Jim Kaat memoir details Zeeland upbringing, changes baseball needs

As Jim Kaat gets closer and closer to his Hall of Fame induction this summer, more and more people are getting to know his story.

Kaat has made sure of that, releasing his latest memoir, “Good as Gold: My Eight Decades in Baseball” this month. The book, published by Triumph, is his third.

“I have been quite pleasantly surprised. I was amazed at how many people actually read it,” Kaat said. “The last several years a lot of my friends in the game told me I should write a book as my experiences over the years because my career would touch eight decades. There aren’t a lot of baseball people who’s career touched eight decades.”

Baseball fans everywhere will get a more intimate look at Kaat’s career, as well as his upbringing in Zeeland. From his first home to his first job, Kaat gives more details on his hometown than ever before in a national publication.

Kaat discusses his road to Cooperstown and also talks about his family more than he has in past publications.

“When the Hall of Fame announcement and subsequent activities came out, we were just finishing the book. I thought about how important it was to be raised in a community in Zeeland and have parents like I did,” Kaat said. “Those thoughts became more and more important. You don’t accomplish these things on your own.”

And Kaat accomplished a lot during his 25-year career as a player. After pitching for Hope College for one season, the left-handed pitcher won 283 games and 16 Gold Glove Awards as the best fielder at his position in the Major Leagues, mostly with the Minnesota Twins. He also played for the Chicago White Sox, Philadelphia Phillies, New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals, where he was part of the 1982 World Series championship 40 years ago.

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Kaat then became one of the top baseball broadcasters following his playing career, earning an Emmy Award in the process.

It all adds up to parts of eight decades in the majors. He started his career in 1959 and continues to broadcast games for MLB Network.

Along the way, Kaat has seen several major changes in the game, including pitch counts and analytics that have changed the game. Many of these changes Kaat doesn’t care for, and he discusses several of them in the book.

“I wanted to talk about the game and how it has changed. What I like and I don’t like, and unfortunately, the dislikes outweigh the likes,” Kaat said. “It saddens me, particularly with pitching to see the talent, which is so far superior than those who pitched in my era (be affected by pitch counts). Good baseball people who know pitching are allowing this to happen. This pitch count and everyone worried about the arm, when you need your legs to be able to be strong enough to pitch (longer). They aren’t going to get the best out of them.

“Wouldn’t it be nice to see (Max) Scherzer and (Clayton) Kershaw go nine against each other?”

Kaat has seen at least one generation of fans lose interest in games that take too long because of the constant switching of pitchers and long TV commercial breaks between innings.

“There is an overuse with analytics. If they just would let them play rather than have them be robots,” Kaat said. “I’d like to see them go to seven innings and soften the ball. After 2.5 hours people think about leaving. Even my grandsons. My oldest is 25. He loves baseball. But even he says it isn’t as appealing as it used to be.

“It is such a great game, I hate to see it operate the way it has been.”

Kaat never has a problem sharing his opinion on a topic, and he discusses many in the book, including how he and the players of his era didn’t speak up enough about segregation and racism within the game and society.

“Looking back, I wonder why I wasn’t bold enough to speak up about what segregation was doing to Black people,” Kaat wrote in the book. “Shame on all of us for not standing up sooner and saying that it was wrong.”

That was part of the section of the book called “My Likes and Dislikes.”

One of the most interesting stories in the book is when Kaat and Dick Allen would discuss racehorses and even went to see Secretariat.

“Once I got traded to Chicago, I had never met Dick. When we became teammates, we started talking about who taught us the game. I told him I was a baseball player who had to be a pitcher. Dick liked the fact that I worked fast and threw strikes. I knew he had a love of racehorses. We started talking about horses and we really clicked,” Kaat said. “It goes way back to when I watched the harness races at the Ionia County Fair. We had a couple of stables and have always had an interest in that. I have been to a couple Kentucky Derbys and hook up with Bill Parcells in Saratoga. I have always enjoyed it.”

And fans will enjoy this no-holds-barred look at Kaat’s eight decades in the game.

— Contact Sports Editor Dan D'Addona at Dan.D'Addona@hollandsentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter @DanDAddona and Facebook @Holland Sentinel Sports.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Jim Kaat memoir details Zeeland upbringing, changes baseball needs