Shakespeare References in Fear Strikes Out

I've been reading my dad's baseball books, some of which contain Shakespeare references. I had seen the film adaptation of Fear Strikes Out, and now finally read the book, and found it contains a couple of Shakespeare references. The first is to a line from Hamlet, with Jim Piersall writing, "If I had known Murphy better, I would have realized that there was a method in his madness" (p. 90). That refers to a line that Polonius speaks, regarding Hamlet: "Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't." The second reference is to Shakespeare himself, and it comes in a passage that Piersall quotes from an issue of Sporting News from July 9, 1952: "The move was like sending Shakespeare out to write obituaries on a country weekly" (p. 171). The article's author, Roger Birtwell, was referring to the Red Sox sending Jim Piersall to the minor leagues to work on his hitting.

Fear Strikes Out: The Jim Piersall Story was written by Jim Piersall and Al Hirshberg, and was published in 1955. The copy I read was a first edition.