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Moneyball by Michael Lewis
Paperback from W. W. Norton & Company ISBN: 0393338398
"You need know absolutely nothing about baseball to appreciate the
wit, snap, economy . . . and incisiveness of [Moneyball]. Lewis
has hit another one out of the park." --Janet Maslin, New York Times Billy Beane, the Oakland A's general manager, is leading a revolution.
Reinventing his team on a budget, he needs to outsmart the richer teams.
He signs undervalued players whom the scouts consider flawed but who have
a knack for getting on base, scoring runs, and winning games. Moneyball
is a quest for the secret of success in baseball and a tale of the search
for new baseball knowledge--insights that will give the little guy who
is willing to discard old wisdom the edge over big money.
Billy Beane, general manager of MLB's Oakland A's and protagonist of
Michael Lewis's Moneyball, had a problem: how to win in the Major
Leagues with a budget that's smaller than that of nearly every other team.
Conventional wisdom long held that big name, highly athletic hitters and
young pitchers with rocket arms were the ticket to success. But Beane and
his staff, buoyed by massive amounts of carefully interpreted statistical
data, believed that wins could be had by more affordable methods such as
hitters with high on-base percentage and pitchers who get lots of ground
outs. Given this information and a tight budget, Beane defied tradition
and his own scouting department to build winning teams of young affordable
players and inexpensive castoff veterans.
Lewis was in the room with the A's top management as they spent the
summer of 2002 adding and subtracting players and he provides outstanding
play-by-play. In the June player draft, Beane acquired nearly every prospect
he coveted (few of whom were coveted by other teams) and at the July trading
deadline he engaged in a tense battle of nerves to acquire a lefty reliever.
Besides being one of the most insider accounts ever written about baseball,
Moneyball is populated with fascinating characters. We meet Jeremy
Brown, an overweight college catcher who most teams project to be a 15th
round draft pick (Beane takes him in the first). Sidearm pitcher Chad Bradford
is plucked from the White Sox triple-A club to be a key set-up man and
catcher Scott Hatteberg is rebuilt as a first baseman. But the most interesting
character is Beane himself. A speedy athletic can't-miss prospect who somehow
missed, Beane reinvents himself as a front-office guru, relying on players
completely unlike, say, Billy Beane. Lewis, one of the top nonfiction writers
of his era (Liar's Poker, The New New Thing), offers highly
accessible explanations of baseball stats and his roadmap of Beane's economic
approach makes Moneyball an appealing reading experience for business
people and sports fans alike. --John Moe
Josh Hamilton was the first player chosen in the first round of the
1999 baseball draft. He was destined to be one of those rare "high-character
" superstars. But in 2001, working his way from the minors to the majors,
all of the plans for Josh went off the rails in a moment of weakness. What
followed was a 4-year nightmare of drugs and alcohol, estrangement from
friends and family, and his eventual suspension from baseball.
BEYOND BELIEF details the events that led up to the derailment. Josh
explains how a young man destined for fame and wealth could allow his life
to be taken over by drugs and alcohol. But it is also the memoir of a spiritual
journey that breaks through pain and heartbreak and leads to the rebirth
of his major-league career.
Josh Hamilton makes no excuses and places no blame on anyone other
than himself. He takes responsibility for his poor decisions and believes
his story can help millions who battle the same demons. "I have been given
a platform to tell my story" he says. "I pray every night I am a good messenger."
Josh Hamilton was the first player chosen in the first round of the
1999 baseball draft. He was destined to be one of those rare "high-character
" superstars. But in 2001, working his way from the minors to the majors,
all of the plans for Josh went off the rails in a moment of weakness. What
followed was a 4-year nightmare of drugs and alcohol, estrangement from
friends and family, and his eventual suspension from baseball.
BEYOND BELIEF details the events that led up to the derailment. Josh
explains how a young man destined for fame and wealth could allow his life
to be taken over by drugs and alcohol. But it is also the memoir of a spiritual
journey that breaks through pain and heartbreak and leads to the rebirth
of his major-league career.
Josh Hamilton makes no excuses and places no blame on anyone other
than himself. He takes responsibility for his poor decisions and believes
his story can help millions who battle the same demons. "I have been given
a platform to tell my story" he says. "I pray every night I am a good messenger."
Without a doubt the classic guide to mental performance enhancement
for baseball. Here in the third edition, authors H.A. Dorfman and Karl
Kuehl present their practical and proven strategy for developing the mental
skills needed to achieve peak performance at every level of the game. The
theory and applications are illustrated by anecdotes and insights from
major and minor league players, who at some point discovered the importance
of mastering the inner game in order to play baseball as it should be played.
Intended for players, managers, coaches, agents, and administrators as
well as fans who want a more in-depth look at the makeup of the complete
baseball player.
