Here are some excerpts from Alyssa Milano's book, Safe at Home, Confessions of a Baseball Fanatic, which hits shelves on March 24 (and you don't even have your Alyssa Milano book party planned yet).
So this is by no means a tell-all, unless you want to know how to calculate a pitcher's WHIP (Milano goes into great detail). There's plenty of nostalgia, ruminations on life in Brooklyn, and stories one might hear if stuck in a Motel 6 with Don Zimmer for a day. But those thirsting for juicy details of her relationship with various ballplayers will probably be disappointed; although they are mentioned. But if you like those "Love letter to the game" type memoirs, you'll probably enjoy it. Oh, and Joe Torre wrote the foreward, although it wasn't included in the proof I received.
Well, let's get right to the action, such as it is:
Carl Pavano — Yes. Tom Galvine — No. Barry Zito — Yes. Josh Beckett — God, no (although I do think he is an amazing pitcher). Brad Penny — Yes. Russell Martin — No.
OK, now that we've gotten that out of the way, let me preface this by saying, I am friends with almost all my exes that I have had substantial relationships with. Except for one guy who wasn't a ballplayer but was a player nevertheless and just an overall jackass (you know who you are). Carl, Barry and Brad are amazing guys, and I have nothing but respect for them. I really look back on that time of my life with great fondness. I don't have much of a social life, but I do have season tickets for the Dodgers.
OK, so that period of my life went like this: I was the girl loved by everyone and no one all at once. You must know a girl like this. You can't understand why she is still single. Men adore her, profess their love before the chicken satay arrives; then the phone rings one day, and it's her telling you he left her. Or at least that's what you think she's trying to tell you, but the sobbing makes it harder to decipher the exact phrasing. Then she does that silent cry and you think the phone went dead, or worse, she went dead. Then the ten-second silence is broken by the phlegmy inhale and then more incoherent screeching. Yeah, that's me, the incoherent screecher.
I got my first professional acting job when I was seven. I don't know how it happened. I mean, I know the story of how it happened, but I don't remember much of the specifics. The story goes like this: My sweet aunt Sissy took me to see the Broadway musical Peter Pan for my seventh birthday, and I looked at her all wide-eyed and said, "Aunt Sissy, I can do that." Before anyone knew what happened I was at an open audition for the play Annie. Fifteen hundred kids auditioned, and four were picked. I was one of the four. I didn't choose to be an actress. It chose me. I still don't know why it chose me, but I feel blessed for it and this powerful thing called destiny.
Yeah, I dated three baseball players. Not only that, they were all pitchers, imagine that. (But the one in the middle was a lefty so I don't know if he really counts). All three were very different men but nevertheless clearly heroes in the eyes of a girl who idolizes baseball players. I am not a total dolt. I saw that I was repeating a pattern that had to be broken. Each lasted seven months too: further proof of a definite pattern.
It was the early eighties, and the Dodgers were long in Los Angeles by then, and every so often Dad would say what a terrible man Walter O'Malley was for stealing the Dodgers and moving them out west. My father's sadness and anger were part of the magic. So was his telling me what a great player Reggie Jackson was, and how if anyone ever tried to boss me around like Yankees manager Billy Martin tried to boss Reggie around, I should do what Reggie did, and tell him no one bossed me, and then go out and hit some more home runs, or something.
But when casting Steinbrenner as a scoundrel, why doesn't anyone mention his illegal contributions to Richard Nixon that Watergate revealed? Look it up. He was suspended from baseball in 1974 for that revelation, and then again in 1990 for another shady episode in hiring a private investigator to dig up dirt on slugger Dave Winfield.
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Alyssa Milano Appearance [Book Review]
Alyssa Milano: Safe At Home
Alyssa Milano Loves Leather And Cork And Joe Torre Will Tell You So [Bob's Blitz]