About the Author

Tim Wendel is the author of six books, including Far From Home and Castro"s Curveball. A founding editor of USA Today Baseball Weekly, he has written for Esquire, GQ, and Washingtonian magazines. He lives in Vienna, Virginia.

Reviews

Farther off the Wall, 4/3/10
"[Wendel] gives all the logistically sound reasoning why and how someone can throw a fastball better than others."

ARETE, 5/11/10
"Tied to Wendel's evaluation of these fastball hurlers are several asides that make the book even more intriguing and informative."
Boston Globe, 5/22/10
"Pitch-perfect history of the fastball" "Entertaining and passionate...Bringing the heat isn't easy, but Wendel makes reading about it fun: This one's a delight for baseball fanatics."
San Francisco Chronicle, 5/21/10
"[A] highly entertaining exploration of the pitch that has made so many careers (and destroyed so many arms). Fascinating details emerge."
Blogcritics.org, 5/19/10
"Wendel includes a large amount of baseball knowledge, stories, and lore that any baseball fan would savor...He asks the correct questions, and provides a view of baseball that few fans get to see from the stands."


AmericanProfile, 6/6/10
"Who's the fastest fastball pitcher of them all?...Finding out Wendel's top choice--his conclusion--isn't nearly as interesting as the feeling that you're going along for the colorful, eye-opening ride that ultimately gets him there."

TheMorningNews.org, 6/9/10
"A fascinating monograph."

Choice, July 2010
"Part travelogue and part unicorn hunt...[Wendel] creates a kind of social and cultural history of the fastball, one of sport's most dizzying and imposing feats...Recommended."Midwest Book Review, June 2010"Any sports library will relish this." Vienna Connection, 7/7/10"Readers of High Heat will be pleased that Wendel has not stuffed the pages with tables and stats, but rather spins great stories about people. He stitches together anecdotes and tales about who he thinks are the twelve greatest fireballers in organized baseball history, from Amos Rusie to Joel Zumaya. Critics may disagree with Wendel's selections, a list headed by [Nolan] Ryan, but all will find the book a delightful read...A book that...will appeal to every baseball fan."

Deseret News, 4/3/10
"High Heat is a perfect companion for fans of America's greatest pastime...Wendel takes his readers on a fantastic journey through time to answer the question: Who is the fastest pitcher ever?...A whirlwind tour of all the pitching greats--Nolan Ryan, Walter Johnson, Sandy Koufax and many others...This book is much more than an organization of baseball facts. High Heat reads like a parlor-room discussion of the American sport with truth laced with the tall tales...High Heat is a must-read for baseball fans and is a great resource for anyone interested in the baseball history."
Los Angeles Times, 4/4/10
"High Heat hums when Wendel profiles the fastest of the fastball pitchers, tracing the lineage of the pitch from Amos Rusie in the 19th century to Walter Johnson in the 1920s to Sandy Koufax in the 1960s and, finally, to the Washington Nationals' 100-mile-an-hour prospect Stephen Strasburg."
Charleston Post and Courier, 3/28/10
"Veteran baseball author Tim Wendel strikes again with High Heat...Wendel tracks his fastball fascination with chapter titles that read like an instructional manual--The Windup, The Pivot, The Stride--but lead to profiles."

ForeWord magazine, March/April 2010
"This is no armchair investigation. Wendell treks across the US, visiting ballparks, an aerodynamic testing lab, and baseball's Valhalla, Cooperstown's National Baseball Hall of Fame, where he sifts through the artifacts of pitching legends. Especially intriguing is Wendell's frank and frightening examination of the beanball, which uncovers a taboo subject in a game dominated by macho athletes: fear...At the conclusion of High Heat, Wendell selects his Top Ten fastball pitchers, a list that may surprise and which will certainly spawn debate. High Heat is more than just a cursory ranking of baseball's fastest arms, it's a fun and fact-filled flip through baseball's record books that brings to life the players we previously only knew from our baseball card collections."
Internet Review of Books, March 2010
"If you have any interest in pitching and/or pitchers, you're going to love High Heat...A lot of fun to read."
Booklist online, 3/23/10
"This is a really engrossing volume for baseball fans, filled with anecdotes, behind-the-scenes tales, and subjective thoughts on the mysterious activity of throwing a ball more than 90 miles per hour."

January magazine, 4/3/10
"Tim Wendell, one of baseball's leading contemporary chroniclers, here dissects the fastball and those who would throw it...High Heat is a fascinating book written with passion and aplomb by someone who clearly loves the sport nearly as much as he loves writing about it."
Smoke magazine, April 2010
"A journey through the past and present of our national pastime, and a vivid reminder of why we love the game."
Palm Beach Post, 4/4/10
"There are some great quotes scattered throughout."
Corduroy Books website, 4/6/10
"Combines the fact-rich best of nonfiction with the voicey/first-person bits...What Wendell gives the reader, and gives well, is a decent-ish history of those pitchers who have or had notoriously fast fastballs (Nolan Ryan, Walter Johnson, Bob Fellers, Gibson)...The book is a very human, very chosen portrait of a handful of dynamite hurlers...The book's a lot of fun, and interesting as hell...What it is, really, is a book about these great pitchers, and how wild it is that some humans wake up and walk this earth capable of throwing baseballs 100+mph, and it's a book about Tim Wendel thinking about that and it's great, very great, for exactly what it is: a book in which one writer writes about high heat."

