Now that playoff baseball has returned with the onset of autumn, and baseball becomes more intense, more excellent, and more precious, I’m thinking again about Harvey Dorfman. Little known to most casual fans, he was one of the great men of baseball, for he taught his students and friends and all who knew him how to embody and appreciate the best qualities of the game and embody the best in their lives, too. He died in 2011, and knowing him was one of the great privileges I’ve enjoyed.
I first met Harvey nearly 20 years ago, introduced by a colleague who had written an article about this latecomer to baseball coaching who had never played the game at the professional level but nonetheless won a World Series ring with the 1989 Oakland A’s and another with the 1997 Florida Marlins. Harvey wrote books on pitching, hitting, and other parts of the game, but his main subject wasn’t the physical aspect of baseball. Rather, his job was to listen to ballplayers, to help them think more clearly, or to think less and focus more. Harvey was a baseball psychologist. His work was helping pro athletes forge adult minds capable of governing their physical talents. He made men of those who were willing and able.
The secret to Harvey’s success was simple: He heard what you were saying and also what you weren’t saying. Born in the Bronx in 1935, he spoke plainly in a broad New York accent, part cabdriver, part Upper West Side intellectual, and tolerated no excuses. He made you see that living a life of make-believe would eventually expose you as a fraud. Professional athletes were especially vulnerable to self-delusion since they’d been treated like demigods much of their lives. By the time people opened up to Harvey, they’d usually come most of the way to admitting to themselves that they’d reached a dead end: They had to change or they were in jeopardy of losing themselves.
After his stints with the A’s and Marlins, Harvey worked for agent Scott Boras, which was proof enough for me that, despite Boras’s reputation as a huckster looking to soak baseball clubs for every penny, he cared very much for the success of his clients, on and off the field. Boras is famous for identifying and signing the country’s top pitching talent, which dovetailed nicely with Harvey’s sense of the game.
For Harvey, center-stage in baseball’s drama was not just the ground between the pitcher and the hitter—it was, more particularly, on the mound, in the pitcher’s head. He worked with lots of hitters, but the pitchers who count him as instrumental in their careers include former all-stars like Roy Halladay, Al Leiter, Kevin Brown, and Hall of Famer Greg Maddux. Jamie Moyer has said that he credits Harvey for his 25 years of success in the majors, and also believes Harvey helped him grow as a person.
Typically, pitchers are the best athletes on the field, but the trick is to marshal an awesome physical talent whose nemesis is fear. What if I make a mistake, the pitcher’s psyche asks,a mistake on this pitch, and then the next one, or on any pitch? What if I’m embarrassed by the hitter beating me? What if I don’t fulfill the promise of my gifts? What if I let down everyone who loves me and counts on me? The way Harvey saw it, ballplayers enacted the same sort of struggle we all do in our regular lives—the effort to seek success, fight our demons, resolve our pasts, and map our futures against the fates—except ballplayers do it in front of lots of people. The world is full of those who, like minor league washouts, almost made it, thwarted near-successes.
Harvey mentioned one pitcher who was still mourning a close relative who’d died young. Another, an all-star, had to deal with a father who stood around during batting practice and screamed at his adult son to do better, as if he were still a kid.
I knew Harvey was busy with his ballplayers—he’d travel from his home in North Carolina to visit them, or they’d come to see him—but I’d still call him, and he always had time to talk. Back then, I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted from him, a man I saw as some super-combination of priest, shrink, role model, and friend. I guess I wanted him to tell me how to become like Harvey Dorfman, how to get to that still center of wisdom, resilience, and calm where he seemed to live.
When my book on the Middle East was published some years back, I called him. It had been a long time since we’d spoken; I’d been out of the country. He was ill and sounded tired. I told him I was sending him a copy of the book, which I didn’t mean to be a burden. I just wanted to thank him.
