"The Day the Yankees Made Me Shave"

A review of Greg Pryor's book.

My biggest critique of the book might be Tony La Russa’s blurb. He’s one of the greatest managers of all time and he couldn’t do better than the equivalent of a dad joke? Fortunately, the foreword is much better. And all jokes aside, it’s pretty cool to receive a package full of swag in the mail from a former major leaguer.

One of the cool perks about writing this newsletter for the last year-and-a-half is that it’s brought me into the orbit of several major league players, including a number of former Royals I considered the equivalent of gods when I was a kid.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not sitting with them at the K or hitting the bar with them after the game. George Brett has yet to invite me over for dinner. If we stick with the orbit analogy, and the players are the sun, I’m basically Pluto. But even Pluto gets some sunlight.

Last spring, I met my all-time favorite player, Willie Wilson, at a signing and got to show him the story I wrote about him and my first game. Inside, he may have been rolling his eyes, but he was very nice in person, taking a few extra minutes to humor me and talk with me and my son.

Several other former Royals and ballplayers have commented on my work and shared their own memories inspired by my articles. A few of them are even subscribers. It’s enough to make a guy feel like he’s really made it. I’m still waiting for my press pass and free tickets to every game, but it’s not a bad start.

Recently, I found myself emailing back and forth with Greg Pryor. The guy’s a former Royal and 1985 World Series champion and he’s contacting me to tell me he enjoys my work. If that doesn’t strike you as cool, you definitely shouldn’t be writing about baseball. I don’t know, maybe try being an accountant or something. My mom spent years trying to convince me to go into that field.*

*No offense to any accountants out there. It’s a perfectly respectable line of work. It’s just not for me.

To top it off, Pryor even offered to send me a free signed copy of his book, The Day the Yankees Made Me Shave. True to his word, it arrived about a week later, along with a bunch of other cool swag.

Oddly enough, I immediately regretted accepting his offer. Why? It wasn’t like there were any conditions placed on the gift, and Mr. Pryor gave no indication that he planned on quizzing me or even asking for my impressions of his work. He was just being nice. But here’s the thing. If I borrow a book or a movie from a friend, or even check one out from the library where I work, it’s almost a guarantee that I’ll never get around to reading or watching it.*

*Connie Sexauer, if you’re reading this, I swear I’m going to get to your book, “From a Park to a Stadium to a Little Piece of Heaven: Cultural Changes as Seen Through the St. Louis Cardinals Baseball Diamonds.” It looks great, and the delay is on me, and in no way a reflection of its quality.

I don’t know why I’m like this. But if there’s any tiny expectation for me to read a book, I tend to pick any other book on the shelf. It goes all the way back to school. I was a voracious reader, but if a book was assigned in class, even if I wanted to read it, it became an epic struggle just to pick it up. It made passing English class a whole lot more difficult than it needed to be.

And so the book sat. One week. Two weeks. Three weeks. All the time, I’m feeling guiltier and guiltier, but I still didn’t pick it up. Then I took off early from work to attend an event at my son’s school. By the time it was over, I still made it home a few hours earlier than usual. I didn’t have anything pressing on my plate, and yet, still I hesitated.

Feeling like I was disrespecting Mr. Pryor, a man who provided me with hours of enjoyment on the diamond when I was a kid, I told myself to grab the damn book. I figured, at the very least, I could skim through it just to get an idea what it was all about.

I read Pryor’s introduction and dedication, and then the preface by his former agent, Steve Greenberg, the son of HOFer Hank Greenberg. Then I read Tony La Russa’s foreword and plunged into the first chapter, which shares its title with the book. Then I read the whole damn thing in one sitting.

The format of The Day the Yankees Made Me Shave is right up my alley, and not too dissimilar from Powder Blue Nostalgia, when you get right down to it. The book is a collection of twenty-seven stories, each of them recounting a specific episode from Pryor’s career. Like Powder Blue Nostalgia, it jumps around in time, sometimes focusing on what happened on the field, while also exploring other important aspects of his life. Unlike my own work, however, instead of writing from the perspective of a fan, Pryor is able to give the reader an inside look at the experience of a big-league player.

Pryor was a not a star player, and he’s fully aware of that,* but this is what makes the book so interesting. He had to fight for every opportunity he got, which is at the heart of the title chapter, and it’s fascinating to read how he wavered between doubt and gutsy bravado as a young player trying to carve out a role for himself on the Rangers, Yankees— his chapter about George Steinbrenner calling him a dumbass is outstanding— White Sox, and ultimately the Royals.

*He only received an offer to play college ball because his dad used his talented older brother as leverage. Pryor didn’t learn this until after he’d left school.

Of course, he celebrates his own highlights. What’s the point of writing a memoir if you can’t do that? These include his two walk-off homers, and his role in both the Pine Tar Game and Disco Demolition Night. He was the only player present at both, though he wasn’t the only person to double-dip. An umpire was there with him.

But if anything, he might actually undersell his own contributions. If you don’t already follow Darin Watson’s outstanding newsletter, U.L.’s Toothpick, I highly recommend it. (Especially if you’re a Royals fan.) And if you already do, like me, you know Watson is currently writing a day-by-day recap of the Royals’ 1984 season. And I, for one, was surprised how big of a role Pryor played on that team. I knew he was a solid contributor, but he filled in for an injured George Brett early in the year, and his name pops up a lot in Kansas City victories,* keeping the team afloat until they could get back to full strength and ultimately win the AL West.

*Spoiler alert: one of Pryor’s walk-off home runs dates from this period.

So, in a way, I’m glad I waited to read the book for as long as I did. Having the context provided by U.L.’s Toothpick added a whole other level for me. And as a longtime Royals fan, its not surprising that I enjoyed his chapter on winning the World Series, or his firsthand interactions with Kansas City legends like George Brett, Dick Howser, and Dan Quisenberry.

But the real heart of the book is when Pryor is at his most personal. He recounts meeting both his wife and his boyhood hero (different chapters, just in case you’re confused), and the time an opposing pitcher threw at him for unintentionally admiring his own home run. He and Ed Farmer later became teammates and friends, but the tension is thick when he describes their first meeting after the incident.

Ultimately, Pryor’s book reads like it was written by a real human being, and not just an old ballplayer reliving his glory days. Take, for example, the time he was pinch-hit for by the legendary Minnie Minoso. I don’t want to give away too many spoilers, but Pryor had every right, then and now, to disagree with the move in principle. And he certainly had a problem with it at the time. Part of him is still irked to this day, but in the years that have passed, he’s willing to admit he was wrong, practically speaking. The moment was bigger than him, and he can acknowledge it.

That kind of honesty and introspection is what lifts Pryor’s book above the average sports autobiography. So if you’re interested in reading about a real ballplayer’s experiences, I recommend picking it up right away. Don’t do what I did and put it off.

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Thanks for reading Powder Blue Nostalgia. And just in case you’re wondering about my sincerity on this subject, let me clear a few things up. While I was (and still am) appreciative of Mr. Pryor taking an interest in my writing and gifting me his book, I was under no obligation to write a positive review. No one is paying me jack squat — though if you’d like to pledge your support, should I ever turn on paid subscriptions, I would be thrilled. I didn’t know what to expect when I received The Day the Yankees Made Me Shave. Part of me was afraid it might suck. Had that been the case, I would have followed my mom’s advice. If I couldn’t say anything nice, I wouldn’t say anything at all. But I really enjoyed it, and it was a quick and easy read. I stand by my review above, and sincerely recommend you check it out for yourself!