Baseball Books

Beyond Belief: Finding the Strength to Come Back

Josh Hamilton

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Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Josh Hamilton was the first player chosen in the first round of the 1999 baseball draft. He was destined to be one of those rare "high-character " superstars. But in 2001, working his way from the minors to the majors, all of the plans for Josh went off the rails in a moment of weakness. What followed was a 4-year nightmare of drugs and alcohol, estrangement from friends and family, and his eventual suspension from baseball.

BEYOND BELIEF details the events that led up to the derailment. Josh explains how a young man destined for fame and wealth could allow his life to be taken over by drugs and alcohol. But it is also the memoir of a spiritual journey that breaks through pain and heartbreak and leads to the rebirth of his major-league career.

Josh Hamilton makes no excuses and places no blame on anyone other than himself. He takes responsibility for his poor decisions and believes his story can help millions who battle the same demons. "I have been given a platform to tell my story" he says. "I pray every night I am a good messenger."

Champions: A Look Back at the Phillies Triumphant 2008 Season

By the Staff of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

At last! After 28 years of unfulfilled dreams, Phillie Fans now have a winning team with the 2008 Philadelphia Phillies thrilling victory over the Tampa Bay Rays in the World Series. Let the celebration begin! Celebration is exactly what this hardbound, full-color book a beautifully designed keepsake is about: the entire wining season of the Philadelphia Phillies leading up to and including the World Series victory is chronicled by the veteran columnists and sportswriters of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News. Champions provides the entire exciting story of a special team and a season that will be remembered by joyous Fightin Phils fans for years to come. Chronicled in all its exciting details by the staff of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, this one-of-a kind story in Phillies history will be cherished as a keepsake now and into the future. Included in Champions is all the background detail that fans seek but seldom receive, as well as a full recounting of the playoff games along with its most colorful moments, behind the scenes episodes, and most memorable players. Featuring an outstanding set of action photos from the 2008 baseball season, this remarkable account is destined to be a baseball classic. Relive each explosive throw and hit with the Phillies taking out the Brewers in four games and the Dodgers in five. Learn about this remarkable team of leaders with a singular focus to become World Champions. Long-suffering fans who have followed the Phillies with love and passion over these many years will be elated with this book of triumph. Sport lovers everywhere will want to join in the celebration of Philly s long-awaited victory.

Bill James Handbook 2009 (Bill James Handbook)

Bill James

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Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

One of the best off-season books for a baseball fan to pick up 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

So assuming you haven't been hiding under a rock for the past 30 years or so, and you have even the slightest interest in statistical analysis and/or fantasy baseball, you know who Bill James is. Hopefully you've picked prior versions of this book so it isn't a completely new topic to you.

But If it is your first encounter with Mr. James' work - don't do yourself the disservice of just picking TBJH2009 up and flipping through it. The majority of pages contain statistics and you'll probably just dismiss it as being an encyclopedia of players' performance. Not that this isn't entirely true...but the real key is to understand why the book contains all this data.

James has been at work for 30 years trying to figure out the correlation of numbers to winning. He knew that it wasn't all about the "traditional" statistics - batting average, win-loss record, and ERA to name a few...he sensed that there was something more out there that could be used as a gauge of a player's ability to contribute to his team's ability to win ballgames.

It's James' thinking about the relation of statistics to winning that is what deliver the punch of the book. Even though it only occupies a dozen or so pages, his analysis and introduction to certain statistical categories give the numbers context and meaning, and turn them into things that should be thought about as opposed to just looked at.

The first thing that really captured my attention - and this is on page 321, mind you - is his article on bullpens, specifically his assigning of positions to the pitchers who comprise a bullpen. It's not fair to compare a utility reliever to a closer - yet the current mainstream thinking does just that. Each pitcher in the bullpen comes into the game in different situations, and James argues that we need to look at their performance on an individual basis while in the context of their role. The Bill James Handbook 2009 provides the tools and instructions for doing just that, and the result is a smarter and more educated fan.

In the same vain of understanding what affects success, James and the crew at Baseaball Info Solutions have provided a tremendous amount of data on managers - how many lineups they use, how quick they are to pull their starting pitchers, and one of my favorites - how successful they are when they call for an intentional walk. Managers tend to be either overlooked or somewhat unfairly criticized, and James reminds the reader that he is there "trying to pollute the discussion of managers with actual facts."

