Book Review: Dealing
Many other books by well-known Northeast Ohio journalist Terry Pluto have been reviewed on this site before and this one is no different in terms of its entertainment value. In Dealing: The Cleveland Indians’ New Ballgame (Inside the Front Office and the Process of Rebuilding a Contender), Pluto takes readers through the steps it took […]
Book Review: The Stark Truth
Who’s the best first baseman ever? Who’s the worst second baseman of all time? What pitcher has a big name, but doesn’t live up to it? Which outfielder is unheralded, but always delivers in the clutch? These are the questions Jayson Stark attempts to answer in his book, The Stark Truth: The Most Overrated and […]
Book Review: Heroes, Scamps and Good Guys
Professional sports in Cleveland has quite the colorful history with a number of interesting personalities who have provided entertainment through the years. In Heroes, Scamps and Good Guys: 101 Colorful Characters from Cleveland Sports History by Bob Dolgan, the author looks at some of the more interesting athletes to be involved in Cleveland Sports. As […]
Book Review: Free Byrd
Paul Byrd was a journeyman Major Leaguer who played 14 seasons for 7 different teams, but just like everyone, he has a story to tell. This story is told in his book Free Byrd: The Power of a Liberated Life. This 219-page work details the life of the major leaguer as well as how his […]
Sports Book Reviews
By Harvey Frommer The seasons keep changing and the sports books keep coming. They are focused on all kinds of subjects, approaches, dealing with different sports. Herewith, for your reading, exciting tomes dealing with baseball, football, tennis. Hank Greenberg in 1938 by Ron Kaplan (Sports Publishing, $24.95, 235 pages) is an important book for its […]
An Introduction to PainZone by MedZone
I was approached on behalf of MedZone, who has been surprisingly around since 2001 (why have I not heard of them until now) just before my 2017 over 30 baseball season to introduce you, my loyal readers, to their product PainZone. As you can imagine, a product like this can come in very handy on […]
Book Review: Baseball Before We Knew It
Our national pastime has a long-debated history. Was it really good o’ Abner Doubleday who invented the game? How ‘bout that Spalding character we keep hearing about and to this day has his name on baseball gloves in sporting goods stores? How was he involved? The New York Knickerbockers…weren’t they the first club? Aren’t they […]
Book Review: Mind Game
Sabermetrics almost seems old hat now. It doesn’t have the cache it did even just a decade ago when it seemed like it was still being shunned by some in the baseball community. While the new age statistics are now widely accepted and pretty much everyone has accepted that using them is the way to […]
The Best Baseball Movies Ever Made
This list of the best baseball movies is one that has been compiled by fans, and includes classics like The Sandlot and The Natural, and manages to cover the finest films about this great sport that were ever released. Some of the best and most inspirational films ever made have centred on baseball, with examples […]
Book Review: Omar!
For Indians fans of the 1990’s there was no one who defined the era more than Omar Vizquel. The gregarious shortstop awed fans with his plays with the glove, earning him nine Gold Glove awards by the time he published his auto-biography with Bob Dyer of the Akron Beacon Journal. As the book title eludes, […]
Book Review: The Book
While it may seem commonplace today, and even a requirement, to use advanced statistics to measure the success of baseball players, a decade ago, these methods weren’t nearly as widely accepted. While Bill James certainly did his due diligence, along with those at Baseball Prospectus (and many others), there was still a long tentative feelings […]
Book Review: A Deadly Game
As baseball novels go, the world is full of stories of a regular guy who all of a sudden makes it big or a kid with an amazing arm. Gary Lepper’s new work, A Deadly Game, breaks from that mold to provide baseball fanatics a murder mystery that keeps the reader intrigued from beginning to […]
Book Review: Endless Summers
Author Jack Torry had seen many years of nothing from the Cleveland Indians and then, surprisingly, almost out of nowhere, in the mid-1990s, the team took off. Experiencing this rejuvenation led him to write Endless Summers: The Fall and Rise of the Cleveland Indians. The Tribe were a cellar dweller for so long that the […]
Book Review: Indians on the Game
Ever wonder what people actually involved with the game say about the topics we, as fans, discuss on a daily basis. Author Wayne Stewart must have as he set out to write his book, Indians on the Game. Presented as, “An inside look at baseball in the words of Cleveland’s favorite players,” Stewart spends a […]
Book Review: The Yogi Book
Ask any baseball fan what baseball player in history has said the silliest things and they will no doubt reply with the words Yogi Berra. It’s hard to argue with that answer. Yogi is well known for his quips and jabs, so much so that some may remember that more than they do his Hall […]
Book Review: Our Tribe: A Baseball Memoir
Cleveland’s baseball team stinks, right? They are always not going to be any good, correct? There is absolutely no way they’re even going to make the playoffs let alone run of a streak of consecutive division titles. These were all things that many fans of the Indians thought in the early 1990s after experiencing decades […]
Book Review: The Curse of Rocky Colavito
Outside of Cleveland, even casual baseball fans may not know who Rocky Colavito is, but in Northeast Ohio there was a time that he was practically Babe Ruth. Colavito was a hard hitting outfielder for the Tribe in the 1950s. Before being traded away for Harvey Kuenn in 1960, he was solidly the fan favorite […]
Bob Feller’s Little Black Book of Baseball Wisdom
Ever want extra advice from a respected elderly gentleman? Well, if that’s the case, look no further. Head to your nearest bookstore and pick up a copy of Bob Feller’s Little Black Book of Baseball Wisdom. This book is comprised of a selection of advice from Feller on a variety of topics. It will no […]
Book Review: Whatever Happened to “Super Joe”?
