Dirk (The Garfoose) Hayhurst isn’t your typical relief pitcher. Known for his mythical creation called a Garfoose, a “fire breathing, magically empowered, indestructible, Wi-Fi enabled, half-giraffe half-moose,” the Ohio native is also a best-selling author.

The former Blue Jay’s first book, The Bullpen Gospels, is regarded as one of the best baseball books ever written. His new book Out of My League, about breaking into the major leagues with the San Diego Padres, hits the shelves later this month.

The 30-year-old played 15 games with the Jays in 2009 before missing the entire 2010 season while recovering from surgery. He wasn’t brought back in 2011, so he played in the Tampa Bay Rays’ system. Next month, instead of joining an independent baseball team with the slim chance of making it back to the majors, he’ll head to Italy to play this season.

The following is an edited and condensed version of an interview with Hayhurst from his home in Hudson, Ohio:

How is your second book different from your first one?

I wanted to write from the standpoint of trying to make it to the big leagues and then eventually making it there, and being out on the mound, and the whole time knowing exactly what could go wrong and being elated but terrified.

Nobody ever gets (to the majors) and talks about what it’s like to be scared to death and fail at it. I’ve always prided myself on showing the other side of the athlete, aside from the clichéd, heavily written-about superstar that never seems to struggle, when in fact most of the guys who make it up there don’t last. They’re trying as hard as they can, but they experience failure on the biggest stage possible. And that’s life-crippling, it really is. It’s really hard on you psychologically.

How so?

You get up there and when you struggle, you’re so worried about what it means if you get kicked out of the big leagues, and the identity issues, and finding your way as a rookie. It’s just a rough, murky, scary process and it consumes you. I would say on average that most people who make it up there are not prepared to deal with the failure.

When did you take a look back and realize these negative things were happening?

I’ve never been able to fully commit myself to the idea that baseball would fulfill me. Looking back, there was always a point in time I was lying to myself about this child’s game being the most important thing of my life. I guess I thought, well, in the big leagues it’s different because you are authoring baseball history up there, and until you’re up there you’re not really relevant. So it was this quest not just to make it to the big leagues, but to be relevant.

When children dream about being the best, it’s usually not “I want to be the best for myself,” it’s “I want to be the best because I’m elite, I’m famous, I’m rich, I stand out.” Those are the things that we want; I think baseball is just a vehicle to get them. So this deep stuff is always swirling around in my head, and as you can imagine it’s like going into a church and questioning if God really exists or not. Because when I would go into the locker room and try to discuss this with people, it was like, “Oh Jesus, here it comes.” I killed conversations on contact.

With players? Managers?

Oh, just about everybody. I don’t mean to sound like I was really smart and everybody else was dumb in comparison, because that’s not true. I’m just as dumb as anybody else. I was just asking questions about things when I should have just shut up and enjoyed it, or believe it, or don’t question it. Because the major leagues really is a fraternity, and you don’t question the rules and the codes up there, and I just can’t stop. I’ve always been that way.

When you’re focused on making it to the big leagues, then you make it and you realize it’s not all that it’s cracked up to be, what’s that like?

The massive amount of failure I had with the Padres made me look back, because it was a severely large psychological blow to do that bad. It just made me wonder, is this really worth it? I mean, I’m getting paid a lot up here, but I feel miserable all the time. I suck. And you’re dehumanized. So you’re not Dirk Hayhurst the person, you’re Dirk Hayhurst, embarrassing failure that’s bringing the team down. So this quest for relevance, this quest to be branded by baseball greatness, I was branded by it: I was branded a huge embarrassing failure.

You’re writing the Jays book right now. I’m interested in hearing about that.

The book about the Jays, I think it’s going to be different from the first two in a lot of ways. One is that I don’t think I’m going to be so nice in it. There were some really horrible things that happened to me through that experience.

What kind of horrible things?

There was a dark time where I really wanted to kill myself. That happened. And there was this horrible paranoia that people thought I was stealing paycheques because I couldn’t get back into the game as fast as I wanted to.

You thought they thought you were stealing paycheques?

Guys can use injury in the major leagues to . . . for example, they can say, “We’re going to send you down,” and you can say, “Uh, my arm hurts.” And then they have to keep you until you’re better. And since in the major leagues you’ve got the union on your side, you can drag out an injury if you want. They call it Club Med in the big leagues, when you abuse DL time.

I got hurt in the off-season. It was a legitimate injury and I felt horrible for it, but there’s this fear that I hope this is a really bad surgery. I was hoping it would (be) so people would believe me that I was really hurt, in case I get put on the big-league DL. Because if I had something minor, I knew people were going to be like, “He’s just milking the system, he’s a fringe player and he’s pocketing all this cash.”

There was the severe isolation that happens when you’re injured because the whole team’s away from you, but the book had just launched. The Bullpen Gospels had just come out when all this happened. Now, I’m a legitimate writer about baseball and I’m successful about telling stories in the locker room, so that increased this level of paranoia to almost critical mass amongst the team. My arm injury not only totally wrecked my career, but it wrecked my social structure around the game, my identity, everything. It just all got flushed down the toilet in one fell swoop. It was a horrible time for me.

Did you feel particularly like that in Toronto, or was Toronto just the place where you realized that players everywhere are treated that way?

