Inside Power

Inside Power, Gary Sheffield with David Ritz, New York, 2007

Gary Sheffield is the oft-traveled major league baseball player known for his scrapes with the law, coaches, managers, management, fans, and...well...you get the picture. If Sheffield encounters it, Sheffield fights it.

In Inside Power he takes a chronological look at his career from his youth trying to catch the fireballs thrown by his older cousin Dwight Gooden, through Little League, the Minor Leagues, and then the various stops in his pro career.

Early on you get the picture of an angry young man, always willing to fight or have sex. Of course, being told from his point of view, every incident is the fault of someone else. It is always the other guys who start insulting or disrespecting his family or Sheffield himself. It is his Little League coach who is wrong for benching him for skipping practice, then kicking him off the king when Sheffield threatens him with a bat. It is his minor league coaches fault for enforcing the dress code, his teacher's fault for not teaching a history that was "black enough", his manager's fault for not starting him at his favorite position, management's fault for trading him, not paying him what he thinks he is worth, etc.

At some point you think, wow, what a whiner! Every relationship ends up with her pregnant and him single. He has 4 kids under three roofs by the time he settles down with "the one".

Quickly a picture emerges of a troubled individual who has every opportunity because of his talent. It sounds like we are talking about a man who has no future, yet his contracts have totaled over 100 million dollars over the course of his career.

The sad thing is, despite all of the above, Sheffield comes out like a mostly likable guy. He wants to love baseball for the game, he wants to be a good team mate, and, in that most cliched of sports cliches, he wants above all to win. Yet he spends 2 years in Milwaukie, a couple more in San Diego, 5 in Florida, 4 in Las Angeles, 2 in Atlanta, 3 in New York, and now the last couple in Detroit. How does one of the premiere players of our generation move so often with being a popular, well-liked guy on the team (according to Sheffield) and it never be his fault?

Finally, through the efforts of Terry Pendleton and his eventual wife DeLeon Sheffield comes to understand what his Grandfather meant when he spoke of "Inside Power", a mantra the oft-childlike Sheffield seems to equate with a mystic chant that will make everything right. He finds religion and, while he admits he still struggles mightily with it, he is working to become a better person. However, he still allows enough arrogance...he will claim confidence...to shine through that one suspects he will have more troubled incidents in his future.

Inside Power is well written. It has a strong, clear narrative, completes each story, has clear, understandable anecdotes, and has a clear goal in mind. While the credibility of Sheffield is perhaps questionable, he does present a reasonable case for why these things have happened to him while not being his fault. If you love baseball and want to hear his side of the story, Inside Power is an enjoyable read.