Prior to the mid-90s there was no fan base more used to losing than those who rooted for the Cleveland Indians. That being said, there were still many who cared deeply about the team and its players throughout their years in the cellar. While these players never brought home a pennant, or even a division […]
Book Review: Cooperstown Hall of Fame Players
Ever wanted a picturesque book complete with large full page stories and statistics of all of the great ballplayers enshrined in Cooperstown (through 2005)? Well, look no more because Cooperstown: Hall of Fame Players is as good as it gets. This coffee table sized work has magnificent pictures and in depth stories about every player […]
Book Review: The Entitled by Frank Deford
Since baseball is so romantic, many have tried their hand at writing a novel on the subject. Perhaps Bernard Mulamud’s classic work The Natural, since turned into a movie, is the best known of baseball novels. However, after reading Frank Deford’s work The Entitled: A Tale of Modern Baseball, this reviewer has a new favorite. […]
Book Review on Handsome Ranson Jackson: Accidental Big Leaguer
Ransom Jackson isn’t the household name it once was, but back in the 1940s and 50s, Jackson was well known to those who followed baseball. During that time, if you followed sports, you followed baseball, so that meant many knew the man who they called handsome. During his ten-year career in the Majors with the […]
10 Important Facts about Alloy & Composite Baseball Bats That You Should Know
Choosing the best youth baseball bats can be a challenging experience if you’re unaware of the fact that now baseball bats are made from a variety of materials. Other than the traditional wooden bats, composite and alloy bats are growing in popularity. Usually, wooden bats are reserved for professionals, tournaments and practice. Some states only […]
The True Story of Two Statheads Who Got to Run a Real Baseball Team
‘The Only Rule Is It Has to Work: Our Wild Experiment Building a New Kind of Baseball Team’ By Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller It’s the dream of fantasy baseball fans everywhere: you get to pick the roster, set the lineup, and decide on strategies—but with real players, in a real ballpark, in a real playoff […]
The remarkable life of Fred Valentine, a pioneer of Major League Baseball integration
By Rocco Constantino When sifting through the influential players in the segregation of baseball, the names Jackie Robinson, Larry Doby and Satchel Paige are always mentioned at the forefront. What sometimes gets lost in the shuffle is that there were really hundreds of players who should be considered pioneers in the integration of the sport. […]
Book Review: Every Town is a Sports Town
There are many people who feel at this point that ESPN is such a part of their lives, that it is a member of their family. In his new book, Every Town is a Sports Town: Business Leadership at ESPN from the Mailroom to the Boardroom, former ESPN President George Bodenheimer tells the story of […]
Book Review: You Can’t Make this Up
“Do you believe in miracles?” If sports fans were asked to bring up the first thing they remember about Al Michaels, his quote from the 1980 Olympic Hockey game which pitted the United States against Russia is probably the best AND the first thing that comes to mind. While hockey isn’t what this site is […]
Book Review: The Manager’s Daughter
If you are looking for a summer page turner, look no further than The Manager’s Daughter. Author Matthew Kastel combines the topics of baseball and murder mystery flawlessly in this book that keeps the reader guessing right up until the end. The work follows the same mysterious cadence as The Da Vinci Code, as it […]
Louisville Slugger Stick Pack Bat Pack from Sports Unlimited a Review
I have to admit that when I saw this bag I had my doubts about its usefulness and how much it could hold. But, I can honestly say that I was dead wrong! Not only does it fit more than my traditional baseball bag (like the one shown on the right of this review), but […]
Top 5 baseball movies every fan should see
There is no shortage of classic baseball films and this movie list encompasses just a few of them. Every movie on this list comes highly recommended even if you aren’t a fan of sports movies. So sit back, fire up Netflix, get some popcorn, and relax. Without further ado, here is a list of the […]