Library Journal, 2/1/10
"In our era of moneyball and sabermetrics, it's refreshing to read a book so vividly written that we can easily envision the old-time players and scouts spit tobacco juice to punctuate their opinions while disdaining mere radar readings. Wendel teaches us as much about the evolution of the values of our society as he does the development of the national pastime...Highly recommended."
Ken Burns, filmmaker
"A blazing fastball of a story--compelling, relentless, riveting."

David Maraniss, author of Clemente and When Pride Still Mattered
"High Heat is a great idea brilliantly executed. Tim Wendel, one of my favorite baseball writers, delivers this fastball with a winning mix of science, biography, and mythology."
Spitball, 2/22/10
"Any book that sets out to name the top ten fastball pitchers of all time is sure to provoke controversy and Tim Wendel accomplishes just that in his somewhat quirky, somewhat biased, freewheeling and always entertaining book...Wendel travels his own road, and he excels at bringing us along with him. That it might not be the exact road anyone else would take just offers more fuel to heat the argument."
New York Post, 2/28/10
"Wendel draws you in right from the first pitch."

New Britain Herald, 8/15/10"This summer's best baseball book...Well-written and well-researched." Washington Post, 8/25/10"[A] book of delightful digressions." AOL Fanhouse, 8/22/10"I can't recommend enough Tim Wendel's book." CharlesLattimer.com, 8/23/10"Please get a copy of Tim Wendel's book...It is a terrific read." Acadiana LifeStyle, November 2010
"Baseball fans will...find a lot to enjoy." Roar from 34 (blog), 11/17/10"If you're looking for a well-timed book to read in the wake of the Year of the Pitcher, check out High Heat... Wendel succeed[s] in adding fresh perspective to an age-old baseball argument."

Newsday, 3/21/10
"[An] entertaining book...Wendel looks at how the fastball developed in the early years of the game, and travels the country talking shop with sports medicine experts about the mechanics of the pitch--there's no correlation between physical size and the ability to throw hard--and gets into lively debates about who, exactly, had the best fastball in history."
Raleigh News & Observer, 3/21/10
"For baseball fans, the book is endlessly interesting...[Wendel's] brief profiles of each hard thrower resonate, because they explain what it's like to meet the high expectations established when an arm can throw a baseball at an astounding velocity."
Roanoke Times, 3/21/10 "Who was (or is) the fastest of all time? There can be no definite answer even in this era of radar guns, which have their own variations. That did not deter Tim Wendell...He traveled all over America, to ballparks, to an aerodynamic testing lab, to the homes of ex-baseball greats, to the Baseball Hall of Fame. He read up on history and biography, and interviewed active and retired players, scouts and managers. The joy of such a quest, and of its telling, lies in baseball's rich lore and legend...As with the game itself, the fun of the book is more in taking part than in the outcome. See for yourself."

Niagara Gazette, 5/16/10
"[Wendel] is right in the zone with High Heat...Put another one in the win column of Wendel's lengthy resume...High Heat crackles with marvelous prose...Baseball is a sport of comparisons. In its field, High Heat has no peer."

New York Times Book Review, 6/6/10
"In the wonderful High Heat, Wendel leverages that tension--the fastball as both blessing and bane--to mine a stunning amount of drama from the small cadre of pitchers throughout history who happened to be able to hurl a baseball really, really fast...Wendel's writing is also all fastballs. Sensitive and scrupulous, he never forgets that for every [Nolan] Ryan and Sandy Koufax, lucky to have their unearned gifts, there are flameouts like Steve Dalkowski...High Heat is 'a seance with the game's past, ' an almost literary fantasy in which all the great pitchers throw side by side on the same diamond."


Publishers Weekly, 4/12/10
"[Wendel] presents a satisfying search for the ultimate fastball pitcher, with a result that's just conclusive enough...while leaving plenty of room for baseball die-hards' second-favorite sport: debating other fans."
Cleveland Plain Dealer, 4/11/10
"Since the inception of baseball, fans have wondered: Who is the fastest pitcher ever? Tim Wendel examines the plausibility of finding a factual answer and then forms a Top-10 list that will surely spark debate...Wendel's blending of lore with science proves to be an engaging strategy."
USA Today, 4/22/10
"A sportswriter's search for the unknowable, and why 105-mph Steve Dalkowski, the inspiration for Bull Durham's Nuke LaLoosh, never made the majors."

