My friend Mills gave me a copy of Doug Glanville's book THE GAME FROM WHERE I STAND: A BALLPLAYER'S INSIDE VIEW, and I'm currently about halfway through it. It's exactly what it purports to be - an insider's look at the things that baseball players go through from the time they are drafted till they retire, with emphasis on the time spent in the majors.

Glanville was a first round pick of my Chicago Cubs, out of Ivy League Penn, so I was quite familiar with him. He ended up playing left field for the Cubs though he was a natural centerfielder, and was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies where he had his best years in CF, replacing favorite Lenny Dykstra, and eventually being replaced by (current Cubs center fielder) Marlon Byrd. He spent time in Texas with the Rangers, and then returned to the Cubs.

He discusses a lot of things in the book, including preparations for games, unwritten etiquette rules during games, and relationships with friends and family, other players, and that special relationship that one hopes to find with their significant other. I've got a lot to go, but so far I've found this an engrossing read, well written and with a gentle touch to the prose that makes it an easy read also. Glanville was a systems engineering major at Penn, so he has a lot of brains and it shows in the way he treats all of these issue.

Good book for a summer read for a baseball fan.