High Heat

Table of Contents

 

 

 

“A blazing fastball of a story—compelling, relentless, riveting.”

—KEN BURNS

 

“
High Heat
is a great idea brilliantly executed. Tim Wendel, one of my favorite baseball writers, delivers this fastball with a winning mix of science, biography, and mythology.”

—DAVID MARANISS, author of
Clemente
and
When Pride Still Mattered

 

“In the wonderful
High Heat
, Wendel leverages that tension—the fastball as both blessing and bane—to mine a stunning amount of drama. . . . Wendel's writing is also all fastballs. Sensitive and scrupulous, he never forgets that for every [Nolan] Ryan and Sandy Koufax, lucky to have their unearned gifts, there are flameouts like Steve Dalkowski. . . .
High Heat
is ‘a séance with the game's past,' an almost literary fantasy in which all the great pitchers throw side by side on the same diamond.”

—
New York Times Book Review

 

“Wendel draws you in right from the first pitch.”

—
New York Post
(“Required Reading”)

 

“[Wendel] explores the fastball's history and powerful mystique, from the beginnings of baseball to the present. . . . A delight for baseball fanatics.”

—
Boston Globe

 

“[A] highly entertaining exploration of the pitch that has made so many careers (and destroyed so many arms). Fascinating details emerge.”

—
San Francisco Chronicle

 

“
High Heat
hums when Wendel profiles the fastest of the fastball pitchers, tracing the lineage of the pitch from Amos Rusie in the 19th century to Walter Johnson in the 1920s to Sandy Koufax in the 1960s and, finally, to the Washington Nationals' 100-mile-an-hour prospect Stephen Strasburg.”

—
Los Angeles Times

 

“[A] book of delightful digressions.”

—
Washington Post

 

“Like its subject,
High Heat
emits a disarming hum . . . [It] takes a historical, statistical, and mechanical look at baseball's most sacred skill . . . At the end you may disagree with Wendel's choice for the fastest ever. But the pages will go by quicker than a David Price aspirin tablet.”

—
Sports Illustrated

 

“A sportswriter's search for the unknowable, and why 105-mph Steve Dalkowski, the inspiration for
Bull Durham
's Nuke LaLoosh, never made the majors.”

—
USA Today

 

“Entertaining.”

—
Newsday

“In our era of moneyball and sabermetrics, it's refreshing to read a book so vividly written that we can easily envision the old-time players and scouts spit
tobacco juice to punctuate their opinions while disdaining mere radar readings. Wendel teaches us as much about the evolution of the values of our society as he does the development of the national pastime. . . . Highly recommended.”

—
Library Journal

 

“[Wendel] presents a satisfying search for the ultimate fastball pitcher, with a result that's just conclusive enough . . . while leaving plenty of room for baseball die-hards' second-favorite sport: debating other fans.”

—
Publishers Weekly

 

“Feel free to disagree with [Wendel's] conclusion, but be sure to enjoy the book. Far from just a statistical inquiry, it's packed with stories about baseball and some of its extraordinary players.... A fascinating book for a baseball fan.”

—Associated Press

 

“Engrossing.”

—
Booklist

 

“Any book that sets out to name the top . . . fastball pitchers of all time is sure to provoke controversy and Tim Wendel accomplishes just that in his somewhat quirky, somewhat biased, freewheeling, and always entertaining book.... Wendel travels his own road, and he excels at bringing us along with him.”

—
Spitball

 

“Endlessly interesting . . . [Wendel's] brief profiles of each hard thrower resonate, because they explain what it's like to meet the high expectations established when an arm can throw a baseball at an astounding velocity.”

—
Raleigh News & Observer

 

“The joy of [Wendel's] quest, and of its telling, lies in baseball's rich lore and legend. . . . As with the game itself, the fun of the book is more in taking part than in the outcome.”

—
Roanoke Times

 

“
High Heat
is more than just a cursory ranking of baseball's fastest arms, it's a fun and fact-filled flip through baseball's record books that brings to life the players we previously only knew from our baseball card collections.”

—
ForeWord
magazine

 

“A journey through the past and present of our national pastime, and a vivid reminder of why we love the game.”

