Talk about your odd couples.

Although both men played for the New York Yankees starting in the late 1960s, one was a swarthy, outwardly gruff MVP and potential Hall of Famer from mid-America. The other was a “Li'l Abner”-built Jew from the South whose main claim to fame was as Major League Baseball’s first designated hitter. Yet Thurman Munson and Ron Blomberg became fast friends and remained close even after Blomberg signed with the Chicago White Sox as a free agent in 1977.

Blomberg, who previously wrote about his experiences in DESIGNATED HEBREW: The Ron Blomberg Story (2012, with a revised edition published in 2020), picks up the pen once again with the nimble assistance of Dan Epstein to share that special bond in THE CAPTAIN & ME: On and Off the Field with Thurman Munson.

"It’s a sweet book, one not often associated with the macho world of professional athletes.... The result of this collaboration is a portrait of rare friendship that can get lost in the 'me first' professional sports world..."

It’s a sweet book, one not often associated with the macho world of professional athletes. Sports fans might compare it to Brian’s Song, a 1971 made-for-TV movie about Brian Piccolo and Gale Sayers of the Chicago Bears. The main difference is that Piccolo died after a long battle with cancer, while Munson was killed when the small plane he was piloting crashed on August 2, 1979.

Blomberg focuses on the back-and-forth with Munson, who had a reputation for being somewhat cantankerous with outsiders but extremely warm and loving towards those closest to him. The adventures they shared are relatively mild, given that Munson was more of a family man, married to his high school sweetheart, with no interest in the kind of behavior that is often the basis for celebrity tell-alls. Readers will not find tales of infidelity or substance abuse here, although Blomberg admits that they liked their post-game beers.

Blomberg --- the Yankees’ first pick in the 1967 draft --- was supposed to be the next Mickey Mantle, coming up just as the Yankee icon was retiring. And indeed, the Atlanta-born strong man did have some initial success, batting over .300 in three of his first four full seasons. But a series of injuries derailed what might have been a career comparable to Munson’s, and Blomberg was through before his 30th birthday. Since then, he’s been an ambassador for the game, a larger-than-life figure especially popular with Jewish fans.

Epstein, whose previous baseball books include BIG HAIR AND PLASTIC GRASS: A Funky Ride Through Baseball and America in the Swinging '70s (2010) and STARS AND STRIKES: Baseball and America in the Bicentennial Summer of ‘76 (2014), does an excellent job of reigning in Blomberg, whose gregarious nature can sometimes go off on numerous tangents (“that reminds me of another story…”). There’s also the issue of fact-checking; sometimes those stories get a bit exaggerated --- not in any effort to mislead, but just due to the passage of time.

The result of this collaboration is a portrait of rare friendship that can get lost in the “me first” professional sports world, where athletes move around frequently (Jerry Seinfeld has compared following a team to “rooting for laundry”) and relationships are fleeting.