Full Count: The Education of a Pitcher

Former New York Yankees pitcher Cone and analyst Curry (coauthor with Derek Jeter of The Life You Imagine) deliver an enjoyable memoir that recounts Cone’s remarkable career and provides an honest look at the road to the major leagues. Cone is best remembered for his run with the late-1990s Yankees dynasty, and he also spent five seasons as a Met, where he recorded 19 strikeouts in a single game. As Cone tells it, he didn’t play high school baseball while growing up in Kansas City, and he put in his time moving up through the Class A and Class AA systems. Throughout, Cone explains the difficulty of being a pitcher (“a weighty responsibility that is like none other in sports”), alongside more lighthearted anecdotes about fellow ball players, such as his friendship with Cal Ripken Jr. and what it was like to pitch against the legend in his final game (“I wanted him to know it was going to be a matchup filled with fastballs”). Throughout, Cone provides keen insight into the mind of a pitcher, recalling with uncanny specificity the most difficult pitches of his career (notably the final pitch in his 1999 perfect game against the Montreal Expos) and how he almost always overcame adversity with triumph. While this is a must-read for Cone fans, baseball aficionados of any allegiance will surely delight in this behind-the-scenes memoir. Agent: David Black, David Black Literary. [em](May) [/em]