"This book provides practical strategies for developing the mental
skills which help speed you to your full potential."---Dave Winfield
What does it mean to play heads-up baseball? A heads-up player has confidence
in his ability, keeps control in pressure situations, and focuses on one
pitch at a time. His mental skills enable him to play consistently at or
near his best despite the adversity baseball presents each day.
"My ability to fully focus on what I had to do on a daily basis was
what made me the successful player I was. Sure I had some natural ability,
but that only gets you so far. I think I learned how to focus; it wasn't
something that I was necessarily born with." -- Hank Aaron
"Developing and refining my mental game has played a critical role in
my success in baseball. For years players have had to develop these skills
on their own. This book provides practical strategies for developing the
mental skills that will help speed you toward your full potential." --
Dave Winfield
Ball
Four by Jim Bouton
Paperback from Wiley ISBN: 0020306652
Twentieth-anniversary edition of a baseball classic, with a new epilogue
by Jim Bouton.
When first published in 1970, Ball Four stunned the sports world. The
commissioner, executives, and players were shocked. Sportswriters called
author Jim Bouton a traitor and "social leper." Baseball commissioner Bowie
Kuhn tried to force him to declare the book untrue. Fans, however, loved
the book. And serious critics called it an important social document. Today,
Jim Bouton is still not invited to Oldtimer's Days at Yankee Stadium. But
his landmark book is still being read by people who don'tordinarily follow
baseball.
As a player, former hurler Jim Bouton did nothing half-way; he threw
so hard he'd lose his cap on almost every pitch. In the early '70s, he
tossed off one of the funniest, most revealing, insider's takes on baseball
life in Ball Four, his diary of the season he tried to pitch his
way back from oblivion on the strength of a knuckler. The real curve, though,
is Bouton's honesty. He carves humans out of heroes, and shines a light
into the game's corners. A quarter century later, Bouton's unique baseball
voice can still bring the heat.
The
Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn
Paperback from Harpercollins ISBN: 0060914165
This is a book about some young men who learned to play baseball during
the 1930s and 1940s in such places as Reading, Pennsylvania; Anderson,
Indiana; Plainfield, New Jersey; Woonsocket, Rhode Island; and then went
on to play for one of the most exciting professional teams that the major
leagues ever fielded--the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950s--the team that
broke the color barrier with Jackie Robinson and set many other records
besides.
It is also a book by and about a once-young sportswriter for the Herald
Tribune who grew up in the 1930s and 1940s within shouting distance
of Ebbets Field, was nurtured on Joyce and Shakespeare and occasionally
escaped to see his bumbling heroes play, and then had the miraculous good
fortune in the 1950s to cover the Dodger team for the Tribune.
Finally, this is a book about what's happened since to Jackie Robinson,
Carl Erskine, Preacher Roe, Pee Wee Reese, Billy Cox, Roy Campanella, Carl
Furillo and the others, no longer boys but men in their middle years with
their glories behind them. For some, they have been happy years; to others,
fate has not been kind. In short, it is a book about America and how it
has progressed from the 1930s to the 1970s, about fathers and sons, prejudice
and courage, triumph and disaster. Told with warmth, humor, wit, candor
and love, The Boys of Summer is delightful and exhilarating.
"At a point in life when one is through with boyhood, but has not yet
discovered how to be a man, it was my fortune to travel with the most marvelously
appealing of teams." Sentimental because it holds such promise, and bittersweet
because that promise is past, the first sentence of this masterpiece of
sporting literature, first published in the early '70s, sets its tone.
What follows only gets better, deeper, more sentimental, and more bittersweet.
The team, of course, is the mid-20th-century Brooklyn Dodgers, the team
of Robinson and Snyder and Hodges and Reese, a team of great triumph and
historical import composed of men whose fragile lives were filled with
dignity and pathos. Roger Kahn, who covered that team for the New York
Herald Tribune, makes understandable humans of his heroes as he chronicles
the dreams and exploits of their young lives, beautifully intertwining
them with his own, then recounts how so many of those sweet dreams curdled
as the body of these once shining stars grew rusty with age and battered
by experience. It is the rare sports book that cannot be contained by the
limitations of its genre; it is equal parts journalism, memoir, social
history, and poetry.
The
Bullpen Gospels: Major League Dreams of a Minor League Veteran by Dirk Hayhurst
Paperback from Citadel Press ISBN: 0806531436 "After many minutes, hours,
days, weeks, months and years spent in the bullpen, I can verify that this
is a true picture of baseball."--Tim McCarver "There are great truths
within, of the kind usually unspoken. And as he expresses them, Dirk Hayhurst
describes himself as 'a real person who moonlights as a baseball player.'
In much the same manner, while The Bullpen Gospels chronicles how all of
us face the impact when we learn reality is both far meaner and far richer
than our dreams--it also moonlights as one of the best baseball books ever
written."--Keith Olbermann "A bit of Jim Bouton, a bit of Jim Brosnan,
a bit of Pat Jordan, a bit of crash Davis, and a whole lot of Dirk Hayhurst.
