A new book on Manny Ramirez hits the stands today, Becoming Manny: Inside the Life of Baseball's Most Enigmatic Slugger. The Boston Globe spoke to one of the authors. I found this interesting:

Q. If you had to diagnose him, what would you say?

A. Well, he has an incredible ability to focus and get into a flow state, which transcends the known world. He's fundamentally a very shy person and experiences a high level of social anxiety. It's like the whole world is conspiring to take him out of his flow state. Also, there's a degree of narcissism. That can't be denied.

I have a cousin who plays accordion. She competed when she was young at the state and national level and did very well. I've seen her in the flow state. She would just rest her head on the instrument and play, almost in a trance. I guess Bostonians should have just gone with the flow.

Ducksnorts announced their new baseball annual is available. For fans of the Padres, this is a must read. You can order the book here.

Roger Angell reviews The Yankee Years. He praises Tom Verducci's writing:

Verducci has range and ease; he's a shortstop on the page. He gets us into the visiting-team clubhouse before the sixth game of the Yankees-Red Sox American League championship in 2004 (the Red Sox have come back from three games down), where Kevin Millar, ringleader of "the Idiots," as the hilariously loose team is known, tells manager Terry Francona that the Sox will not be taking practice that night, in order to avoid "Yankeeography crap" up on the stadium's video board. "Whatever you guys want," Francona says. Millar then tours the clubhouse, doling out slugs to his teammates from a bottle of Jack Daniel's he's come upon, and the Sox go out and nail the game.

Angell comes off very sympathetic to Torre in the review.

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I just received an email that The Bill James Gold Mine 2009 is ready to order. That of course reminds me you may want to stock up on your baseball books, like The Hardball Times Season Preview 2009 and Baseball Prospectus 2009: The Essential Guide to the 2009 Baseball Season.

Major League Baseball will no longer publish a hard copy of the Red and Green books. For those of you who never came across one of these, they were one of the staples of baseball researchers before computerized stats came along. For me in the 1990s, they were my source for who was a rookie and how much service time each player had earned.

They are, however, obsolete. All this information is available online, and is updated daily. I can't argue with the decision.

The DRays Bay 2009 Tampa Bay Rays Guide is available for download.

Selena Roberts's book about Alex Rodriguez will be available a month early, just in time for the opening of Yankee Stadium. I wonder if it will be available at the souvenir stands?

Selena Roberts tells the story of her Alex Rodriguez scoop to the New York Observer. The last paragraph indicates there's more to come:

"The book is still a work in progress," said her book editor, Mr. Hirshey. "I assure you she has more drug revelations as well as other news. Not everything that Selena has on A-Rod's steroid participation has come out yet."

Hat tip, Deadspin.

Darryl Strawberry penned a book about his days with the Mets, who appeared to be lusty, zesty men.

"We were the boys of summer. The drunk, speed-freak, sneaking-a-smoke boys of summer," writes onetime home-run legend Darryl Strawberry in "Straw: Finding My Way," out in April from Ecco. "[An] infamous rolling frat party . . . drinking, drugs, fights, gambling, groupies."

I remember talking to a colleague of mine who worked on Mets broadcasts about Keith Hernandez. I made some comment about Keith Hernandez stopping cocaine use after his conviction, and my friends said, "What makes you think he stopped?" Keith and Ron Darling might have an interesting time in the Mets booth this summer.

We've Got Heart continues their series on women in baseball with a profile of Jane Heller, author of Confessions of a She-Fan: The Course of True Love with the New York Yankees.

Tyler Kepner read The Yankee Years and says Joe Torre is spinning his A-Fraud reference:

Here is the actual passage, as written by Torre and Tom Verducci: "Back in 2004, at first Rodriguez did his best to try to fit into the Yankee culture - his cloying, B-grade actor best. He slathered on the polish. People in the clubhouse, including teammates and support personnel, were calling him 'A-Fraud' behind his back."

Behind his back is the literal opposite of "in front of him." Torre says he read the book numerous times before publication. Surely he is aware of this important difference.

Seems like Joe didn't like the reaction the leaked snippets received.

Sam Borden is at the Joe Torre book signing.

Alex Belth interview Tom Verrducci about his new Joe Torre book at SI.

Joe Torre talks about his book with the New York Times.

From the reports I'm seeing today, yesterday's Torre controversy was a bit overblown.

Via BBTF, Susannah Cahalan and James Fanelli get an advanced look at Joe Torre's new book. It's not a kind look at the Yankees:

Scorned skipper Joe Torre is blasting the Yankees - calling many of his former players prima donnas, confessing he stopped trusting the powers that be years before he left the team and charging that general manager Brian Cashman betrayed him.

In an explosive new book called "The Yankee Years", Torre gets most personal in his attacks against Alex Rodriguez, who he says was called "A-Fraud" by his teammates after he developed a "Single White Female"-like obsession with team captain Derek Jeter and asked for a personal clubhouse assistant to run errands for him.

I'm a bit surprised by this. Not that these things went on, but that Joe would make them public. Torre's reputation is all class, and this calls that into question.

Update: Here's another post that agrees Torre is losing some of his classiness here.

Michael Schmidt at the New York Times weaseled a copy of Kirk Radomski's new book posts a review. Craig Calcaterra reviews the review:

In any event, after reading Schmidt's article, I hope that none of you feel an overpowering need to go buy Radomski's book. There is so much garbage being published these days that we shouldn't be in the business of encouraging any more of it.

I actually find it interesting that Radomski names names that aren't in the Mitchell report, but Schmidt leaves them out of his article. If we knew those names, there would be no reason to buy the book.

Vertigo Comics sent me a copy of the 250th issue of John Constantine, Hellblazer. There are five stories in the special issue, the first Vertigo to reach 250 issues. The third one caused the issue to come to my house, "All I Goat for Christmas." Constantine is hired to end the Billy Goat curse, and Rafael Grampá's illustration of the curse will give Cubs fans nightmares. One warning, this book is for adult fans of Wrigley.

I just received Instant Replay: The Day That Changed Sports Forever in the mail. The author, Tony Verna tells the story of how he conceived of and executed the first instant replay in a zinc-plated, vacuum-tubed culture. His tape machine weighed a ton, and there was no way of cuing tapes. He had to invent a way to make a machine do something it wasn't meant to do.

For fifty years, Verna directed major television events and he tells the story of his life in broadcasting. Having spent some time in production trucks, it's amazing how much broadcasting changed since his invention. It's a nice gift for someone interested in the history of broadcasting.

The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2009 (Hardball Times Baseball Annual) is now shipping.

I just received an e-mail reminding me that the Bill James Handbook 2009 (Bill James Handbook)
is available and shipping. This is a resource I use throughout the year, so don't miss it!

Jere Smith writes that there will be a reading of his new book, Dirty Water: A Red Sox Mystery, at the West Hartford Public Library on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2008 at 7 PM. You can read more about the book and find out more about their promotions at the Dirty Water blog.

James Crabtree and his friend Ryan set out to find Bob Wood on the 20th anniversary of the publication of Dodger Dogs to Fenway Franks: The Ultimate Guide to America's Top Baseball Parks. Here is their story:

The lure of the open road, a quest to visit all the sacred green cathedrals of America's National Pastime, and the joy of summer vacation equal the perfect mixture of pure bliss to many. It was certainly the right recipe for one inspired author and scores of his future readers. If baseball is the thinking man's game, then one quintessential book is the thinking baseball fans idyllic daydream of a wistful journey. Twenty years ago Bob Wood was a young 28 year-old high school teacher with an abiding love of baseball and travel. With no prior writing experience he had set out on an epic road trip to visit all 26 Major League Baseball stadiums in one summer. His book, Dodger Dogs to Fenway Franks, quickly became a cult classic with baseball fans around the globe. Today it still endears itself to legions of readers and offers a glimpse of a time in baseball that has now long since passed. Most of the 26 stadiums he visited are gone. Cell phones and GPS devices are common. Laptops, cable television, and the internet have revolutionized life. Steroids and other issues have had their effect upon the game. Yet, somehow baseball remains as beloved as it ever was. Dodger Dogs to Fenway Franks was a fascinating read and was quickly embraced by baseball lovers everywhere. Its author however had long since left the public eye. In fact, he seemed to be missing. Where was Bob Wood? Had he become baseball's J.D. Salinger?

----------------

My friend Ryan and I were determined to find him. Bob Wood had written Dodger Dogs to Fenway Franks when we were young devout baseball fans. Now, twenty years later our love for the game was additionally filled with nostalgia for our youth. Players we had watched on the field are now manager and coaches. Stadiums in which we had watched our first big league games have been reduced to mere parking lots or vacant fields. Life moves on. Wood's book had captured our young imagination back in 1988. The idea of loading up a car and trekking across the country to visit every stadium in one summer was something we all dreamed of. Somehow, someway, Bob Wood had managed to do it. Not only had he done it, but his book had also brought us along for the ride. We were with him every mile of his solo trip. We experienced the thrill of him receiving free tickets from some teams, the fun of watching a sun baked game at Wrigley Field from the rooftop of a building on Waveland Avenue, and had suffered with him when his car was looted of all his possessions or when he feared for his safety while riding the dangerous subways in NYC. We also worried along with him about his ever-tight budget that caused him to camp in a sleeping bag most nights and subsist on hotdogs for a majority of meals. It was a book like no other. Amazingly, there has been none like it since. Wood had set out in the summer of 1985 with a Toyota Tercel loaded up with camping gear, a road atlas, some Frank Sinatra tapes, a camera, and a tape recorder. He brought little else except his dream of completing the journey and sharing his trip with friends and family. His plan was to keep an audio journal of his travels. It wasn't however until sitting under a tree one sunny day in Bozeman, Montana on his way home that he thought that perhaps he had the beginnings of a book. He would soon find himself rising at 3am most mornings to pound out a rough draft before slogging off to school to teach all day. Three years after his epic road trip his first book would finally be published in the summer of 1988. Dodger Dogs would go on to be a surprise hit, but even his publisher, McGraw-Hill, didn't realize the treasure they had on their hands and failed to even promote the book. Still, it sold. It sold everywhere it was placed on the shelf. Wood decided to take matters into his own hands and became a one-man media machine. Soon he was promoting his book by placing calls to nation wide programs and letters to newspaper editors. Before long he was appearing on the CBS Morning Show, David Letterman's program, and radio shows coast to coast. Not bad for a guy from Kalamazoo, Michigan that had admittedly majored in tailgating at Michigan State and had somehow found his way into teaching high school near Seattle, Washington. The book sold enough copies that it appeared in paperback the next year and had rave reviews from the likes of Bob Costas, Larry King, and Hall of Fame broadcaster Ernie Harwell. It had taken three years for Dodger Dogs to go from a road trip to a book in stores. It would take just one year for Wood's second and final book, Big 10 Country, to be published. It was a loving look at the stadiums of the Big 10 college football conference. The audience for it though was small and it eventually faded into obscurity. It seemed that Wood had done the same. He had not written anything since then. Where was he? How to find a person with a common name that has not been in the public eye in 20 years? The search began.

