A fascinating and revealing look inside the lives of umpires, from the godfather of creative nonfiction In 1974, Lee Gutkind walked into Shea Stadium, then home of the New York Mets, with an unusual proposal. He wanted to chronicle one of the least celebrated cadres in professional baseball: the umpires. Gutkind spent one exhilarating season traveling with the officiating crew he found that day-Doug Harvey, Nick Colosi, Harry Wendelstedt, and Art Williams, the first African American umpire in National League history. Gutkind's narrative reveals much about the peculiarities of the men charged with the "thankless and impossible task of invoking order"-their work ethic, fallibility, and perhaps most strikingly, their pride. As resonant today as when it was first published, The Best Seat in Baseball, But You Have to Stand! is an engrossing story of the men who work on one of the nation's biggest stages, their victories and their failures, and their inner worlds that are rarely-if ever-explored.
"This fascinating study of baseball as seen from the umpire's point of view is must reading for all fans."
Mike Shannon, radio sportscaster and former Major League Baseball player
"An umpire's lot is not a happy one, and this dramatic account of a season spent with a National League team of four shows exactly how unhappy it is. . . . The book will intrigue any baseball fan."
Publishers Weekly
"[Gutkind is] superb in conveying the difficulties of the umpiring profession, as well as both the umpires' keen sense of multifaceted aggrievement and their counter-balancing pride in their profession. [He] lets the subjects tell their own story, and he does a fabulous job of getting their mannerisms, appearances, actions, and speech down on paper in a very convincing way."
Mike Shannon, radio sportscaster and former Major League Baseball player
