"A delight for baseball lovers" (Kirkus Reviews) and "one of the most significant baseball books of the year" (Bob Costas) Ahead of the Curve uses stories from baseball's present and past to examine why we sometimes choose ignorance over information, and how tradition can trump logic.
Forget batting average. Kill the "Win." Say goodbye to starting pitchers. And please, please stop bunting. MLB Network anchor and commentator...

"In baseball's early days, catchers stood a safe distance back of the batter without protective gear. Then the introduction of the curveball in the 1870s led them to move up directly behind home plate, even though they still wore no gloves or other protection. Courage became the catcher's most notable requirement. But the new position also demanded that the catcher have lightning-fast reflexes, great hands, and a great throwing arm. A special mystique...

Offers information on a variety of baseball topics, including the history of the sport, notable players, the Hall of Fame, statistics and records, and scorekeeping, and provides more than 25 puzzles and activities.

This is a book about young men who learned to play baseball during the 1930s and 1940s, and then went on to play for one of the most exciting major-league ball clubs ever fielded, the team that broke the color barrier with Jackie Robinson. It is a book by and about a sportswriter who grew up near Ebbets Field, and who had the good fortune in the 1950s to cover the Dodgers for the Herald Tribune. This is a book about what happened to Jackie, Carl Erskine,...

Matt McCarthy never expected to get drafted by a Major League Baseball team. A biophysics major at Yale, he was a decent left-handed starter for a dismal college team. But good southpaws are hard to find, and when the Anaheim Angels selected him in the 21st round of the 2002 draft, he jumped at the chance. Here, he tells the hilarious story of his year with the Provo (Utah) Angels, Anaheim's Class A minor league affiliate. He quickly discovers the...

The Baseball is a salute to the ball, filled with insider trivia, anecdotes, and generations of ball-induced insanity—from Zack Hample, the bestselling author of Watching Baseball Smarter

• Which Hall of Famer once caught a ball dropped from an airplane?
• Why do balls get stamped with invisible ink?        
• What’s...

"What's it like to live through sports' longest season, the 162-game Major League Baseball schedule? THE GRIND captures the frustration, impermanence, and glory felt by the players, the staff, and their families from the start of spring training to the final game of the year; classy baseball writing in the Roger Angell or Tom Boswell tradition"--

An ESPN senior baseball writer and statistical analyst looks at the numbers game of baseball, proving why some of the most trusted stats are surprisingly wrong, explaining what numbers actually work and exploring what the rise of Big Data means for the future of the sport.