end where Bissinger takes on the "Moneyball" book and its theories and followers as being wrong in assessing the game of Major League Baseball as nothing but numbers and the incessant shift to club management taking only the numbers into consideration. I always believed the college coaches I dealt with as an American Legion Coach were only interested in the five tools of a player. They rarely asked my opinion as to the players "sixth tool" his baseball acumen and love of the game itself. I coached and developed many very good players but not that many players that truly loved the game above all else and had a respect for the history and the mental aspects of the game. That being said, in all fairness to the players, the game of baseball at the collegiate and professional levels requires significant amounts of pure physical talent and dedication to excel but the mental development and historical and analytical aspects, i.e. the "game within the game" part that I dearly love and most middle-aged men love is not what the younger generations can truly appreciate. I believe that our baseball minds don't develop as rapidly as our physical tools (if they ever do for many of us) and quite often can't be developed until the physical abilities have degraded to the point that the mind becomes the main asset of the person. In the book there is a sub-plot about a bench player and a star player that La Russa does not like because the bench player does not play with his head and use what he has been coached to do, while the star does not play with the desire and heart that La Russa believes he should play with. In the series the bench player in the game due to an injury of the star player delivers the crucial, game clinching hit and the star is traded after the season.

In summary, it is, in my opinion, a great book. IF you love baseball, the game and especially the tactics and strategies of managing and developing players this book is for you. The amount of preparation and time the coaching staffs and other support personnel expend is staggering and leaves time for very little else. For La Russa, he essentially all but abandons his family during the entire season. They live in Northern California while he lives in a hotel in St. Louis or wherever the Cardinals are playing. Not a glamorous existence. It really gave me an appreciation for the almost complete sacrifice that he and Dave Duncan give to be the successful manager/pitching coach duo that they are. Very impressive and eye opening.

My two cents........

[Umpire in Chief]

Great review will add it to the list of books I will read one day.