"I think I've found him," read the title of the email. I was sitting at work as normal when my good friend Ryan's email hit my in-box. We had spent parts of the last four or five months trying to locate Bob Wood. It had become like a quasi-hobby. We enjoyed speculating where he would be or how to identify him. Ryan's father had spent his career in the F.B.I. and we began to think of our search for Wood like the F.B.I.'s quest for the elusive D.B. Cooper. At times we felt that our odds of success were about as remote. Wood's books had offered only a few clues. We knew he was from Kalamazoo originally. We knew that he had been a teacher. We knew that that was about all we knew. Calls and emails to his old publisher went unanswered. No one at the Kalamazoo sports page had any idea. I had even called a local convenience store that was mentioned in Dodger Dogs as being owned by the family of his childhood friend. No luck. The new owner was from Pakistan and didn't know what baseball was, let alone had he heard of Bob Wood or his infamous book. We began to think that the author of one of our favorite books had turned into J.D. Salinger, except that no one knew it.

"Yep, I think this is him," read the email. "His photo looks similar to the dust jacket photo and the writing style seems like his," wrote Ryan. He was right. It did seem to be a hit. It was our first true lead. Through the wonders of internet searching (a tool that Al Gore had not yet invented in 1988) we could see a short story about a trip to Africa by a Mr. Bob Wood, a high school teacher in Muskegon, Michigan. There was a photo of a mustachioed middle age man that appeared to bear a strong resemble to the old dust jacket photo in Dodger Dogs. It had to be him. A few more quick searches were like firing for effect with the artillery and soon we had email addresses and phone numbers for our prospective long lost author. Next, how to approach him? Was he THE Bob Wood? Was he still a fan? Why had he not written anything for so long? Would he be angered that we had found him? There was only one way to find out. My emails at first went unreturned. Perhaps they were being filtered out as spam. Eventually however I got an affirmative response. Yes, it was THE Bob Wood. No one had asked him about his book in years. The puzzle pieces were finally falling together. Months and months of part time sleuthing had finally found our Salinger; if that's what he was. So much had changed in baseball over the last 20 seasons since his book was published and we had a vast amount of questions. Some of the more pressing dealt with the logistics of the trip, how he got the book published, and queries for behind the scenes details. Luckily for us, and all true baseball fans that had ever read Dodger Dogs, Bob Wood was still very much a fan, albeit conflicted over some changes in the game, and he would gladly take the time to talk.

On a sunny Sunday afternoon the day before most teams were set to open the 2008 regular season I called Bob Wood in Michigan. Finally, after all the effort and investigations we would be able to speak. His voice is one that immediately sounds like it belongs in western Michigan with the distinct flat accent that is so common in the region. He seemed like a genuinely likeable person, just like in the book. I begin to ask question after question, many that I had wondered about since I read Dodger Dogs for the first time as a 13-year-old. Luckily for me Wood still remembered almost every moment of his journey. Over the next hour and a half we covered every question I could come up with.

For the last 16 years Wood has been a high school government teacher at Oakridge High School in the aging industrial town of Muskegon, Michigan. He views teaching as a labor of love and spends long hours on campus every day. Never married and with no children, Wood still loves to travel and has been on numerous trips to Africa and Europe. His students are excited to hear his stories about these adventures and he often leads them in various extracurricular clubs that hopefully will broaden their knowledge and expand their opportunities. Yet, Wood has seldom told them about being an author, and it was not until some of his students found a mention of him on Wikipedia that they knew much about his books. In fact, Wood was even unaware that 2008 was the 20th anniversary of Dodger Dogs being published. The thought of doing an anniversary edition is something he had not considered, but as we talk he seems to grow fonder of the idea. That is especially the case when he realizes that Dodger Dogs has now, because of the passing of time, become a resource for those that want to learn about stadiums that are now gone. Actually, it is more than that. It is about a time and an era that has faded and been replaced. A time that Wood states was "an era of innocence." It's strange to describe 1985 that way to some, but for those of us whose youths were lived in the '80s we know exactly what he means. Fully 22 of the 26 Major League Baseball stadiums that Wood visited will have been vacated or destroyed in the next three years. Gone are iconic fields of dreams such as Tiger Stadium and Comiskey Park. Others such as Yankee Stadium will soon join the roster of the deceased, along with less heralded venues like the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis. Good or bad, ballparks like Arlington Stadium and Candlestick Park are gone and their likes will never return again. Wood laments the fact that virtually every stadium today is alike. "They are all like going to the mall. When I went you saw a vast disparity amongst the stadiums. There were ups and downs along the way. There was something sorta neat about going to a crummy ballpark with 5,000 fans. That doesn't happen anymore."

In 1985 the Texas Rangers were one of the poorest franchises in baseball. Despite being located in the fast growing Dallas - Fort Worth Metroplex (even the regional name that was used by the locals sounded like a mall) the team could barely draw fans to the ballpark. They played in a renovated minor league stadium in which fully half of the seats were metal bleachers that ran from foul pole to foul pole in the outfield. Wood remembers well his time there. The Rangers were so starved for attention that they placed his name on the big screen (something only half of the teams had in 1985), provided him a free hotel room (one of the few times he didn't camp by his car), and showered him with boxes of free giveaway items they used to lure fans such as hats, beach towels, and plastic beer mugs. "That was their thing," says Wood when describing the Rangers of that era. "I get the feeling that it isn't that way anymore." He's right. Today the Rangers reside in a first class structure with every amenity one could imagine. There are no more metal bleachers and no more minuscule crowds. Progress has meant huge revenue along with features such as restaurants and luxury suites. Its no longer like how All-Star Buddy Bell once described it as being so quiet during a game that you could hear the typewriters in the press box while standing at third base. My brother and I were often some of those few fans at Arlington Stadium and we built our first memories of the game there. Today, the stadium is gone and its past location serves as a parking lot. My request to the Rangers' p.r. department for a free media guide or pocket schedule was met with silence. It seems that more has changed in Arlington than just the ballpark.

Baseball has grown obviously, but the game also reveres history and tradition. "I think the game still does better than most at holding its heritage," says Wood. "Still, a lot has changed and isn't coming back. Many of the people at ballparks just seem to be there because it's like going to the mall. When I was a kid I would sit and score the game or listen on the transistor radio. I think we're losing those fans."

Bob Wood began his journey through America on Sunday, June 16, 1985 with an afternoon game at the now demolished Seattle Kingdome. After watching the Mariners eke out a 2 to 1 win over the K.C. Royals before a crowd of 14,103 fans he would jump into his Toyota Tercel and hit the road. His quest would end in Atlanta at the now imploded Atlanta Fulton County Stadium on Monday, August 5, 1985 with a 6-1 Dodgers win over the lowly Braves. He had seen a game in each of the 26 stadiums and had logged over 10,000 miles on his car. He had driven long expanses of highway on an extremely tight schedule. Today he's amazed he did it. "I don't know if it could be done today," says Wood from his home near Muskegon. "To hit 30 stadiums like I did would be even more difficult, especially with the price of gas and the logistics of the games." Teams that have been added in Colorado, Arizona, and Florida would certainly put an added burden to today's journey. He admits however there would be some advantages today that didn't exist in 1985. "Yeah, I would call my mom back in Kalamazoo on a pay phone most nights to let her know I was ok. I mean, I had to drive across the desert in Arizona and New Mexico at night because my car had no A.C." he adds with a laugh. "In fact, my mom even filed a missing persons report on me in San Francisco because I was so despondent about my car being broken into and most of my possessions being taken" says Wood. "It's just so absurd when you look back on it, but man it was a great trip."

Wood still owns the rights to his book. After some prodding I think he begins to come around to the idea to issue a 20th or 25th anniversary edition. Perhaps he could do a new forward? When Dodger Dogs was first published McGraw-Hill, besides doing no promotional work for it, also ran exceedingly small printings of the book. Small enough that they could never meet demand. "It was very frustrating," says Wood. "It went to something like seven printings, but each printing was only around 2,000 or 4,000 copies. It was never enough to meet the demand from the bookstores. Today, you could simply go around a bad publisher by selling your book via the internet. At that time in the '80s publishing was still very much a slow system and you just had to stand in line and hope that the publisher would print more copies. I think that's changed some." It is all the more reason for a new edition of his classic. "I'm really glad people still love the book. You know it just seems to pop up from time to time. I think it's become a cult classic of sorts and that's cool," he says reflectively.

There are some great anecdotes that I glean from our interview. Items that didn't make the book include the fact he surprisingly lost over 20 pounds on the road trip due to malnutrition. Wood's eating of hot dogs and ballpark peanuts for virtually every meal finally caught up with him half way through his trip. "I got sick in Minnesota and threw up. I had this great idea that I could just eat hot dogs and beer the whole time, but it finally got to me. I had to keep going on the trip, but it was hard to keep the weight on." Wood also confesses to sometimes skipping out of the KOA campgrounds without paying. "I had to. I had no money. So, I'd get up in the dark, shower, and pack up and slide off out of there." Perhaps the most revealing detail was his fear of New York City. In the book he had described carrying a knife for protection on the NYC subway and his strong belief he could be attacked. I ask if that was a real fear, or just an exaggeration for the story. "No, I was really scared. I had never been to New York before and was very worried for my safety. I've been back since many times however and really like it." This account, more than perhaps any other, demonstrated how dedicated he was to the journey. He was willing to face potential mortal danger on a Bronx subway while holding a knife underneath a folded up newspaper to ensure that he made it to Yankee Stadium. Had J.D. Salinger ever done that?

