I’m Keith Hernandez: A Memoir

I’m Keith Hernandez: A Memoir by Keith Hernandez

Keith Hernandez is one of the better sports authors out there who once played the game.  He wrote an outstanding diary of the 1985 New York Mets season called “If at First” that I must have read about a half-dozen times.  A lot of jocks and ex-jocks want to tell their stories, but the majority of them simply aren’t gifted enough to write an interesting reflection of their place in their particular sport.

This book is not an autobiography; yet a memoir.  Hernandez does write a lot about himself and the game, but this book is mostly reflections on portions of his career, and not a start-to-finish tale of his life. In fact, this is the one thing that might disappoint many who decide to read the book.  Readers should be warned that, as far as Keith’s playing days go, he basically stops the narrative around 1980 when he was still with the St. Louis Cardinals.  I’m not sure why.  Is he planning on writing a sequel?  Still, though, overall I enjoyed the book.

In this memoir, Hernandez bounces around a lot.  He talks about playing baseball as a young child (with a loving but micro managing father), his first few years in the St. Louis Cardinals organization in professional ball, and his latter (current) career as a broadcaster for the New York Mets.  This is probably a good thing since, had he stuck to only one of these narratives, it probably would have been too much for the average reader to assimilate.  The chapters about his childhood are short and rare (all written in italics as if to say ‘come reminisce with me!’), and the main focus is on Minor-to-Major league Keith along with his current-day reflections on how the game has changed in 40 years; mostly for the bad.

Since Hernandez was a great baseball player, he didn’t spend too much time in the minors. Yet these reflections of this point in his career are quite heartwarming. Hernandez doesn’t hold anything back. This book would definitely get an ‘R’ rating if made into a movie. He makes it very clear that ballplayers are not choirboys, and in the minor leagues, there’s a lot of steam to blow off when you travel around the country in third class accommodations while staying at seedy hotels.  The anecdotes are plentiful and well told. When he describes what happens ON the field, Hernandez digs a tad too deep into the weeds. What’s remarkable is how Hernandez manages to remember all the details of so many games that he played, and he provides his readers with a play-by-play in many instances. It really is too much.

When Keith breaks into the big leagues, the pattern is a bit the same. The stories told about what happens off the field are much more pleasant to read about then the in-game minutia.  I suppose if your Hernandez’s age and you remember all of the ball players he refers to, and what they did in each game, it might be a tad easier to read through these events.   I love the sport of baseball, but critics are sometimes correct when they say the games can drag on a bit.  If you think this is true about WATCHING a game, imagine what it’s like to READ about a game; especially one that happened 40 years ago.

His current day observations, while a tad depressing, are spot-on.  And who is better suited for such observations than a former all-star player who now is a major league broadcaster?  He does share a bit in this book about things a major league announcer is expected to do (you don’t just show up and talk the viewer through games), but a lot of these portions focus on how and why the game has changed. In Hernandez’s view, it needs to change back to the old ways.   (Note: many in the business agree with him and the rules of the game seem to slightly alter each year to achieve some sort of harmony.  This is mainly due to the lackluster attendance at major league games that keep perpetually dwindling.)

As many readers have pointed out, I would have rather read about the 1980s Mets than the 1970s Cardinals, but Hernandez did share a lot about the big bad Mets already in the above mentioned book “If At First”, so maybe he felt like he would have been repeating himself?  There have also been a TON of books written about the 1980s Mets teams, so maybe Hernandez was simply trying for a different angle.

Still, Keith is a great writer, and I would personally love to see a sequel to this book sometime.  Maybe, 10 years from now, Keith will attempt such an undertaking. By then, maybe a lot of the negative issues with the game will have been fixed, and we can read about positive directions the sport is taking as opposed to the ever so slight deterioration of America’s Pastime.