Philadelphia Phillies catcher Erik Kratz and New York Yankees left fielder Andruw Jones during a spring-training game in Tampa, 2012.

Most Voluble Players

By Tom Scocca

The Tao of the Backup Catcher: Playing Baseball for the Love of the Game by Tim Brown with Erik Kratz

“You can’t have goals,” the celebrated and colorful New York Mets manager Bobby Valentine told Vance Wilson, his second-string catcher, early in the 2002 season. “I’m sorry.”

Wilson, Tim Brown recounts in The Tao of the Backup Catcher: Playing Baseball for the Love of the Game, had asked Valentine what performance targets he might aim for that year, to help him focus each day, as the understudy to the Hall of Fame–bound superstar Mike Piazza. The answer was that performance targets were for other, better players. “You cannot have numbers as goals as a backup player because you may not be given any opportunity to reach them,” Valentine said. “And then you will feel like a failure. But you won’t be a failure.”