To James, it's one thing to suppose something, it's quite another to actually have numbers and facts that can be used to support tendencies.

What James and his collaborators ultimately are trying to do with The Bill James Handbook 2009 - besides sell books, of course - is to challenge your way of thinking and to take the shackles off your brain and allow you to look at statistics and numbers in a whole new light and not only learn what they think, but possibly discover your own correlations.

For instance - James suggests the possibility of MLB teams "employ(ing) platoon players like Las Vegas employs comedy acts." He takes two players at the same position who have such polar opposite lefty/righty splits that combining them would be a dream come true - and he subsequently renames the tandem to elicit a decent chuckle from the reader.

The book concludes with two sections that ultimately challenge the reader the most - league leaders and 2009 projections. The former encourages you to look at the top 10 leaders in an array of statistical categories and see which tend to have the most influence on winning; while the latter gives you a glimpse into the future through the eyes of James and his team. You can't argue with the leaders, yet you can debate the projections until everyone is blue in the face - that is a big part of the appeal.

Not to be left out are the Fielding Bible 2008 awards and a realtively new project that Mr. James has shared with his readers - his Young Talent Inventory, where he attempts to rate the best young players in baseball as well as which team has the best young players in their system. Depending on how your team came out, it could either be a bright spot for the future, or signs of conern if you believe in developing talent and bringing up the future from within your organization.

The Bill James Handbook 2009 is another heavy hitter, particularly when it comes to off-season reading both to recap the 2008 season and look ahead to the 2009 campaign. I'm glad to have my copy ready to go, knowing that it's assuming it's rightful position on my desk's reference shelf.

Editorial Review:

Every year, thousands of avid baseball fans eagerly await The Bill James Handbook the best and most complete annual baseball guide available. Full of exclusive stats, this book is the most comprehensive resource of every hit, pitch and catch in Major League Baseball's 2008 season.

Key features include:

• Exclusive! Fielding Bible Awards
  
• New Relief Pitching
  
• Manufactured Runs Analysis
  
• Young Talent Inventory
  
• Manager's Record
  
• Baserunning Analysis
  
• Career data for every 2008 major leaguer (and a few bonus players) with more statistical categories than any other book
  
• Pitcher Projections
  
• Hitter Projections
  
• Team Efficiency Summary
  
• Player Win Shares
  

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game

Michael Lewis

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Total reviews: 382 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

This is what happens when you question assumptions 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

More than baseball, Moneyball is about questioning assumptions - challenging everything you know to be true about your situation and asking yourself if maybe it "ain't necessarily so." How did Billy Beane and the Oakland A's achieve so many wins with such a limited budget?

1. They questioned assumptions (about the valuation of players).
2. They determined that various time-honored metrics metrics (for determining a player's value or worth) did not hold up under scrutiny.
3. Because no one ELSE did 1 and 2, they were able to invest their limited resources on players who were clearly undervalued.

What happens when you question assumptions? You often arrive at winning solutions! Discussed in detail (along with other great examples) in:Shake That Brain: How to Create Winning Solutions and Have Fun While You're At It

Editorial Review:

Moneyball is a quest for the secret of success in Baseball. In a narrative full of fabulous characters and brilliant excursions into the unexpected, Michael Lewis follows the low-bedget Oakland Athletic's visionary general manager Billy Beane, and a strange brotherhood of amateur baseball theorists. They are all in search of new baseball knowledge - insights that will give the little fellow who is willing to discard old wisdom the edge over big money.

Sports Illustrated: The College Football Book

Editors of Sports Illustrated

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Continuing its series of spectacular coffee-table books for the holiday season, Sports Illustrated presents The College Football Book, the ultimate gift for America's most passionate fans.

SI launched this series in 2005 with The Football Book, devoted to the professional game. A New York Times best-seller that year, the book has taken root as a perennial, selling more than 200,000 copies to date. Now the editors of Sports Illustrated return to the gridiron, this time to serve the most avid football fans of all.

With the best words and pictures SI has to offer, The College Football Book, brings to life the game's unparalleled excitement and pageantry, its legendary players, historic teams and epic rivalries.

