From the humble heights of a Class-A pitcher's mound to the deflating lows of sleeping on his gun-toting grandmother's air mattress, veteran reliever Dirk Hayhurst steps out of the bullpen to deliver the best pitch of his career—a raw and unflinching account of his life in the minor leagues. Whether training tarantulas to protect his room from thieving employees in a backwater hotel or absorbing the gentle mockery of some not-quite-starstruck schoolchildren, Hayhurst reveals a side of baseball—and life—rarely seen on television.
Upon its release, The Bullpen Gospels became a New York Times bestseller; and with comparisons to Jim Boutons's Ball Four, The Bullpen Gospels is slated to be a classic of the genre.
Dirk Hayhurst, drafted from Kent State University in 2003 as a senior sign, has pitched professionally for seven seasons on seven minor-league teams, as well as for two big-league teams, the San Diego Padres and the Toronto Blue Jays. Since 2007, he has blogged about baseball for Baseball America. Born and raised in Canton, Ohio, he now lives in Hudson, Ohio, with his wife, Bonnie.
Ray Porter is a prolific voice actor that has recorded for over 100 audio books and dozens of television series, video games and video shorts. Among his wide variety of audiobook credits are The Silver Linings Playbook, The Black Hole War, and the Joe Ledger series. He claims, “With every book I’ve done, I have found that the author has a voice and if I can just do my best to stay out of the way of that voice, then the writer will convey what he’s trying to put across. So for me, it’s really more about enabling the text and what the author is trying to say.”