At some point it becomes clear that Bob Wood is no recluse. He may not have written another book since 1989, nor has he desired to do so, but he lives a life he finds rewarding. "I love being a teacher. I've always had a passion for it," says Wood. "People would ask me when the book came out if I was a writer doing a story about baseball or if I was baseball fan that wrote a book. I would always tell them I was just a fan that wrote a book." Wood however still loves to travel and continues to use his summer vacations for that purpose. "I love being able to just go once summer hits. I've been to Europe and Africa several times. It really opened up my perspective on life," says Wood. In fact, Wood has used his African travels to become a one-man media campaign once more. This time instead of trying to promote his book he is trying to promote the idea of change in the war torn Darfur region of Kenya. He has also led his students to become active in American politics and serves as an advisor to a group of that calls themselves the "Super Dupers." They are a club that has been relentlessly bugging Michigan Democrats to do away with the super delegates in their primary process. An effort to eliminate the designated hitter might have more success, but to Wood the quixotic seems to be something to celebrate and embrace.

Bob Wood's favorite baseball memories are both related to the Red Sox. As a teenager his parents had allowed him to drive with a friend on a whim from Michigan to Boston to go see a game at Fenway Park. It had planted a seed that would spur his epic 1985 quest. It has also made him a lifelong Red Sox fan. His devotion explains why the 2004 American League Championship Series is his best baseball moment out of a life of baseball memories. "Man, when the Sox came back to win four straight and beat the Yankees...well, it was the best and most exciting moment I've seen in baseball." His voice sounds like that of a 13 year-old kid filled with excitement and awe. It is the same tone that filled Dodger Dogs for page after page. I ask for more details about his one-man media campaign to sell his book. "Well, I was determined to do whatever I could. I just started making phone calls to people non-stop. The first big break was being interviewed by Kathleen Sullivan on the CBS morning news show. From there things just grew." Wood recounts how his favorite show was ________ in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. "He was just a great radio host. He had me on several times to promote it and he would just do an entire hour with no ads. We'd just talk about the trip, the stadiums, and take phone calls. I wonder what ever happened to him?" I ask for information about the David Letterman experience. "Letterman was actually pretty cold. His studio was freezing, but also he just personally wasn't very friendly to me. Now, his staff was great however." Wood adds that he was determined not to make a fool of himself during his full seven-minute interview segment and believes he didn't. He adds with a laugh however that he was on the show the same night controversial singer Sinead O'Connor made her first appearance on an American television. Letterman's demeanor was the rare exception. Others were far warmer and more gracious. Two well-known and high respected baseball broadcasters were his earliest and most fervent advocates. "Ernie Harwell and Bob Costas were the best. They really went out of their way to help me. They made calls and helped with promoting the book. I think they each understood the appeal of the book far quicker than most did," says Wood. "They really helped out a lot."

One tale from the book featured a man who made his living selling peanuts outside games at the famed Wrigley Field in Chicago. Wood spent an entire afternoon with him learning the trade and hawked peanuts one summer afternoon to the throngs that were heading inside the historic ballpark. The stadium remains, but the vendor is long since gone. "They chased him out of there," Wood says ruefully. "The Cubs and the city came in and cracked down on street vendors around the ballpark. It became very corporate. You know, I sat on a rooftop of an apartment across the street from Wrigley in a lawn chair and watched the game. That's gone." Wood is right. In fact, all of the rooftops across from Wrigley now feature built in seats and earn so much from ticket sales that the Cubs sued the building owners a few years ago to ensure they got a cut of the increasing revenue. Wood bemoans what he sees as the squeezing out of the common fan. "I don't know how a family can afford to really go to many games anymore." Back in 1985 $10 or $12 would get you the best seat in the house in most ballparks. Today a fan is lucky to park their car for that amount. The idea of bleacher seats has all but faded and those that remain, such as at Wrigley, are now so in demand that they are far harder to find tickets for than any other seat. Our conversation has taken a turn toward the melancholic as we continue to discuss some of the unfortunate changes in the game. We ponder how baseball has now opened their season once more in Japan for the third time in its history. We wonder why baseball cards now cost around $3 for 10 cards when they were a simple quarter for 15 back in the mid '80s. We reflect on how World Series games are now all played at night and have such late start times that any kid that has to attend school the next day is lucky to view the first three innings. The rulers of Major Baseball seem to have focused on the short-term financial gain, but what have they forsaken in terms of future generations? Have changes such as inter-league play, the DH, and the wild card added anything to the game? Wood clearly seems to fall into the camp of baseball purists, but he isn't sour about it. He clearly still loves the game and enjoys it. As much as things seem to have changed since the mid '80s more than we realize has remained the same. The love for baseball and the dream of the ultimate road trip are probably stronger today than ever. That is why Dodger Dogs to Fenway Franks continues to grow as a classic. Its appeal is timeless, just like the game it chronicles. One day Bob Woods' talents as a writer may lead him back to writing about the game. Twenty years has changed a lot in baseball, as it has in life, but childhood loves of nostalgic moments in baseball seem to never fade. After finally finding and talking with Bob Wood I'm convinced that not only does the nostalgia for baseball and youth never fade, it only grows stronger with time.

Alex Belth polled 55 readers and lists the ten essential baseball books. One I like that didn't make the top ten is The Managers by Bill James.

In my time at ESPN, I don't remember working much with Kenny Mayne, but I remember liking him very much. Almost all the anchors I worked with were good people. They had the occasional conniption, as the videos of Chris Berman that popped up on YouTube can attest. I can't say I ever heard Kenny utter a mean word, or knew anyone who didn't love working with the man.

As you may or may not know, Kenny and his wife lost a set of twins. It was devastating for them, and Mayne took some time off after the tragedy. Eventually, the couple did have a child. To celebrate, Kenny bought ice cream for ESPN. He sent the owner of the local ice cream parlor to the Bristol studios with tubs of ice cream, and everyone got to make a sundae.

On top of everything else, Mayne is hilarious. So I was very happy to receive a copy of An Incomplete and Inaccurate History of Sport: . . . and Other Random Thoughts from Childhood to Fatherhood. By luck, I opened to the chapter on rowing. I was a coxswain in college, so I identified with this:

In rowing, a bunch of men or women sit in a boat and row as hard as they can while another person, the coxswain, yells at them to row even harder.

Continuing:

For some reason, it's a real big deal at prestigious colleges such as Harvard. Most of the kids who go to Harvard are really smart and will end up owning boats driven by other people, though no oars will be involved and there won't be that much yelling. You'd think, being so smart, all the people at Harvard who want to be on the rowing team would try out for the part where you get to yell at people to row harder than they already can. It's management training.

The book has a foreword, a backwords and a forward, all designed to frustrate delay Canadians from getting to the first chapter, Ice Hockey. Kenny, a former football player writes five chapters on tackle football, including indoor tackle football and electric tackle football.

It's a funny look at the sports we know well, and an even funnier look at the sports we don't know at all.

Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Legends: The Truth, the Lies, and Everything Else presents Rob Neyer at his best. My first exposure to Rob's work came from his contributions to Bill James's Baseball Books, where Neyer wrote sidebars tracking down these types of stories. Now with Retrosheet at his disposal, Rob can do even better work. He tracks down home run banter between Fred Haney and Babe Ruth. He discovers if Munson dropped third strikes so he could pull ahead of Fisk in assists. He examines bean balls and Bob Feller's wildness.

All the while Rob's conversational tone makes you think you're sitting there talking baseball with a fellow fan. For those of you who want to know if announcers are telling true stories or embellishing the facts, Baseball Legends is for you.

Jon Heyman reports on the reason Jose Canseco hates A-Rod:

Canseco claims in his new book, Vindicated, that the reason he "hates [Alex Rodriguez's] guts'' is because A-Rod hit on Canseco's then-wife Jessica. However, people who were close confidants of Canseco insist the actual reason the ex-ballplayer despises A-Rod has nothing to do with Canseco's former wife but regards Canseco's true passion, which, of course, is money.

Those former confidants told SI.com the rift between the two Miami-raised superstars actually occurred when Rodriguez chose not to let Canseco and his brother, Ozzie, be his agents. Those former confidants say Canseco was bitterly disappointed in A-Rod's business rejection.

"I know Jose, and I know Jose very well. He would be madder at A-Rod for not signing with the agency than for going after Jessica,'' said Juan Iglesias, a well-respected Miami-based player agent and former business associate of Canseco's.

Iglesias also dispells the idea that A-Rod hit on Canseco's wife.

Joe Lavin got his hands on a copy of Canseco's new book and provides spoilers. Since it's a humor column, I don't know if it's made up or not.

Hat tip, FanHouse.

Update: The post appears to be real. A-Rod was asked about both accusations and gave a no comment to both. Alex is a lot smarter than Roger Clemens when it comes to keeping his mouth shut about things that might get him in trouble.

Update: River Ave. Blues still thinks it's a joke.

In the mail today, Ducksnorts 2008 Baseball Annual. It has all you need to know about the San Diego Padres. I'm looking forward to some free time to read it.

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The Mariners posted their media guide online. This is very useful. In the past, you had to be a member of the media to get one or shell out $5. Now you can just look up numbers anytime anywhere without lugging books around. I hope all teams are doing this.

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Rays Anatomy provides pictures of the Tampa Bay Rays fanfest. I like this one of the Baseball Prospectus table, showing how they are trying new and different ways to sell their books:

I wonder what their VONS (Value Over Nate Silver) is? :-)

Redleg Nation finds a classic book.

Jose Canseco's ghost writer quits.

"I'm passing," Yaeger told the Daily News. "I had a chance to review the Jose Canseco (material) that he provided me. I don't think there's a book there. I don't know what they're going to do. I don't think he's got what he claims to have, certainly doesn't have what he claims to have on A-Rod.

"There's no meat on the bones."