In 288 pages of the greatest photography and writing available anywhere, The College Football Book spans the sport's history, from its infancy in the 1800s right up to the postseason showdowns of 2008. The book is packed with stunning pictures, award-winning stories, original stats, decade-by-decade all-star teams and iconic artifacts photographed exclusively for this book at the College Football Hall of Fame--the same exciting mix of elements that makes each book in the SI series a must-have for sports fan.

Yankee Stadium: The Official Retrospective

Al Santasiere

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Editorial Review:

It's been eighty-five years since Yankee Stadium opened. Soon the Yankees will leave the field, fans will file out and the lights will fade. But the lights will never go out on the Stadium that has proudly worn the moniker "The House That Ruth Built."

Yankee Stadium: The Official Retrospective recounts the story of this extraordinary American landmark. It captures the creation of a home for the New York Yankees that began in 1923 and was driven by co-owner Jacob Ruppert, who envisioned a ballpark grander than any other conceived at the time. It takes the reader from the field to the dugout, from the press box to the clubhouse, from principal owner George Steinbrenner's office to Monument Park. Every corner of the stadium is revealed.

But Yankee Stadium is more than a ballpark. The most iconic moments in history have taken place within its walls: Lou Gehrig's poignant farewell to his team and the fans who would never forget him; epic heavy-weight fights, from Louis versus Schmeling to Ali versus Norton; the 1958 National Football League championship, christened the "Greatest Game Ever Played"; exciting college football games, including the one immortalized by Knute Rockne in which he asked Notre Dame to "win one for the Gipper"; and the unrivaled record-breaking successes of the New York Yankees, from the very first home run hit at the Stadium by Babe Ruth to Alex Rodriguez' 500th.

With the unprecedented cooperation of the New York Yankees organization, photographs have been culled from every conceivable source. More than 250 photographs - many never before published - will allow you to walk in the Stadium beside Mantle and Maris, witness the only perfect game in World Series history, and see the Stadium during the stirring 2001 World Series.

Yankee Stadium: The Official Retrospective is more than just photographs. It is also graced with firsthand accounts of what it was like to be there as history unfolded. Some of the contributors include: George Steinbrenner, Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, former Vice President Dan Quayle, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, Paul McCartney, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Don Shula, Sugar Ray Leonard, Frank Gifford, Regis Philbin, Joe Torre, Derek Jeter, Don Mattingly, Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez, Yogi Berra, Phil Rizzuto, Reggie Jackson, and Cal Ripken Jr.

It has been said that the shaded outfield of Yankee Stadium houses the ghosts of long-gone Yankee greats - at least that's what the players swear they feel as the long days of summer wane into the heated race for the pennant. Or could it be the knowledge that, within those walls, they will always be measured against the titans who came before them? It is the power of the place that led Sports Illustrated to call Yankee Stadium the greatest venue of the twentieth century. And only here, within the pages of Yankee Stadium: The Official Retrospective, can you feel what they feel.

Baseball Prospectus 2009: The Essential Guide to the 2009 Baseball Season (Baseball Prospectus)

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Editorial Review:

The 2009 edition of the New York Times bestselling guide to major league baseball that is simply “the best book of its kind” (Rob Neyer)

Now in its fourteenth edition, the Baseball Prospectus annual is the industry leader among annual baseball guides and the rightful successor to Bill James’s legendary bestselling Baseball Abstracts. The 2009 edition contains critical essays on each of the thirty teams and player comments for some sixty players for each of those teams. Each player’s statistics are projected for the coming season using the groundbreaking PECOTA projection system, called “perhaps the game’s most accurate projection model” (Sports Illustrated). Baseball Prospectus 2009 also contains cutting-edge essays on performance analysis, the likes of which have inspired twenty-nine of the thirty major league teams to hire current and former Baseball Prospectus writers and analysts as consultants. The baseball bible for fantasy players and devoted fans, Baseball Prospectus can be relied upon to once again hit it out of the park.