—
Smoke
magazine

 

“Tim Wendel, one of baseball's leading contemporary chroniclers, here dissects the fastball and those who would throw it. . . .
High Heat
is a fascinating book written with passion and aplomb by someone who clearly loves the sport nearly as much as he loves writing about it.”

—
January
magazine

 

“Destined to be [a] hardball classic.”

—
Washington Times

 

Going for the Gold
The New Face of Baseball
Far From Home
Buffalo, Home of the Braves

 

 

 

Castro's Curveball
Red Rain

 

 

On an autumn night, a few years ago, I got to talking baseball with Frank Howard. Even at the age of 72, Howard looked like he just strolled down from Mount Olympus. What the gods had in mind for a major-league slugger. Although the passing years have forced him to hunch a bit, at 6-foot-7, with his square jaw and broad shoulders, Howard still towered over the rest of us mere mortals that evening at the Presidents Club bar in the Nationals Park in Washington, D.C.

The occasion was a reception for major-league ballplayers who also served in World War II. Their ranks ranged from longtime New York Yankee Jerry Coleman to the hard-throwing Hall of Famer Bob Feller. There had been a momentary hitch as the bartenders couldn't locate any vermouth, thus ruling out such mixed drinks as manhattans and martinis. But after a bit of grumbling, the old ballplayers, who had been joined by 50 or so wounded warriors from Walter Reed Medical Hospital, shifted to beer or wine.

It was a night when legend and fable mingled, with the telling of one tall tale after another. Perhaps it was because Feller was in attendance, but I couldn't resist asking Howard who he thought was the fastest pitcher ever.

Of course, some consider that a loaded, even unfair question. Instead of trying to give a straight answer, some baseball experts and aficionados run and spin, emphasizing how difficult it is to compare players from different eras. How even in this era when every pitch is graded by scouts and clocked on radar guns, a comprehensive, reliable
testing of high heat remains so problematic. And, indeed, most of those complaints are valid. But, to his credit, or perhaps because of the open bar, on this evening Howard was game.

“Now that's a story that takes a bit of telling, doesn't it?” he said, with a smile.

“But you must have an opinion on the subject, right?” I replied.

After all, Howard had once made his living launching a baseball as far as he could toward the distant horizon. He had come up in 1958 with the Dodgers and played 16 years in the majors, leading the American League in home runs in 1968 and 1970 with the Washington Senators. Here was a hitter who was nicknamed “Hondo” and “the Capitol Punisher” for his exploits.

“I was a fastball hitter. I loved hitting fastballs,” he said in a voice that reverberated above the din of the bar conversation. “That's what I prided myself on doing. That's how I made my living. But if you add in that element of pure speed, I may still love the fastball, but maybe I'm not going to see it. That's what a great fastball can do—reduce you to nothing.”

With that, he reluctantly took a sip of his white wine. With a moniker like Hondo, I half expected to be doing shots with him. But Howard was one of those disappointed by the lack of vermouth at the Nats' watering hole.

“There's a lot to be said for finesse pitchers,” he continued. “There sure have been a lot of them down through the years. Guys like Jimmy Key and, lately, Jamie Moyer come to mind. I mean they're winners and they do the job. But so much of this game really comes down to a quality fastball and the ability to spot it. You got that, well, it's worth more than gold in this game.

“What did old Ted Williams say? That you have two-fifths of a second to make up your mind if the pitch is either a fastball or something softer? You have to decide that quick—be that certain. When a pitcher has a great fastball combined with maybe a quality breaking ball, your reaction time is about down to nil. Like I said, it humbles you. Before you know it, if you're a hitter, everything becomes a nightmare.”

“So who'd you think was the fastest then, of all time?” I repeated.

The big man shrugged and took another sip of his drink.

“There's no pat answer to that kind of question,” Howard replied. “It's one of those deep ones. One for the ages. Like you flip over one rock and it leads you to something else and then something else. Tonight, off the top of my head, I'd have to say one of the fellas we're honoring here this evening, Bobby Feller. I'd have to include my former teammate Sandy Koufax and, of course, Nolan Ryan. Tonight I'd put them in that order.”