The Saga of Sudden Sam: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of Sam McDowell

McDowell, former All-Star pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, holds nothing back in this searing take on his career and his long battle with alcoholism. The emotional toll is front and center from the beginning, when McDowell recounts his unsuccessful attempt in 1963 to kill himself after his wife moved out. The pitcher then retraces how he sunk to that level of despair. Unsurprisingly, his mental turmoil sprang forth from his “joyless” childhood growing up in Pittsburgh in the 1940s with parents who “refused to praise” him. The scars of that upbringing stuck with him through adulthood, prompting him to drown his demons with alcohol, even as he achieved professional success in the years following his suicide attempt (which, for a long time, he told no one about). It wasn’t until the 1980s that McDowell got a handle on his illness after going to rehab and finding sobriety. In a moving reflection on that time, he points out, “Addiction is never obvious to the addicted.” Hoping to help other major leaguers hindered by the same disease, he became a professional counselor. “All I needed,” he writes, “was a chance.” This raw account is a worthy addition to the addiction memoir canon. (Mar.)