It's a good day for Alex Rodriguez.

Jose Canseco's new book is set for an opening day, 2008 release. Given the veracity of Jose's previous book, there are going to be many unhappy players the day the volume hits the stands.

R.J. Anderson published his book on the early years of the Devil Rays, Lamar-itis. It's available via download at the link.

ACTA Sports is now taking orders for Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster 2008.

On the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's debut in the major leagues, it seems appropriate to review Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season. Jonathan Eig presents a narrative tough to put down. I like to skim books to get a feel for the story, but I found myself reading page after page and letting the time slip away.

Eig provides not only the story of Robinson in that year, but of the struggle for civil rights as a whole in the mid 1940s. Huge demographic shifts took place at that time as soldiers returned from the war, and black Americans among them pushed for eqaul treatment. A wave of relocation brought many black southerners north looking for better jobs, and created an atmosphere in New York City where integration on the baseball diamond would soon become forced. Branch Rickey was stayed ahead of the curve, which allowed him to integrate on his terms.

Eig delves deeply into Robinson the man. We get a clear portrait of Robinson's willingness to fight for his rights on two bus ride stories. One, in which he refuses to go to the back of the bus while in the army, led to his court martial. The other, in which he used the power of the purse to persuade a gas station owner to allow the players to use the washroom. Those incidents stand in stark contrast to his first trip to spring training. Airlines found excuses not to fly Robinson and his wife Rachael all the way to Daytona. They ended up on a bus, sitting in the penultimate row. But the driver demanded they move all the way to the back, and Jackie did without argument. It was the first case of him following Rickey's orders to have the strength not to fight back and thanks to the author's prose, we feel Robinsons' struggle with those moments.

Eig takes us through the cheers and catcalls, the worries and the triumphs of that amazing season. He describes the scene when the Dodgers returned home from a western road trip in September that won them the pennant:

As the Dodgers stepped down onto the train platform along Track Thirteen, some of the less recognizable players mixed with the crowd and escaped, their hats pulled over their faces. Not Robinson. As he walked toward a phone booth, eager to call his wife, some five hundred people -- most of them men, most of them white -- moved with him. He took off running, got to the phone booth ahead of the crowd, and slammed shut the accordion door. When he finished his call, half a dozen policemen rescued him, forming a circle, and, like the front line of the UCLA football team, clearing a path. Robinson took off for the IND subway line, where several pursuing fans begged for the privilege of paying his five-cent fare. At last, he reached his train and climbed aboard. And still, dozens of giddy admirers trailed him. They squeezed into his subway car, their destination of little matter, happy enough just to be along for the ride.

Robinson didn't mind. The Dodgers were winners. He was going home to his wife and son.

"I'm tickled silly," he said.

This season, think about honoring Jackie Robinson by reading this fine story of his great 1947 season. It reminds us how lucky we and the game are that Robinson succeeded.

The Ducksnorts 2007 Baseball Annual is a perfect book for any Padres fans or for anyone looking to gain a better understanding of the Padres organization. Geoff Young, long time blogger at Ducksnorts presents the material in his usual fascinating way. His mix of opinion and numbers makes for an enjoyable read throughout. There's something there for everyone.

I especially liked the chapter on Kevin Towers' trades. He breaks down the best and the worst. Interestingly, his best is one that will surprise people. It netted negative win shares for the Padres, but benefited the organization in many other ways. That's the kind of insight Geoff brings to the book. He's able to look beyond the numbers to support his opinions.

His review of the history of the Padres made me realize just how few great players called the city home. They've had incredible right fielders, and of course Trevor Hoffman, but at almost every other position I said to myself, "That's the best they could do?"

So if you want to read a complete, in-depth review of the 2006 San Diego season, if you want to learn how this team was built, or even if you're just interested in some history about the organization, the Ducksnorts 2007 Baseball Annual is the book for you. Geoff presents numbers, opinions and history in a very enjoyable style. Don't miss this book!

I'll be attending the Baseball Prospectus event at the Yale Barnes and Noble tonight in New Haven. If you're attending, be sure to say hello.

Two new books came in the mail in the last couple of days. The Cheater's Guide to Baseball looks like a lot of fun. Just skimming through the book I came across the illustrations of how doctored pitches move. Given the ugliness of the substances on the balls, I'm glad I never caught Gaylord Perry. The author, Derek Zumsteg, can be read on a daily basis at U.S.S. Mariner.

Also recently arrived is the Ducksnorts 2007 Baseball Annual. It features analysis and commentary on the current San Diego Padres, as well as some historical information and lessons the organization can learn from other successful "small market" teams around MLB. You can read more about the Padres at Ducksnorts, the blog.

I'll be reviewing both in the next couple of weeks.

Finally today I bought Burning Annie. I've heard about this movie for a few years but never got the chance to see it in a theater. I'm a huge fan of Annie Hall. My roommate Jim Storer and I used to go see the movie whenever it played at the old Harvard Square Theater (for $2, you saw classic double features). One night we went and the movie was sold out, so we walked around reciting lines to entertain ourselves. I still say, "the universe is expanding," when I find someone worrying about something frivolous. I'll post a review of Burning Annie just for fun after I see the film.

Baseball on the Brain arrived in the mail. Dennis Purdy offers tons of various baseball trivia questions from records to movie quotes. My favorites are the pictures to identify. Even baseball experts will find this book challenging.

Florida Spring Training, 3rd Edition: Your Guide to Touring the Grapefruit League (Florida Spring Training: Your Guide to Touring the Grapefruit League) by Alan Byrd provides all the information a traveler to Florida needs to navigate spring training baseball. Alan attended games at each stadium and gives you a real feel for what the ballpark is like. He lists the pros and cons, the beautiful and the ugly. For each park, a general introduction is followed by specifics on everything from, food to shade to how to exit the parking lot quickly. He tells you where it's easy to get autographs, where to stay in the area, and where to get food or drink before and after the game.

A perfect example of the value of the book is in the section on getting autographs at Chain of Lakes Park, the home of the Indians. After explaining the difficulties of meeting Indians players caused by the layout of the stands, he gives you detailed instructions for meeting Bob Feller and obtaining an autographed picture. The book makes his learned experiences yours. It's the perfect guide if you're headed to the Grapefruit League this year.

Alex Rodriguez wrote a children's book, Out of the Ballpark. (Also in Spanish, Out of the Ballpark (Spanish edition): Jonron!) The story line sounds familiar:

"Out of the Ballpark" follows a boy - appropriately named Alex - whose baseball team is playing in the playoffs. Alex, who is a second baseman, makes a key error in the game and begins to put extra pressure on himself. Only his play gets worse. Sound familiar?

Alex's team, the Caribes, overcomes his play to reach the championship game. Alex works harder, waking up before sunrise to practice, throwing a ball against his bedroom wall 500 times a day. Without giving away the ending, let's just say that the Yankees should hope that life imitates art come October.

Maybe when Alex retires he'll take up baseball blogging. He's one of the more intelligent players out there, and his views would certainly add to the discussion.

Gary Sheffield's autobiography is due out soon. Sheffield recounts his dealings with Bonds and BALCO, but there's not much new in that regard. It does shed some light on Sheffield's relationship with Joe Torre:

Sheffield called Manager Joe Torre "an enigma" and recalled how, in 2004, his first season in with the Yankees, he grew infuriated that Torre had said he wished the team had signed the slugger Vladimir Guerrero.

During a meeting in Torre's office before a May game in Baltimore, Sheffield told him: "I'm tired of hearing you talk about how much you love Guerrero. That disrespects me."

The next season, Sheffield recounted, he and Torre had an argument in St. Louis the day after Torre called him out during a team meeting for his uneven defensive play.

Sheffield said they quickly patched things up once Torre explained how he viewed him as a team leader and as someone who could handle the pressure.

Daniel J. Erickson writes that his book about the 1986 Mets, 1986 Mets Memories - A Fan's View of The World Champions is available from Amazon and also as an E-Book.

The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2007 is now shipping. There's plenty of time to make it a Christmas present for the baseball fan you love.

Steve Lombardi reviews The Bill James Handbook 2007 at Netshrine. I just received my copy of The Bill James Handbook 2007 yesterday. The first thing that caught my eye was the voting for best defensive players. Bill gathered a panel of experts from both the news media and the sabermetric world, gave them ballots and had them vote in a Borda count. What's interesting is there is a lot of agreement with the AL and NL voting. Even on something like shortstop, Everett wins but Vizquel comes in second (Jeter, however, doesn't make the top ten). Maddux and Rogers finish one-two among pitchers in their poll, and the objective stats back that up. That makes me think teams don't teach their pitchers to field any more if two 40 year olds are the best at turning balls into outs.

The biggest differences are in the outfield, where the gold glove awards vote for the best outfielders, giving centerfielders an advantage, while this poll was at each position. It's a voting system that's easily implemented and would likely improve the results of the voting, but not as much as I would have thought.

Also, in the managers section, take a look at Ozzie Guillen's entry. It's a good lesson in how the makeup of the team effects strategy. In 2005, with a weaker offense team, Guillen stole more, sacrificed more and put runners in motion more often than with his 2006 power team. That's just what a manager should do, as the investment in outs is more costly if it's easier to score a man from first with a long hit.

Just arrived in the mail, an advance copy of The Baseball Economist: The Real Game Exposed by JC Bradbury, author of Sabernomics. He looks at sabermetric research using the tools of economists. I've just started reading, but so far his arguments are interesting and informative. I'll have a few review at a later date.

In the mail, A Well-Paid Slave: Curt Flood's Fight for Free Agency in Professional Sports. Brad Snyder spends a few chapters on Flood's biography, but the bulk of the story is devoted to Flood's court battle. If you're interested in a more complete biography of Flood, I'd recommend Stepping Up: The Story of All-Star Curt Flood and His Fight for Baseball Players' Rights by Bronx Banter blogger Alex Belth.

The Hardball Times provides a preview of their new annual, introducing new metrics on batted balls.

You can pre-order your copy of the Bill James Handbook 2007 at Amazon now. Now only does it give you the career stats for each player soon after the season is over, but it's full of all kinds of interesting charts on defense, managers, projections and park effects. I always keep my copy next to my computer.

