All Entries in the "Book Reviews" Category
Announcing a New Baseball Book: Fifty-nine in ‘84
Old Hoss Radbourn, Barehanded Baseball and the Greatest Season a Pitcher Ever Had
In 1884, Hall of Fame pitcher Charles "Old Hoss" Radbourn won an astonishing 59 games, started 73 games and completed them all, and pitched more than 678 innings. Then he went out and won all three games of baseball's first World Series. This [...]
Why Are There So Many Pitching Injuries?
(Excerpt from book CHARACTER IS NOT A STATISTIC: The Legacy and Wisdom of Baseball’s Godfather Scout Bill Lajoie)
This is a topic that fascinates me and one I was sure to discuss with Bill Lajoie before writing our book. For those who don’t know Mr. Lajoie, he is considered by many [...]
BackyardBall: A book on Whiffleball, aka Plastic Ball
Backyard Ball
By Thomas P. Hannon, Jr.
This is a fun filled book about the world of Plastic Baseball or Wiffle Ball. It includes all the information you need to start playing as a family game or serious league play. Use this book to help rediscover your Backyard and read about people who actually built replica fields [...]
Book Review: Burying the Curse, By Terry Pluto
To many, Terry Pluto has been the most trusted voice of Cleveland sports over the past two decades. Through his tenure with the Akron Beacon Journal and the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Pluto had readers waiting for the paper to get his specific view on whatever issue was going on at that time.
Pluto [...]
Bob Gibson/Reggie Jackson: Sixty Feet, Six Inches
I just finished reading a great baseball book, ‘Sixty Feet, Six Inches‘, by Bob Gibson and Reggie Jackson with Ronnie Wheeler. This book is a running conversation by two of baseball’s greatest players about the mind games and strategies that go on between the pitcher and batter. One almost pictures himself eating dinner with these [...]
Who Really Created And Made Baseball “America’s Game”
If someone asked you who was the founder of the game of baseball? Well, if you are not a baseball historian or purist, you may just say Abner Doubleday. After all, the field at the Baseball Hall of Fame, Doubleday Field, is named after him. But the new book, “Live All You Can: Alexander Joy [...]
A Collection of Baseball Reflections Book Reviews
A Glove of Their Own by Debbie Moldovan, Keri Conkling and Lisa Funari-Willever
A great children’s book written in poetic rhyme with wonderful illustrations. A must read for people with children in their life.
Fair Ball by Bob Costas
A look into the world of baseball through the eyes of world renown broadcaster and sports history buff, Bob [...]
A Glove of Their Own: A Book Review
If you think that youth baseball today has gotten too competitive and structured with All Star Leagues and travel teams, allow me to bring you back to a simpler time. Have any of you ever played just for the fun of the game in a non-league setting? Do you remember playing pick-up games with less [...]
Rollie’s Follies: An Interview with Hall of Famer Rollie Fingers
**The Quotes as presented are direct from Rollie Fingers courtesy of an interview that he was kind enough to grant me in conjunction with his new book.**
When people approach professional athletes, they are usually looking for a career retrospective or a biography. That is exactly what Yellowstone Ritter had in mind when [...]
Interview With Former MLB Catcher Brent Mayne
Whenever you get the chance to talk to someone that has been there, it’s always special to see it through their eyes.
On June the 19th, 2009, I was given the pleasure of an audience with Brent Mayne, a 15 year Major League Veteran. My connection with Brent was made through a gentleman named Bob Salomon, [...]
The Making of a Hitter
by Jeff Louderback, PR
for Write Perceptions
After 12 seasons of professional baseball, including seven in the major leagues, Jack Perconte gave 60,000 hitting lessons to young players at his academy in Illinois. His first book instructs coaches and parents how to teach the art of hitting and make baseball more [...]
Book Review: Fair Ball by Bob Costas
Bob Costas is probably best known for his Olympic commentary over the years, but he has really been a renaissance man and announced everything from baseball to football in this country. Costas put out Fair Ball: A Fan’s Case for Baseball in an attempt to tell baseball how it could fix its problems and become [...]
Book Review: The Teammates: A Portrait of Friendship
David Halberstam has become well known for his works about the sport of baseball that add a new perspective to the game which many fans never get a chance to see. Teammates, The: A Portrait of a Friendship is no exception to this rule as it illustrates once again why Halberstam is one of the [...]
Book Review: More Tales from the Tribe Dugout
Author Russell Schneider is well known to serious baseball fans around Cleveland from his coverage of the Indians in Cleveland newspapers for so many years. Now a freelance writer, Russell has put together two books of Tales from the Tribe Dugout. In the sequel to his first book, Schneider uncovers some not very well known [...]
Miracle Man by Nolan Ryan: A Book Review
Image via Wikipedia
Over the past two decades, it has become the popular thing for athletes to write a book with a ghost writer, presumably as a way to make some fast cash. Even though Nolan Ryan’s book came at the beginning of this period, many readers could probably lean towards the publication of a book [...]
License to Deal: A Book Review
When Moneyball by Michael Lewis came out about five years ago, many thought they would never see a book about baseball that provided the same unique perspective on the game. Jerry Crasnick has done with agents in License to Deal what Michael Lewis did for general managers in Moneyball. By giving a day to day [...]
Reviewing the 2008 World Series Program
There is no doubt that the story lines for this year’s World Series were endless as the Phillies, a historic baseball franchise, were heading back to the Series to try to end a quarter century drought, and the Rays, who had never even had a winning season in their history, faced off.
As one can expect, [...]
Reviewing the 2008 All Star Game Program
Obviously the makers of last year’s All Star Game program had a lot to play with as the game was being held at Yankee Stadium which almost has too much baseball tradition for a person to take in at one time. Programs such as these usually do a good job of bringing together stories form [...]
Pinch Hitter: A Book Review
Dean Whitney seemed to want to create a modern day version of the classic novel The Natural when he sat down to write Pinch Hitter and in some ways he may have accomplished this task, but in many others, he didn’t.
Pinch Hitter is the story of a man who miraculously makes it straight to the [...]
MLB Insiders Club Magazine: A Product Review
Reading a name that proclaims something to be an “Insider’s Club,” one would tend to believe that they would receive information through this publication that others would not be able to receive. In some ways, this is true of the MLB Insiders Club Magazine, which is sent out monthly to its members and costs $24 [...]
Book Review of Baseball’s Greatest Games
Image via Wikipedia
Baseball’s Greatest Games is the latest book in a new series put out by the MLB Insiders Club Library. The writing in the book is done by Eric Enders and the book can only be obtained if one is in the MLB Insiders Club. (In order to do this, search for it online. [...]
The Natural: A Book Review
Image via Wikipedia
With all of the buzz that the 1984 movie based on the book created, it seems that many have forgotten, or just simply ignored the origin of one of the greatest baseball movies of all time. To get the real story, one has to go all of the way back to 1952 and [...]
Book Review of The Baseball Economist: The Real Game Exposed
Book Review of The Baseball Economist: The Real Game Exposed by J.C. Bradbury
A Review By: Bill Jordan
Bradbury’s research in this work could no doubt be considered innovating, not only does he statistically prove many aspects of the game of baseball that were thought to be true already, but he also disproves many that even those [...]
Book Review of Dropping the Ball by Dave Winfield
Dropping the Ball: Baseball’s Troubles and How We Can and Must Solve Them by Dave Winfield
According to former all star Dave Winfield, if baseball keeps on the path that it is going right now, it will one day, in the not to distant future, reach a point where there are no longer any African Americans [...]
