Bigger Than the Game - Paperback

by Dirk Hayhurst (Author)

Old demons together with new enemies and a season ending-- possibly career ending-- injury look to knock Hayhurst out of baseball forever.

Isolated from his family, broken, and branded a traitor by his teammates for writing inside the locker room, Hayhurst finds himself at a crossroads: should he continue down the spiral of depression and prescription drug abuse he's falling into, or seek psychological help at the risk of being labeled a "head case" by an industry biased against that which it cannot quantify?

Or maybe Hayhurst just needs to show them all how much fun being a head case can be? In a crazy world of injured athletes, autograph-seeking nuns, angry wrestlers, and trainers with a taste for torture, Hayhurst learned lessons about the game--and himself--that were not in any rulebook.

Like all of Hayhurst's writing on baseball, Bigger Than The Game tells a story about what lies beneath the often gilded uniform of the professional player in the honest, often hilarious, and self effacing way Hayhurst has become so renown for--even while exploring often shunned topics like the rampancy of prescription drug abuse among major league athletes, the stigma of depression among athletes, and the damning consequences of violating the codes of the locker room.

Bigger Than The Game is Hayhurst's most compelling book to date and is a must read for those who truly wish to know what their favorite player goes through when they break.

Author Biography

Dirk Hayhurst is the New York Times bestselling author of The Bullpen Gospels, Out of My League, Bigger Than the Game, and the e-book Wild Pitches. Drafted from Kent State University in 2003 as a senior sign, Hayhurst pitched professionally for nine years on more than eight minor league teams and three major league teams--the San Diego Padres, the Toronto Blue Jays, and the Tampa Bay Rays. He has been a professional broadcaster and baseball analyst for the Toronto Blue Jays and Sportsnet Toronto, a contributor for ESPN with the Olbermann Show on ESPN 2, and a panelist on TBS's coverage of the MLB post season. Visit him at www.dirkhayhurst.com.