Little Leagues, Big Dreams just arrived in the mail. It looks to be a look at the pros and cons of Little League, and how it's grown into a big business told through the lens of the 2005 Little League World Series.

The Team by Team Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball arrived in the mail today. The book presents history, stats, lineups and significant players for each organization. It looks like a nice addition to any baseball library.

In Feeding the Monster, Seth Mnookin offers an intimate view into the operation of the Red Sox from their sale by the Yawkey Trust to the start of the 2006 season. Seth's prose is enjoyable to read. As I initially skimmed the book, I found my self reading pages into chapters rather than just trying to get the gist of the story. Mnookin spent 2005 with a desk at Fenway, going to meetings, interviewing personnel, almost acting as part of the operation. Through him we learn how the Henry group came together, and how Charles Dolan lost the team by offering money to the limited partners too early. Seth takes us through the long process that developed into the rift between Lucchino and Epstein, something that could have been fixed early if either of them had spoken about it to the other.

Manny Ramirez, Nomar Garciaparra, Pedro Martinez and Kevin Millar are all explored in depth. Despite this, I understand Manny no better now than I did before reading the book. The Manny tales are more a rehash of what we know. Mnookin never gets in the player's head. That was a big disappointment.

What turned out to be very interesting to me was the tension between Baseball Operations and Marketing. Theo Epstein felt marketing was promising too much to the fans. Epstein realized after the 2005 season the team might need to take a step backward so they could be both a high revenue club and have a strong farm system. But marketing wouldn't listen and that helped drive Theo away from the team in last October.

It's a fascinating look at how a team operates, how players behave, and how the media is involved in all of it. While Red Sox fans will love every minute of the book, any baseball fan will enjoy the real-life drama that was the Red Sox over the last four seasons. I highly recommend Feeding the Monster.

In the Mail, Feeding the Monster by Seth Mnookin. I'm skiming it now, but it's very engaging and appears to be very well sourced. I'll have a more thorough review when I finish. The Boston Globe has highlights.

Ken Aven writes that his first novel, Chavez Ravine Echoes, is now available for purchase. You can read more about Ken at his site.

Alex Belth always gets the best interviews. Today he talks to Joel Sherman, author of The Birth of a Dynasty, the story of the 1996 Yankees.

In Bubble Wrap is offering twenty five copies of Jeff Angus' Management by Baseball. I'm told there are no strings attached, just click on the "I Want One" button and you're entered in the drawing.

I just received Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Blunders in the mail. Rob and a host of guest authors explore some of the famous mistakes in baseball history; trades, managers and players. Yours truly gets a side-bar on Dusty Baker and game six of the 2003 LCS on page 270, so I'm not the most unbiased reviewer. However, I love Rob's books, and if you're a fan of the ESPN columnist, I'm sure you'll love this one too.

There's a new children's book about Manny Ramirez. Seems appropriate.

The audio version of Clemente, The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero arrived in the mail. David Maraniss writes and read this biography. The title shows Maraniss sees Clemente through a romantic lens, and listening to the first chapter that shines through. David is impressed by Clemente's humanity, which starts long before his ill fated trip to help earthquake victims. Clemente visits children in hospitals wherever he goes, he gives out coins to poor people he meets on the street. If you're looking for a book about the legend of Clemente, Maraniss provides the text.

Former commissioner Fay Vincent started a project to conduct videotape interviews of former players to preserve the history of the game. The Only Game in Town is the first fruit of that project. The book contains interviews with ten players from the 1930's and 1940's, with an eye on how the game changed from before World War II to the breaking of the color barrier in 1947.

I've read the first chapter, an interview with Elden Auker, the last surviving member of the Detroit championship teams of the early 1930s. A submariner, Auker pitched against and played with some of the greats of the day. He tells stories about Babe Ruth, Mickey Cochrane, Joe Cronin, and how Auker almost ended Lou Gehrig's streak when one of Elden pitches broke the toe of the Iron Horse.

This is the first volume of the history, and it looks like it will be a must have for a baseball historian's library.

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Steve Lombardi pens a positive review of The Last Nine Innings at NetShrine.

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6-4-2 Has the link to a story about Barry Bonds suing the authors of Game of Shadows. It's looks to me that Bonds' lawyers want to hold the authors in contempt for illegally obtaining grand jury testimony.

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Game of Shadows arrived at the house today, accompanied by the fanciest press kit I've seen so far. It has excerpts, bios, interviews with the authors, everything you might want to review the book without reading it. I'll make the effort to actually read the book before reviewing it, however.

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Alex Belth, author of Bronx Banter, is now the author of the first biography of Curt Flood. Stepping Up, The Story of Curt Flood and His Fight for Baseball Players' Rights is the first book by the fine blogger.

I've just started the book, but in first 40 pages Alex is already fleshing out a complex man living in a complex time. Belth is a fine wordsmith; the pages fly by, both interesting and informative. I'm looking forward to the whole story, especially the fight for freedom from the reserve clause.

Correction: Changed not to now. Makes much more sense that way.

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Just arrived in the mail, Mark Lamster presents Spalding's World Tour. Lamster chronicles the journey of a group of baseball all-stars as they circumnavigate the globe in late 1888 and early 1889. I've read the prologue and enjoy Lamster's style. He captures the era and brings the men in the story to life. I'm looking forward to reading the rest.

Correction:: Fixed the author's name.

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Steve Lombardi offers his take on The Book.

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The first chapter of The Book discusses the statistical tools used by the authors. They calculated run values for each event, much like in The Hidden Game of Baseball. Just as you'd expect, in the higher run environment used for the latest calculation, the stolen base is even a riskier proposition. A stolen base awards you .175 runs, while a caught stealing now costs you .467 runs. So you need to steal at about a 73% clip to just break even. Only 9 of the 30 teams were that successful running last year.

My copy of The Book arrived in the mail today. Now I just need to find time to read it. They spend 50 pages on the sacrifice bunt, so it looks like the three authors really researched their subjects in depth.

Steve Lombardi likes The Fielding Bible.

The Fielding Bible by John Dewan arrived in the mail today. I just read the Jeter vs. Everett section by Bill James, and it's an excellent analysis of the differences between the two.

Just skimming the book, there are tons of tables measuring varying aspects of fielding. There are great color charts showing where hits landed against each team. There are essays explaining the systems used and comments about the ranked players. In many ways, it has the look and feel of a 21st century Bill James Abstract.

I'll have a complete review in a few days.

In the mail today, The Last Nine Innings by Charles Euchner. The book purports use the 2001 World Series to explore the changes happening in Major League Baseball. It looks like it's full of interviews with insiders from that series.

Reading The Mind of Bill James was a trip down memory lane. Scott Gray, in building his portrait of this unusual person picks some of my favorite passages from Bill's work. I laughed out loud as I reread some of my favorites, especially the Spark Anderson/Enos Cabell rift on good attitudes. But the book is more than just a VH-1 show called "I Love Bill James." It's a book that explores how Bill thinks and why he thinks that way.

Because of that, it's not just a book for baseball fans, but a book for writers, scientists, politicians; anyone who thinks about the world around them. Bill is never afraid to ask why. He's never afraid to question conventional wisdom and assumptions, including his own. In addition, he possesses the added gift of language, which allows us to understand his argument and be entertained at the same time.

I'm going to have my daughter read this book; not because she likes baseball all that much, but the lessons in thought will help her through her life. If you've never read James, this book will send you to the library to check out his works. If you've been reading Bill since the beginning, you'll gain new insights into how Bill operates. It's definitely worth the read for baseball and non-baseball fans alike.

In the mail today, The Mind of Bill James, How a Complete Outsider Changed Baseball. I've been lucky enough to meet and work with Bill over the years, so I'm looking forward to digesting Scott Gray's look at the Guru. As a bonus, I also received this very cool bobblehead:

I'll keep this one in the box. When Bill is inducted into the Hall of Fame, it might be worth some money. :-)

In the mail, Baseball Hacks: Tips & Tools for Analyzing and Winning with Statistics by Joseph Adler. I did a quick skim, and the book is geared for someone who wants to use the internet to collect and analyze baseball statistics. It's chock full of ways to download data from public internet sites, parse the data and store it in a database. It even provides tips for analyzing and displaying the data. It's aimed at the fantasy player, but it would be useful to any sabermetrician.

FoxSports.com posts an excerpt from Dayn Perry's new book, Winners: How Good Baseball Teams Become Great Ones (And It's Not the Way You Think). Dayn focuses on the rise of the Braves in this chapter.

Bleed Cubbie Blue reviews the soon to be released In the Best Interests of Baseball? and chats with the Author, Andrew Zimbalist.

Mitchel Litchman, Tangotiger and Andy Dolphin co-authored a new tome on baseball, The Book. Their web site includes excerpts and one of the easiest ordering systems I've used. I've already pre-ordered my copy.

Geoff Young of Ducksnorts offers a 281 page book on the Padres 2005 season for download. It's free, but if you like it consider making a donation.

Christina Pazzanese of the Boston Globe reviews The Baseball Uncyclopedia, a humorous attempt to debunk the myths of baseball.

Steve Lombardi reviews Fantasyland, by Sam Walker. Steve loved the book:

Fantasyland is Sam Walker’s chronicle of his first rotisserie baseball experience. However, this is not your everyday fantasy baseball rookie tale. Walker is a sports columnist for the Wall Street Journal who talked his way into joining “Tout Wars” (which is a prominent rotisserie “experts” league) for their 2004 season. Additionally, Sam was armed with a substantial budget – he spent nearly $20,000 traveling and preparing for the league’s player auction – and he decided to employ both a Sabermetrician, Sig Mejdal, and someone who was more focused on the qualitative-side of scouting, Ferdinando (Nando) Di Fino, to assist him through his rotisserie expedition. As such, the debate of Sabermetrics versus traditional scouting (and the balancing of the two schools) is a prevailing thread throughout the book – and in many ways Fantasyland is akin to a good buddy-movie in the way that these three characters (Sam, Sig and Nando) play off each other.

It seems Sam got to play fantasy baseball like it was the real thing. He also used his position as a sports writer to influence real life managers to help his team. Sounds like it will be an interesting read.