The 33-Year-Old Rookie: How I Finally Made it to the Big Leagues After Eleven Years in the Minors

Chris Coste

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Total reviews: 24 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Chris Coste dreamed of playing major-league baseball from the age of seven. But after eleven grueling years in the minors, a spot on a major-league roster still seemed just out of his reach–until that fateful call came from the Philadelphia Phillies in May 2006. At age thirty-three (“going on eighty”), Coste was finally heading to the big time.

The 33-Year-Old Rookie is like a real-life Rocky, an unforgettable and inspirational story of one man’s unwavering pursuit of a lifelong goal. Beginning in a single-parent home in Fargo, North Dakota, and ending behind home plate on the flawless diamond of the Phillies’ Citizens Bank Park–where fans and teammates call him “Chris Clutch” because of his knack for getting timely hits–this intimate account of Coste’s baseball odyssey is a powerful story of determination, perseverance, and passion.

For eleven seasons, Coste hustled, fought, and gritted his way to his breakthrough–and never lost faith in his abilities. Along the way, he gained the affection and admiration of baseball fans from Ottawa and Scranton to various Mexican and Venezuelan cities. Battered by years spent behind a catcher’s mask, and faced with bracing realities–there were bills to pay, and his young daughter was entering first grade–Coste decided to give it one last shot in 2006. But that year, during the Phillies’ major-league spring training, Coste was demoted to the minors at the last minute to make room for a utility outfielder, despite having hit a blistering .463 and earning the trust of the team’s pitchers. Later that season, though, Coste finally got the call-up, and he hit .364 during the Phillies’ furious battle to nail down the final postseason berth.

Coste takes us through the 2006 spring training season–with its pulse-quickening moments and close calls–and into his first season as a major-league catcher with the Phillies. From tense stretch-run games that kept Phillies’ fans on the edge of their seats to moments of intimate personal reflection, Coste’s saga offers baseball aficionados an inside look at a remarkable life and career. In this stirring, wry, and candid look at the life of a professional baseball nomad who never surrendered his dream, we savor the sometimes bittersweet fruits of victory against seemingly insurmountable odds.

Mind Gym : An Athlete's Guide to Inner Excellence

Gary Mack, David Casstevens

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 23 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Best one for athletes! 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I have read several books on the mental game in sports and this is by far the best. I work with collegiate and professional athletes and recommend this so often that Gary Mack should send me a commission!!!

not what i expected 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

a solid read, but i was expecting a book that got more into the intricacies of sports psychology, but this book seems to focus more on your thinking off the court then on it.

Well-written and entertaining 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

If you want to read an inspiring book on the power of the mind in sports, then this book is for you. It is not too packed with information, but it underlines many of the important points in mental coaching. Great stories and examples make it an uplifting read. The only thing missing was a step-by-step instruction guide to mind management - practice makes perfect.

Editorial Review:

Drawing on his work with some of the top teams in professional sports, noted sport psychology consultant Gary Mack shares with you the same techniques and exercises he uses to help elite athletes build mental "muscle." These 40 accessible lessons and inspirational anecdotes will help you gain the "head edge" over the competition.

Wait till next year

Doris Kearns Goodwin

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Total reviews: 188 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Wait Till Next Yearis the story of a young girl growing up in the suburbs of New York in the 1950s, when owning a single-family home on a tree-lined street meant the realization of dreams, when everyone knew everyone else on the block, and the children gathered in the streets to play from sunup to sundown. The neighborhood was equally divided among Dodger, Giant, and Yankee fans, and the corner stores were the scenes of fierce and affectionate rivalries.

The narrative begins in 1949 at the dawn of a glorious era in baseball, an era that saw one of the three New York teams competing in the World Series every year, and era when the lineups on most teams remained basically intact year after year, allowing fans to extend loyalty and love to their chosen teams, knowing that for the most part, their favorite players would return the following year, exhibiting their familiar strengths, weaknesses, quirks, and habits. Never would there be a better time to be a Brooklyn Dodger fan. But in 1957 it all came to an abrupt end when the Dodgers (and the Giants) were forcibly uprooted from New York and transplanted to California.

Shortly after the Dodgers left, Kearns' mother dies, and the family moved from the old neighborhood to an apartment on the other side of town. This move coincided with the move of several other families on the block and with the decline of the corner store as the supermarket began to take over. It was the end of an era and the beginning of another and, for Kearns, the end of childhood.