Sacramento Book Review, March 2010
"An interesting foray into the history of the fast ball...High Heat will appeal to anyone with an interest in baseball and most especially to those interested in pitching and the fastball."
Library Journal's BookSmack!, 3/4/10
"When it's cold outside, I love a good baseball book because it reminds me that sunny days and the crack of the bat are not far away. I got that warm feeling appropriately enough from Tim Wendel's High Heat...No chin music here! High Heat will make you think."
Associated Press, 3/15/10
"Feel free to disagree with [Wendel's] conclusion, but be sure to enjoy the book. Far from just a statistical inquiry, it's packed with stories about baseball and some of its extraordinary players...He traces how fireballers left their marks on the game, spurring such innovations as the walk and a lengthening of the distance from the mound to home plate...This is a fascinating book for a baseball fan."

Washington Times, 4/2/10
"These are two dandy books destined to be hardball classics. They are fresh, intelligent and created by writers eager to please their readers with precise, high-speed prose befitting their topics...Mr. Wendel's work is picaresque--a quest to find the fastest pitcher who ever pitched regardless of when or where he pitched...You will have to read the book to learn who his choice is as the fastest pitcher ever. You may not agree with him, but it is hard not to have enjoyed every moment of his journey to that selection." (with another baseball book)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 3/27/10
"[Wendel] does a good job of showing the dominant place the fastball, and the pitchers who throw it, has in baseball history. And talking to the players who threw it and/or tried to hit it, he shows that it's not enough to throw hard, that the best fastball pitchers are those who have taken the talent they're given and back it up with smarts and a good work ethic."
Time Out Chicago, 3/31/10
"One of the more creative baseball books to appear on opening day."

Washington Times, 7/16/10
"Wendel delivers the answers to some of the most intriguing questions about the fastball, providing insight into one of baseball's most exhilarating yet mystifying draws...He takes us on a quest to separate verifiable fact from baseball lore, traveling from ballparks across the country to the Baseball Hall of Fame, piecing together the fascinating history of the fastball from its early development to the present form while exploring its remarkable impact on the game and the pitchers who have been blessed (or cursed) with its gift."Fast Company, 7/26/10
"A lively tale about pitchers past and present." Midwest Book Review, August 2010"Provide[s] a fast-paced history baseball collections will want." Baseball America, 8/12/10"[Wendel] makes this more than a story about fastballs, bringing us into contact with the men who threw them. It's their stories, not the gun readings or stats, that make this an enjoyable read." Portland Oregonian, 8/13/10"Has the usual suspects (Nolan Ryan, Bob Feller) and an entertaining, moving section on Steve Dalkowski, the model for Nuke LaLoosh in 'Bull Durham.'"

Baseball.GB.co.uk, 12/9/10
"Wendel leads us down many interesting paths to explore the notion, found in the classic film Bull Durham, that having a great fastball can be a blessing or a curse...High Heat is a great concept that Wendel expertly brings to life. Wendel's enthusiastic, storytelling style keeps you turning the page and gives you a great insight into the legendary tales of the fastest pitchers throughout baseball history." Bookgasm.com, 1/7/11"Tim Wendel is one of the better baseball writers around these days, so I was quite excited to pick up his High Heat. It's a treasure trove of information and trivia on some of the great fastballers of the past and present, and with its thorough bibliography and index, can lead the interested reader to find out more about certain stars of the game...It's a great title for a bar conversation...The search that Wendel takes is probably impossible to decide, but it is worth the effort if it gets us to think about these amazing athletes and their skills again."

Bookreporter.com, 4/2/10
"In addition to looking at some of the artists on the mound--the Fellers, the Walter Johnsons, the Koufaxes, and the contemporary "kings of the hill"--readers learn what happens to the unfortunate batter who can't get out of the way of a high-velocity spheroid, as well as the studies in the lab and the amazing advances in medical technology that allows the pitcher to return to what would have been a career-ending injury a few decades ago."
Bookviews.com, April 2010
"The game's enthusiasts will enjoy High Heat...This book attempts to identify the one man who could out-pitch the rest. The problem is that many of these and other greats have worn the crown of fastest, but the truth is that it is the quest the book set out upon that is the real fun, along with the opportunity to learn just about everything there is to know about that rocket known as a fast ball."

Sportsology website, 4/6/10
"High Heat is highly readable and slightly controversial probing...Unlike some of the current season's crop of baseball books that are amateurish, repetitious, poorly conceived and edited, High Heat is a glistening gem."
Infodad.com, 4/8/10
"[Wendel's] research is extensive, and it is primary research whenever possible...One of the most fascinating people in the book is Steve Dalkowski, who was supposedly able to throw a ball more than 105 miles per hour but who, because of an injury, never played in the major leagues--and who became homeless in California before recovering from alcoholism and becoming the basis of the pitcher in the movie Bull Durham. There are plenty of other highly interesting characters here as well, and the emphasis on the importance of scouts is a welcome change from the celebrity orientation of so many sports books."
Sports Illustrated, 4/19/10
"Like its subject, High Heat emits a disarming hum...[It] takes a historical, statistical and mechanical look at baseball's most sacred skill...At the end you may disagree with Wendel's choice for the fastest ever. But the pages will go by quicker than a David Price aspirin tablet."