Jon Weisman just published The Best of Dodger Thoughts, a compendium of his best posts. I however, like to think his best posts are yet to come. :-)

Rich Lederer reviews The Bill James Baseball Handbook at Baseball Analysts.

In the mail today is The Bill James Handbook 2006. It's always a treat. Besides the player register, the book supplies complete fielding statistics, pitchers hitting, batters pitching, managers strategies and player projections. One of the more interesting things I saw in my initial skim was in the team efficiency section. It seems that Chicago was the most efficient team in the league in terms of converting runs scored and allowed into wins, while Cleveland was the least efficient. According to the calculations there, the Indians should have won the AL Central by 13 games!

One thing in hitter projections seemed wrong to me, however. They project Barry Bonds to hit 36 home runs next year, a very reasonable amount. However, when they project career home runs, they put Bonds at 900. I'm not sure what that is based on, but close to 200 home runs for a player Bonds' age seems very unlikely at this point.

I find the park indexes extremely useful during the season. Citizen's bank park in up there with Coors in helping home runs, although it's not that close in overall run scoring. PETCO is the most difficult park for homers and runs by a wide margin.

The Bill James Handbook is a great reference. I keep it on my desk the whole season.

The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2006 is now on sale. Order today to ensure you're the first on your block to receive a copy!

Alex Belth was kind enough to send along a copy of Juicing the Game by Howard Bryant. I spent many hours on the beach this week with this book, and the read is well worth it. Bryant presents a fairly up-to-date history of latest offensive era and the possible causes; smaller stadiums, tighter baseballs, tiny strike zones and steroids. No one comes out looking very good in the end.

First, what I didn't like about the book. While an important story, it's a difficult read. Not only could I put this book down, there were a number of times I had to put it down. Parts captured my attention, and parts were just rehashing old stories that I've heard 100 times. The book could have been shorter and more effective.

I also found it somewhat disjointed. One chapter ends with Jeter talking to the press about steroids, denying that he uses them. The press turns to Giambi who is sitting nearby, and Jason also denies using them. It's a powerful moment in the story, given what we've learned in the last year. Instead of following up on this, Bryant totally switches gears and spends a chapter on the strike zone and implosion of the umpires union.

I also found the theme of the book difficult to discern. At times it seemed to be an indictment of the long ball era in general. If the same stats had happened without a steroid scandal, Bryant still would have written this book. At times, it's a screed about racism in baseball. Bryant at one point comes very close to blaming racism for Barry Bonds alleged steroid use. But the theme that covers this book the best is that everyone (owners, MLBPA, fans, umpires and the media) wanted offense, and that need forced the game to spin out of control.

In the final analysis, however, Bryant gets every angle of the era covered. He documents Bud Selig's ability to take credit for successes and blame everyone else for failures. He shows how the union's insistence on privacy rights ignored the desires of much of the MLBPA membership to fight steroids. He exposes the hypocrisy of Tony La Russa. The manager changed his story on what he knew about steroids to fit the situation.

He teaches us that baseball had the ability to test players by invoking a probable cause element of the collective bargaining agreement and never did. La Russa knew Canseco was using steroids and never told his bosses. Even if he had, it's not clear that Sandy Alderson (or any GM or owner) would ask for the test. Baseball hands weren't as tied as they liked to say publicly. He explains to us that the union could have tested players internally, keeping the results totally secret to determine the extent of the problem. The union could even penalize offenders by kicking them out of the MLBPA. They did nothing. He exposes the lack of education on steroids of the men who covered the sport and how people who did try to move the story forward were treated as pariahs.

The only people who get treated with kid gloves are the "crusaders," the scientists who are fighting for more testing and harsher penalties. Their views are accepted without the rigorous inspection everyone else receives.

Juicing the Game is worth the difficult read. The issues brought forth by Bryant deserve a long discussion. I'll be posting about points of agreement and disagreement with the book in the future. I hope you'll read the book and join the dialog.

If you are interested in becoming an independent agent, or if you work for a big agency and want to be your own boss, don't read License to Deal by Jerry Crasnick. Jerry explores the hectic world of the independent agent; the late night calls, the handholding and the betrayal people like Matt Sosnick endure to try to land the prize, a superstar baseball player.

I was not enthralled by the story. Crasnick paints Sosnick as a hard driving multi-millionaire who's never achieved happiness because he can't slow down long enough to actually enjoy life. I was bored with this protagonist very early in the book.

In fact, the only really interesting character in the story is Dontrelle Willis. Willis comes off as the only flesh and blood human being in the book. Jerry shows us the hard-knock life, the near death experience, the triumph of the draft and Willis' ability to take it all in stride with good humor and generosity. It's a great picture of an emerging major league star, and makes me want to pull for Dontrelle even more.

So don't read the book for the story of another super-competitive over achiever. Read it for the story of a pitcher who appreciates every moment of his baseball and personal life.

Stephen Lombardi brings us The Baseball Same Game, a fun romp through the history of baseball. He uses comparisons to league averages to find players of similar career lengths and statistics. Some make perfect sense, as Christy Mathewson is paired with Tom Seaver. Some surprise, such as Ralph Garr and Davey Johnson.

One that really surprised me was Thurman Munson and Terry Puhl. When we played Strat-o-matic, we called the former outfielder Terry Tool. He was a 1 e0 in right field, the best fielder he could be. He was an A bunter, a B hit and run (both tops) and had great stealing and base running ratings. He seems about as far away from the stocky catcher as you could imagine.

But offensively, they were close. Munson had more power, but in terms of runs created, the two were very close. It's one of the examples in the book of Lombardi finding someone (Puhl in this case) who's better than you thought.

So pick up a copy of The Baseball Same Game and take a trip down memory lane. You'll meet old friends and make some new ones.

Benjamin Kabak compares Moneyball and 3 Nights in August.

Horsefeathers reviews License to Deal. He likes it very much. I've received a copy and will be reviewing the book soon.

Eldon Ham's new book Larceny and Old Leather is an amusing collections of stories about how baseball players, owners and teams often bend the rules or outright break them. He covers field manipulation, gambling, curses racism, sign stealing and any other mischief that is part of the lore of the game.

The book, however, should be read more as entertainment than fact. In the second paragraph of the first chapter, Ham makes an egregious error, putting Babe Ruth's record setting 59 home runs in 1923 instead of 1921. He also repeats the story about the Black Sox name coming from the White Sox uniforms being dirty, which doesn't appear to be true. This leads me to believe the book is poorly researched.

Ham drops the ball in other areas as well. I was looking forward to the chapter titled Hal Chase: Malignant Genius. Chase is one of the darkest characters in the history of baseball. He could have been the model for Senator/Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars, down to the disfigured face. But Ham doesn't explore the character of Chase, nor the reasons for the appellation above; he just attributes it to a judge.

Ham is a good story teller, but I'd like more substance. I'd also like to know that he did more than repeat embellished stories, that he actually checked the sources. It appears that didn't happen.

Athletics Nation interviews Michael Lewis about his long term project call Underdogs (Sweet Polly Purebred does not make an appearance). Here's a sample:

Blez: You've been around to a lot of the minor league ballparks to see a lot of the kids. What's it like to be a part of that minor league existence, even for just a short little while? I think so many people see the players are the major league level and all the money they make, but they don't see how many kids just struggle at the minor league level and fight to get to where they get to.

Lewis: When they're 22 and unmarried, it's one thing. The life is not pleasant. They eat badly. They sleep badly. Long bus rides. They get out of shape during the season. The skinny ones get skinnier and the fat ones get fatter. How that happens, I don't know. Where the life becomes much more poignant is when they're married and have small children and are making $14,000 a year and I could be making $40,000 a year doing something else, how long can I cling to the dream? What's surprising to me is how many of these players, immediately upon going into minor league baseball married some girl and got her pregnant and put a degree of pressure on themselves that they really didn't need. In many cases, it's very transparent that the insecurity of life in minor league professional baseball is the origin of the decision to get married. They're looking for some stability in this inherently unstable life. But there's an awful lot of pressure on them and if you think about it and think about what's going on and what you're watching. You're watching a vast pool of potential big league baseball players at the last window of the process. There are three or four million kids playing little league baseball and in the end there are a few thousand playing minor league baseball. Then you're going to take those and turn them into the few hundred who play big league baseball. There's a ruthlessness about it and an arbitrary quality to it. A lot of the decisions that are made aren't exactly fair.

National Pastime is the latest entry from economics professor Andrew Zimbalist on the game of baseball. He joins forces with fellow economist Stefan Szymanski to explore the economic developments of baseball and soccer, and what each sport may learn from the other.

The book is more history lesson than economics lesson, and that was disappointing. The authors are at their best when they are describing why the current scheme of revenue sharing in baseball does not encourage competition, or why the promotion and relegation system of soccer is driving teams into bankruptcy.

Zimbalist and Szymanski point out that under the current CBA, teams share 34% of their local revenue. If they spend money to increase their revenue (by signing high priced players), their contributions to the pool increase, but their share of the revenue decrease (since they're making more money). Of course, that might not happen if all teams were attempting to increase revenue, but there is no incentive for that to happen. The authors point out how this works by noting that the Brewers payroll fell while transfers to the team increased between 2001 and 2004.

Soccer's economic problems come from the promotion/relegation system, where winning teams can move up to a premier division and losing teams can move down to what is essentially a minor league. With the introduction of satellite broadcasts, competing in the Premier Leagues can be very lucrative for soccer clubs. But in order to gain entry, these clubs will pay high prices to obtain star players often more than they are worth. It's really the same problem low budget teams in the US face; how do you build a team that is good but also doesn't drive you into debt? National Pastime, however, does not go looking for the Billy Beane of soccer.

Szymanski and Zimbalist in the end believe that soccer could benefit from baseball's closed monopoly system, and basebal could benefit from a soccer like governing body outside the league and committed to the long term growth of the game. However, they're solutions are not very specific. How should soccer insure the solvency of teams? Why should baseball owners give up their rights to a strong central leader?

