In 1991, when I was 16, I wrote a series of letters to the New York Yankees asking how to become a bat boy. Rather miraculously, I was hired. For the next two years, during the 1992 and 1993 baseball seasons, I was in the Yankees dugout and clubhouse for every home game. Later, after college and law school, I wrote about the experience in my book BAT BOY: Coming of Age With The New York Yankees (Doubleday / Anchor Books).
Available now at your local bookstore or below:
If you’ve not read it, here are a few flattering recommendations from people who have:
- “A terrific memoir, combining an endearing coming-of-age story with a unique window on the inner world of baseball. It is warm, witty, shrewd, and entertaining from start to finish.” – Doris Kearns Goodwin
- “More than an all-access pass to Yankee Stadium and baseball — it is an exquisitely written and observed book about growing up and the beauty of the game.” – Library Journal
- “A remarkable memoir of a boy among men playing a boy’s game. At turns wistful and hilarious, the book lyrically captures the complexities not of dreams broken, but of dreams fulfilled.” – Gay Talese
- “[McGough] writes with polish but manages to maintain a tone of innocence and awe in his narrative… Only a kid on the loose in a candy store would display more sheer joy than McGough at his great good luck.” – Kirkus Reviews
- “Wonderful… It should eventually find its way to that very short shelf of enduring sports non-fiction, perhaps somewhere between ‘Ball Four’ and ‘Friday Night Lights’.” – Leigh Montville, author of ‘Ted Williams’ and ‘The Big Bam’
- “Matthew McGough’s memoir of his teenage days in the Bronx is a winning, inside look at clubhouse life. Wry and nostalgic, Bat Boy takes readers to a time before steroid scandals and $200 million payrolls when the Mattingly-led Yankees were still lovable losers. Where have you gone, Danny Tartabull?” – Stewart O’Nan, co-author of ‘Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season’
Below is some bonus material (and other assorted artifacts of my time with the Yankees) that I thought might be of interest to fans of the book, baseball, or both.