03:28 AM
12/22/24
12/22/24
May 24, 2003
Lots of reviews of baseball books in The New York Times. Game Time collects Roger Angell's "greatest hits." In David Halberstam's The Teammates, "a trip to see the ailing Ted Williams is a window on the lives of four legendary Red Sox." Two books "show how baseball is stacked in favor of rich teams, and suggest possible remedies." Two other books cover the on-field and business side of black baseball. These books and dozens more are on the Times' baseball reading list.
posted by kirkaracha to baseball at 10:09 AM - 1 comment
I'm fifth on the waiting list at my local library for "Moneyball: The Art of winning an Unfair Game." It looks pretty interesting (based on excerpts in the Sunday NYT magazine and Sports Illustrated). One of the themes in the SI excerpt is that Beane would rather pick a player based upon past performance over a player with potential. Consequently he favors college players who have played more games against better competition over high school players playing against questionable competition. One thing that isn't properly addressed is that Beane knows his big three of Hudson, Mulder and Zito are gone as soon as they're eligible for free market salaries. Picking high school players does him no good because they won't make it to the show soon enough (the book covers the 2002 year and draft). I'll provide a longer analysis once I get my hands on Moneyball.