The book would have been better with more economics and less history. It would also have been interesting to include other views; for example, are there no economists arguing for a totally free market approach, where teams are free to form leagues for a given amount of time and players are free to move between teams at the end of their contracts? National Pastime does a good job of identifying problems, but it left me hungry for more solutions.

In the mail today was Larceny and Old Leather by Eldon Ham. It looks at the mischievous legacy of major league baseball. I'll be reviewing this book soon.

In the mail today, National Pastime by Stefan Szymanski and Andrew Zimbalist. It's a look at the business of Baseball in the US and soccer in the rest of the world. I'll have a review after I've read the book.

NPR's Morning edition had an interview with Tony La Russa and Buzz Bissinger, the author of the new book Three Nights. Three Nights explores the managing style of La Russa. At the web page for the story you can hear the interview as well as listen to excerpts that didn't make air. There's also a powerful excerpt from the book about the death of Darryl Kile.

Baseball Musings is holding a pledge drive during March. Click here for details.

Long time readers of this blog know I'm a fan of Strat-O-Matic baseball. I've been playing in leagues on and off since college, both face to face and by mail. When Strat-O-Matic Fanatics arrived in the mail recently, I thought it would be an interesting read about people like me, fans who learned to appreciate the game statistically through simulation. It turned out to be much more than that.

Author Glenn Guzzo brings us the intimate details of the life of Hal Richman, the inventor of the game. Trapped in a dysfunctional family, Hal's love of sports becomes his escape. The lack of statistical accuracy of All Star Baseball prompts Hal to invent his own game at age 12, the game that would evolve into Strat-O-Matic, the game that would give him independence from his family.

It's the story of the underdog becoming the hero through hard work and honesty. Guzzo tells the tale well, invoking sympathy for Hal's pain and happiness for his triumph. Along the way, any Strat player will see a bit of himself in the people who play the game; pouring over cards, rolling the dice. Guzzo captures the exciement of turning over a split card to see if the result is a hit or an out.

Of course, we meet the famous players. Dan Okrent of the NY Times and the inventor of fantasy baseball. John Miller, the voice of Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN. Lenny Dykstra of the Mets and Phillies. Guzzo takes us behind the scenes of ratings meetings and touraments. But in the end, it's the story of Hal Richman and his fights throught adversity that make this book a must read.

Baseball Musings is holding a pledge drive during March. Click here for details.

Batgirl has announced her next read in her book club: Moneyball. I'll have to join that discussion.

She also reproduces (without linking, and I can't find it) an article about the Blue Jays abandoning the supposed Moneyball offense (get on base, hit home runs) for the agreesive Twins offense (don't get on base but run really fast). The article is based on criticism in the 2005 Baseball Prospectus.

Baseball Musings is holding a pledge drive during March. Click here for details.

Evan Brunell has a lengthy and thoughtful review of Jose Canseco's book, Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ‘Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big at Firebrand of the American League. The bottom line:

I believe Jose Canseco.

I agree that the mistakes in the book have more to do with memory slips and the lack of fact checking by the ghost writer than outright lies. However, bad facts do lead to a lack of credibility. So why does Evan believe him?

We all believe Giambi used. I’ve seen pictures of Ivan when he broke in, right before Jose arrived, pre-Jose, and now current Ivan. He used. I’ve seen Juan Gonzalez and I believe it. Palmiero is a little iffy for me, because I don’t really recall Palmiero being incredibly skinny. I don’t think he completely relied on steroids, but could he use a low base of steroids to help? Of course. Barry Bonds? Yeah. He used, same for Gary Sheffield. How about Bret Boone? Obviously. Sammy Sosa, I agree. Even the implication of Miguel Tejada goes a little far but is nonetheless, still believable.

Bottom line: there are no completely outlandish and shocking accusations in the book. And I see no reason why we should vilify Canseco. People say he’s out to make a buck. I say he’s got plenty. And from reading up on him, his side of the stories (he sets the story straight about his arrest record, and I have seen nothing refuting that, so I will take it as truth. Why? Because it’s completely believable, and most likely true! Racism exists, and people wanting to take advantage of stars because they have money exists.) and whatnot, I don’t think he’s a bad guy everyone is making him out to be.

The whole review is well worth the read. Others believe Canseco as well, but few are as sympathetic towards him.

Baseball Musings is holding a pledge drive during March. Click here for details.

The good people at The Hardball Times have produced their second publication, The Bullpen Book. I received my copy today and will be offering a review soon.

Baseball Musings is holding a pledge drive during March. Click here for details.

Like Blez at Atheltics Nation, I visited a bookstore yesterday. I thought about buying Canseco's book, when Testosterone Dreams caught my eye. I bought that instead, and so far it's a very interesting read. While you might want to read Jose's book for the controversy, Testosterone Dreams may teach you a lot more of the history of these drugs. I hope to post a review when I'm done.

Sabernomics posts on the new book, Scouts Honor. It's being touted as the anti-Moneyball. The book's web page states that "SCOUT'S HONOR has the support of upper management in 80% of the MLB teams in the country." My guess is that the six teams that don't support the book are the Red Sox, Athletics, Dodgers, Padres, Blue Jays and one of (Indians/Yankees/Rangers/Cardinals). It should be a very interesting read.

Will Carroll has read Jose Canseco's book and seen the 60-minutes interview (I have done neither). Will has some good questions for Jose, especially this one:

2. How did you get access to hGH in 1985, just as it became available to the public as Humatrope? At an estimated cost of $30,000 for a therapeutic dose (presumably much smaller than used for performance enhancement), why would he share it?

Also, check out Will's article on Yes where he fact checks the book as much as he's able.

I just received The Ultimate Washington Baseball Trivia Book in the mail today. David Elfin is a veteran sports writer for the Washington Times and a fan of the late expansion Senators. He uses triva, photos and brief player biographies to tell the history of major league baseball in the nation's capitol. Each trivia page has 9 questions (one for each inning) around a theme such as Three Baggers or The Presidents. Did you know that Jimmy Carter is the only president from Taft on not to throw out a first pitch anywhere?

It's a fun book to learn about the history of the city's teams with the Expos moving to DC in 2005. However, the book does look hastily published; there are a number of typos in the prose. But this inexpensive paperback would make a great stocking stuffer for the young Washington fan unfamilar with his city's baseball heritage.

Enjoy!

My copy of the Bill James Handbook 2005 arrived in the mail today. Although I worked on the publication, this is the first time I've seen the finished product, and the first time I've seen the Bill James sections of the book. If you are a fan of the Abstracts, you'll want to pick a copy up to see how and why Bill has updated the runs created formula. He has a whole section on efficient teams that came from the realization that the Red Sox have been an inefficient team for nearly two decades. In trying to figure out why, Bill revised the runs created formula by adjusting the advancement part of the formula, making the weights for hits non-integer. This has the nice effect of making the formula more accurate for teams going back to 1955.

One of the other new sections is by Sig Mejdal. Sig is a biomathematician who works for NASA (not a rocket scientist, but close). Sig is doing extremely interesting work using stepwise logistic time series regression to try to determine the probability of a player being injured given his history and body type. I hope interview Sig about his work more over the winter.

If you're interested, follow the link above to purchase a copy. You won't be disappointed.

The Hardball Times is going from pixels to paper with The 2004 Hardball Times Baseball Annual. I'm sure the book will be as interesting as the site. And if you like pixels better than paper, you can download the publication for very little money. I'll have a review when I get my copy.

I've been busy the last two weeks working with the terrific crew at Baseball Info Solutions helping to put together The Bill James Handbook: 2005. It's a great resource for your fantasy scouting. The book also allows you to spend the winter exploring players in depth, since

1. It's available November 1.


2. It has all the stats!

There also are statistics that look at managerial strategy, win shares, lefty/righty and new material from Bill James. Order now so it's on your self Nov. 1.

Baseball Info Solutions now has season final and lefty/righty stats available for download. Just stop by our store and pick up what you need!

Baseball Info Solutions is now taking orders for The Bill James Handbook: 2005. The book will be available November 1 and is a great winter time companion. It's the first book every year to have the complete career records of the season's players, lefty-righty matchups, leader boards galore, and other interesting stats and studies. Reserve yours today, and be the first on your block to scout your fantasy team for next season!

One nice thing about vacations for me is that I get to catch up on some reading. I've had Curve Ball by Jim Albert and Jay Bennett sitting on my shelf for some time, and found it a very good book on explaining baseball statistics using statistical models. I like their method of predicting Sammy Sosa's HR totals. Their best guess for Sosa through age 32 was 438 HR; he had 448. Through age 34 it was 527; he had 537. (In the book, they had 2 year intervals). For age 36, the end of next year, they have Sosa at 597, with a 48% chance of being over 600. We'll see.

In general, the book confirmed a number of methods I've used for analysis over the years. I recommend it to anyone interested in methods of testing speculation with mathematics.

The other baseball related book I had a chance to digest was The Teammates by David Halberstam. It's the story of the long-time friendship between Ted Williams, Dom DiMaggio, John Pesky and Bobby Doerr. I came away wanting a detailed biography of Dom DiMaggio, certainly the most interesting of the brothers as a person. It's short, well-written and worth the read not only to explore the lives to these men, but as a reminder of what baseball was like in the 30's and 40's.

Alex Belth has a excerpt from Buster Olney's The Last Night of the Yankees Dynasty at Bronx Banter. The excerpt focuses on how Gene Michael and Buck Showalter laid the foundation for the dynasty that continues today. An excellent read.

Jim Gerard sends this E-Mail:

I'm writing a book called Yankees S**K (Penguin, April 2005) and one chapter explores the reasons why fans of other clubs hate the Yankees. I'd like you and your fellow posters to share your thoughts on this topic.

I don't care of the title, but it sounds like an interesting approach to gathering opinions. So if you'd like to help out and express yours, feel free to do so in the comments.

This post doesn't really answer the question, but it does offer an explanation for the Red Sox inferiority complex.

ESPN.com has an excerpt from the Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers, discussing the fastball.

Michael Katz sends this link. Hollywood is thinking of turning Moneyball into a movie. Hooray for Hollywood!

Baseball Widow reports that Stephen King will be chronicling the 2004 Boston Red Sox. As Count Floyd would say, "EEEW!, That's scary stuff!"