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I think I was just playing for Toronto when it happened. I think I probably would have realized it with any team. Being injured is tough in the big leagues, it really is. It’s tough not just because you’re away from the team and it’s a pack society and so when you’re away from the group it’s hard on you; it’s tough also because you look at the rest of your life through how your arm feels that day. Even if you want to say you’re a really free-thinking ballplayer and there’s more to you than your arm, wait till your arm gets hurt. You’ll double-check that statement.

How were you received by the players in Toronto given your reputation as an author?

It was a 50/50 split. There was a bunch of great guys on the team, class acts. That was a really wonderful team as far as all the upscale personalities. Halladay was fantastic — he didn’t speak much but when he did he was always classy, and you just had a bunch of guys that were really cool. Vernon Wells, the year that I got there, was just getting flogged by the media, because there’s an example of a guy who signed a big contract, he’s got a lot of money but he’s not producing. He did a lot of charity work and he was very active and he was a good guy.

But then you had guys that were jackasses. And every team has them. These are the guys that look at baseball as a religious thing, and you never break the code. And nobody knows where the code came from, but you just can’t break it. So here comes Dirk Hayhurst, fringy guy on a search for meaning and purpose and maybe big-league fame if I could get it, and I’m just writing down stories and asking big, uncomfortable questions about the validity of our existence as ballplayers, and guys were not happy about that. And as long as you’re playing well, they’re not going to call you out about it, and I was pitching well. But then I got hurt and the gloves came off, and it was like, “Dirk, you need to apologize to the team. You need to bring everybody together and tell them you’re out of line for what you’re doing.”

Players were suggesting that?

Yeah. I remember getting cornered by guys like, “Dude, you’re making the team uncomfortable writing best-sellers.” And I was like, “Uh, sorry? I don’t understand.” And they’re like, “No, seriously, guys are worried about what you’re up to.” And I said it’s all public forum, you could read the book, or you could read the blogs or my tweets — I was the first Blue Jay to Twitter publicly so that was looked down upon — and “We don’t know what you’re up to.” And I’m, “Yeah, you do, you could read it.” And they’re like, “We’re not going to read your stuff,” and I’m like, “Well, then why are we having this conversation?” “Because that’s the way this game is, man. We all play by the same rules except you.” And I remember at that point thinking that — and this could have been any team, because teams I’ve played on since then and before that were very similar — but that was a big crossroads. I remember thinking it’s always going to be this way.

When you were on the DL, were you in Toronto?

I was never around the team. That was the worst part. I really liked the guys, I couldn’t wait to get back and play with the guys. I was part of something. It was great to feel like I belonged. The city embraced me as the quirky writer guy with the mystical animal, and I loved that. People wanted me there — at least that’s the way I felt. I had a great relationship with Tony LaCava and Alex Anthopoulos and it just felt like everything was going to go right, like finally I’d made it. And then the injury and the depression and the, finally, “Oh, by the way, while you’ve been gone, we decided that we hate you.” It was a whole roll of events that just went wrong. But I will always love the city and the fan base, and I would love to go back there in any capacity I could. I guess it just shows you how fast your life can change with an arm injury.

You usually don’t name names in your books, but you said you won’t be as nice in this one. Does that mean you might name names?

In the end I’ll probably change things to protect people. But I’ve got to tell you there’s some people — in the other books I’m like, whatever, I’ll let it go — but there are some people in this next one that I would love to just burn ’em down. And I know that’s horrible, but it’s tough. You think about words that are said to you by somebody that really make you want to take your own life because you wonder what you’ve done. You feel so terrible, like you have to have medical help to get over it, it’s hard not to just feel vengeful about it. But I think in the end it’s because I want there to be integrity to the book. I don’t want to turn it into some kind of revenge rhetoric, I’ll probably still keep it clean.

Did the Jays help you with the problems you were having?

The Jays and all of major league baseball have a team psychological adviser. The Jays’ guy’s name is Dr. Ray Karesky, and he was great. He actually knew me with the Padres because he was the director there as well. So he helped me out a lot. I was dealing with things I’d never dealt with before. The loss of identity, failure at the highest level, injury, isolation . . . it was very scary. So Ray comes into this and he’s like, “What’s happening is okay, there are ways to deal with this. There are healthy ways and there are destructive ways.” And you had these choices to make, and I had some addiction issues as a result of some of the poor choices I had made, and Ray was great in helping me get away from some of the damaging things.

You said there were some instances involving other players that were destructive. So you’re getting help from the team but these other guys are saying these damaging things?

Right, so that was tough to deal with. Teams fight with each other; you’re 25 guys around each other for half a year. But this stuff was different. This was personal attacks. I don’t mean to sound like a crybaby, but when everything comes down on you at one time it’s tough to deal with, especially when you don’t know what you’ve done, it just happens to you. You get cornered by guys at the end of the year after all this stuff, but you have no idea because you’re out of the loop.

You’re heading for the Italian baseball league this season. Are you excited for Italy, and why is it a good choice for you at this point?

I’ve changed as a person, so my dreams have also changed. I don’t want this idea — that the only way I can feel good about my career as a baseball player is if I’m trying to make it to the big leagues — to dominate the decisions I make. I have a chance to go play in Italy . . . it doesn’t pay as much, but does that really matter? My wife wants to go really bad, I want to go really bad. I think it’s an adventure.