Often hilarious, sometimes poignant. This is a really enjoyable baseball
read."--Bob Costas "Fascinating. . .a perspective that fans rarely
see."--Trevor Hoffman, pitcher for the Milwaukee Brewers "The Bullpen
Gospels is a rollicking good bus ride of a book. Hayhurst illuminates a
baseball life not only with wit and humor, but also with thought-provoking
introspection."--Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated "Dirk Hayhurst has
written a fascinating, funny and honest account on life in the minor leagues.
I loved it. Writers can't play baseball, but in this case, a player sure
can write."--Tim Kurkjian, Senior Writer, ESPN The Magazine, analyst/reporter
ESPN television "Bull Durham meets Ball Four in Dirk Hayhurst's hilarious
and moving account of life in baseball's glamour-free bush leagues."--Rob
Neyer, ESPN.com
"If Holden Caulfield could dial up his fastball to 90 mph, he might
have written this funny, touching memoir about a ballplayer at a career--and
life--crossroads. He might have called it 'Pitcher in the Rye.' Instead,
he left it to Dirk Hayhurst, the only writer in the business who can make
you laugh, make you cry and strike out Ryan Howard."--King Kaufman, Salon "The
Bullpen Gospels is a funny bone-tickling, tear duct-stimulating, feel-good
story that will leave die-hard baseball fans--and die-hard human beings,
for that matter--well, feeling good."--Bob Mitchell, author of Once Upon
a Fastball
Since radio's debut in the 1920s and television's in the '30s, the
baseball announcer has become entertainer, observer, and extended member
of the family. In A Talk in the Park: Nine Decades of Baseball Tales
from the Broadcast Booth, many of the pastime's most popular and famous
announcers--the Voices--tell their favorite stories in their own distinctive
words. It is riveting oral history.
Herein is the largest total of active and retired broadcasters featured
in any sports book: 116. Its radio and TV tales include every major-league
team and such networks as ESPN, Fox, TBS, and the new MLB channel, and
capture the Voices commenting on ballparks, managers, the characters of
the game, umpires, special teams, interleague play, improvements to the
game--and on one another, including the beloved Ernie Harwell, who died
in 2010 and to whom the book is dedicated.
Here are Bob Wolff airing the longest-ever wild pitch Howie Rose using
the 1969 Mets to pass a high school exam, and Charley Steiner telling why
George Steinbrenner "hired" Jason Giambi. Denny Matthews recalls George
Scott's faux uniform number 6-4-3. Ken Harrelson defends his one-handed
catch: "With bad hands like mine, one hand was better than two." Eduardo
Ortega announces for his mother, who is deaf. Pat Hughes remembers when
Harry Caray called a game with a tea bag dangling from his ear. Voices
hail Lou Piniella: dressed, undressed, volatile, and lovable.
Columnist Christine Brennan says of author Curt Smith: "No one knows
baseball broadcasters as well as he does." In particular, A Talk in
the Park addresses trends of the past two decades--the rise of Hispanic
and other minority announcers, interleague play, ex-jocks' warp-speed climb,
whiz-bang technology, 24/7 coverage, and the evolution of broadcasting,
from radio to network television to cable.
Told by baseball's leading broadcast historian, endorsed by the National
Baseball Hall of Fame and the National Radio Hall of Fame, and starring
announcers who reach millions, A Talk in the Park brilliantly relates
what baseball was, is, and is likely to become.
Paperback from Lyons Press ISBN: 1592280838 At a 1931 barnstorming exhibition
game in Tennessee, a seventeen-year-old pitcher for the Chattanooga Lookouts
struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig back to back. Her name was Jackie Mitchell--"organized
baseball's first girl pitcher." On September 9, 1965, Sandy Koufax made
baseball history by pitching his fourth perfect game. In July 1970, a stripper
rushed onto the field at Riverfront Stadium to kiss Johnny Bench, temporarily
disrupting a game attended by President Nixon and his family. These are
just some of the great, quirky, and comic moments in the annals of baseball
recorded in THE GREATEST BASEBALL STORIES EVER TOLD. Here also are profiles
of such legendary figures as Joe DiMaggio, Pete Rose, and Yogi Berra, essays
that explore the complexities and pleasures of the game, even an excerpt
from the movie Bull Durham. This is the perfect book for anyone
who has ever played so much as a game of catch.
Contributors include:
John Updike
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Abbott & Costello
Ring Lardner
Bill Barich
Zane Grey
David James Duncan
Al Stump
Pete Hamill
P.G. Wodehouse
Damon Runyan
Roy Blount, Jr.
Richard Ben Cramer
Gay Talese
A. Bartlett Giamatti
and many more
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