Will Carroll has a new book coming out, Saving the Pitcher. You can pre-order it at the above link. Will tells me he's looking to do clinics around the release of the book, so be sure to look for those.

Bill Hobbs sends me this review of Baseball and Country Music.

Alysse Minkoff of ESPN.com Page 2 has read My Prison Without Bars and liked it a great deal.

Right away, one thing becomes as blazingly apparent as the bright red dust jacket: This is a damn good book and an enthralling read. Pete Rose is a compelling, tragic figure in this drama of his own making, and as a reader I never once felt the least bit sorry for him -- which is exactly the way he wants it.

William Kelly alerted me to the latest Rob Neyer column, which has its most interesting material at the bottom:

Pete Rose has a new book coming out next month. Jan. 8, to be precise. Now, you might ask, "Why Jan. 8? Wouldn't the publisher want the book out before Christmas?" On Tuesday, somebody asked me that exactly.

I gave a vague answer. Then I looked at my calendar, and it all became very clear to me.

Rose's publisher has embargoed the book, releasing absolutely nothing to anybody before the official "pub date." This is extremely unusual. Publishers generally send out scads of review copies weeks or even months before publication, to generate publicity. Even when they hold the review copies, in the case of a book that's got some surprises, those surprises are leaked in some fashion; again, for the sake of publicity. But as far as I know, nobody's seen this book except the publishers (Rodale Press).

Why so hush-hush? And why Jan. 8? Like I said, it all made sense when I looked at my calendar. Rose wouldn't be publishing a book unless he'd cleared the contents and its publication date with the Commissioner's Office. I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that Rose will finally admit that he did wrong, that he did bet on baseball and he's really, really sorry. Really.

Mark your calendars.

Rich Lederer has a review of the 2004 Bill James Handbook, with lots of great tidbits pulled from the pages. I would like to correct one misconception Rich has, however:

The Handbook is unlike The Bill James Abstracts from 1977-1988, the Bill James Baseball Books from 1990-1992, and The Bill James Player Ratings Books from 1993-1995. The major difference between this book and the others is the amount of commentary from Bill James. The Handbook has a grand total of five pages written by James whereas the others are full of his comments, evaluations, and stories.

This book replaced the Major League Handbook published for many years by STATS, Inc., and is not meant to replace the old Abstracts or other research books by Bill James.

Matt Welch, one of my favorite bloggers, offers this review of Moneyball in Reason Online.

Which may sound like evidence for Richard Griffin’s description of sabermetrics as a "cult," but that charge misses a crucial point. The analytic revolution thrived precisely because from its early days people argued passionately with each other. As important, they yielded when the better research or theory won. Much of the parlor reaction to Moneyball has focused on questions such as: What happens when the rest of baseball catches up to Beane’s fanatical emphasis on on-base percentage? And why on earth would he give away his trade secrets?

The first question ignores the distorting effects of Lewis’ book. He chose to highlight Oakland’s strong emphasis on offensive patience, partly because it’s important and partly because it presented to him cerebral underdog subjects such as castoff catcher turned starting first baseman Scott Hatteberg and submarine pitcher Chad Bradford. Sabermetrics at heart is about analytical thinking, not one particular statistical category. Perhaps the most significant organizational change the A’s have implemented over the years is a scientific physical program to prevent what the stat geeks have long identified as a crucial problem: arm injuries to pitchers. Critics of Beane and Moneyball say both are piggybacking on the success of Oakland’s three great young pitchers (Barry Zito, Tim Hudson, and Mark Mulder), but it’s entirely plausible that one or more of the three would have blown out their elbows in nonsabermetric organizations.

Peter Gammons likes the new Bill James Handbook, replacing the old one that STATS, Inc. used to publish. You can purchase a copy here.

Sean Kirst, a columnist with the Post-Standard in Syracuse, NY, has written a book of baseball essays entitled, The Ashes of Lou Gehrig. He sent me a sample essay on patch jackets, which I just loved. When it's published, I'm looking forward to reading the whole thing.

Here's an excerpt:

Dr. Manhattan alerted me to this post, based on this Rob Neyer interview with Larry Dieker. I'd like to comment on both.

First on the Neyer interview. Larry Dieker has written a book in which he discusses his life in baseball. It turns out Dieker is a fine writer and a sabremetrician to boot. But he also talks about balancing his desire to do the mathematically correct thing with doing what the players expect of him:

"When I became the manager, I kind of knew what were the smart things to do. But I also knew that if I did all of them, it would be at the expense of my credibility with the players. With that in mind, I just had to use my instincts to both win the game and keep the whole team in the spirit of pulling together. I didn't want to come off as an egghead guy who was just looking at numbers and ignoring people, and sometimes those considerations ran into each other."

This is actually the right way to do things. Being a manager has two aspects; you have to manager a game, but you have to manage people, too. Davy Johnson was great at the game, but he lacked in managing people. Joe Torre's not that great at the game, but he's fantastic at the people side. Both can work, given the right team. Dieker, to his credit, tried to do both well. I'm looking forward to reading his book.

Dr. Manhattan at Blissful Knowledge brings this column over to Moneyball and the A's, asking:

But it stands to reason that Beane wouldn't mind having a manager like Dierker, who would commit to the sabermetric program out of intellectual conviction rather than career preservation. So who would be the best candidate?

Now, for some reason, I thought the answer would be Dieker. But no, Dr. Manhattan has another idea:

The perfect managerial match for Billy Beane would share his intellect and volatility. He would not be afraid to cause controversy in his commitment to doing what he felt was the right move (in baseball terms: to tell his detractors and the media to go f$#% themselves). And a connection to the Mets wouldn't hurt.
Bobby Valentine, would you like to move to Oakland?

I think this would be a terrible move. There is a reason good-cop/bad-cop works. People need an alternative point of view. If you put Valentine in charge of the A's, you'd have bad-cop/bad-cop, and that would be just too much intimidation. You need the guy who can call the star who just got chewed out by the GM into his office and say, "Yeah, he's a jerk, but he pays our salaries. Let's try it his way for a while and see if we win."

Secondly, Beane wants people who come cheap, and Valentine would not come cheap.

I just finished reading Moneyball by Michael Lewis. I enjoyed the book throughly, despite the obsenities. Lewis understands exactly what Beane is doing. He understands because, like many of us, he read Bill James and appreciated Bill James in the 1980's. Most of the time I was reading I was saying to myself, "I knew that 20 years ago. Why don't teams realize the truth of what's going on?"

This book makes me want to be a GM. What Beane is doing was obvious to me back when the new labor deal was signed after the 1994 strike. All I heard from people after that contract was there was no way poor teams could compete. You had to have money to compete. I would say, "That's not true. There's more than one way to win at baseball. Someone will find a way to win with young players who aren't paid that much. It may take a few years for a team to figure it out, but some team will." No one believed me. Even when the A's started winning, no one believed me. But by the end of that contract, the A's had figured it out. The Twins, in a different way, figured it out. The Blue Jays have figured it out, and the Red Sox are figuring it out. I suspect Pittsburgh is figuring it out.

I'd love to be GM of KC or Detroit or Montreal and do what Beane has done. I'd love to be the GM of a little independent league team and pull these overlooked players out of college, develop them, and sell them to the majors. Beane has taken Bill James and put him to practical use, and it works. I'd love to give it a try.

Jim Bouton has a new book about trying to save Wahconah Park in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. If you are interested, he'll be signing books at the Barnes and Noble in Holyoke Massachusetts on June 28th at 11 AM.

I've gotten a few replies to my inquiries on Moneyball and I'd like to share them with you.

From Daniel:

In the book, it's not so much that Beane takes credit as much as he devalues the individual's ability to control a game. Most notably, Beane points out that Eric Chavez' stardom is virtually a lock; what he has accomplished so far has charted his statistical course, and all he has to do is continue, and he'll become a Hall of Famer. Now imagine you're Eric Chavez and you read that? I think he's right, but by making it public he's kind of shot the goose: implicit in statistical analysis as a predictor for Chavez' future performance is an assumption that he CAN continue to perform as he has in the past. In essence, that the future will resemble the past. But I think Beane has blown it for himself by allowing this book to be published, as he has altered how the pasts of these players is perceived, and now the future of the A's is in some question.

I think Chavez will be a star, but Beane has to get off his high horse and just let his players play sometimes: let their natural ability take over. Because that's ultimately what will prove his statistical analysis correct: that Chavez' natural talent will make him a star, not his stats.

This from M. Lee Murrah:

I read Moneyball and thoroughly enjoyed it. I don't recall Beane's taking credit for the performance of the players. In fact his theory is based on finding hidden talents in players that others overlooks. His system assumes that the player has certain innate characteristics, such as an uncanny ability to get on base, and on the average will continue to perform at the same level. I would think that players, especially those such as the University of Alabama who was not rated among the nation's top 25 catchers and was nevertheless drafted in the first round, would love Billy Beane. His system takes a team composed of people who might not otherwise be in the major leagues and lets them play toe to toe with the superstars on the Yankees.

And finally, Peter Patton:

In regards to Moneyball, Beane and his #2 Paul De Podesta are portrayed as if they are the wizards behind the curtain and to an extent I think they feel that way - especially when they talk about Chavez. I am not knocking Beane or Bill James at all, because I agree with their thinking, but what I think they miss out on and Beane came off this way in the book, at least to me is that he doesn't take into account that ballplayers are still human beings - they do not act as mechanically as numbers do and humans can screw up a mathematical formula. That said, a lot of the criticism I have read about Moneyball comes from people who for the most part, have not read the book.

Thanks!

Dr. Manhattan has his take on Moneyball over at Blissful Knowledge.

Alex Belth has a review of Moneyball over at Bronx Banter. Notice: the review contains quotes from the book that use obscenities.

I really don't like this trend in writing. I first noticed it when Tina Brown took over the New Yorker. You couldn't read an issue without seeing the F-word. It started out being in quotes from people, but has lately become (as in the passage from Moneyball) part of the prose. I find no excuse for an author using this word outside of dialog. I feel that writing is supposed to elevate language. Alex Belth calls Michael Lewis' book smart. Really smart people have a large enough vocabulary to avoid the use of obscenities.