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It happens every summer: packs of beer-bellied men with gloves and aluminum bats, putting their middle-aged bodies to the test on the softball diamond. For some, this yearly ritual is driven by a simple desire to enjoy a good ballgame; for others, it’s a way to forge friendships—and rivalries. But for one short, wild-haired, bespectacled professor, playing softball in New York’s Central Park means a whole lot more. It's one last chance to heal the nagging wounds of Little League trauma before the rust of decline and the relentless responsibilities of fatherhood set in. Professor Baseball is the coming-of-middle-age story of New York University professor and Little League benchwarmer Edwin Amenta. As rookie manager of the Performing Arts Softball League’s doormat Sharkeys, he reverses softball’s usual brawn-over-brains formula. He coaxes his skeptical teammates to follow his sabermetric and sociological approach, based equally on Bill James and Max Weber, which in the heady days of early success he dubs “Eddy Ball.” But Amenta soon learns that his teammates’ attachments to favorite positions and time-honored (if ineffective) strategies are hard to break—especially when the team begins losing. And though he rejects the baseball-as-life metaphor, life keeps intruding on his softball season. Amenta here comes to grips with the humiliation of assisted reproduction, suffers mysterious ailments, and finds himself lingering at the sponsor’s bar, while his partner, a beautiful but baseball-challenged professor, second-guesses his book in the making. Can he turn his team—and his life—around? Packed with colorful personalities, dramatic games, and the bustle of New York life, Professor Baseball will charm anyone who has ever root, root, rooted for the underdog.
Dozens of former players, friends, and associates recall the Stengel myth and the Stengel reality. They explore his managing style with great teams and with horrible teams, his pioneering techniques, his humor, his edginess, and his weaknesses. What emerges is a fascinating ride through baseball history. Photos.
The president of New York University offers a love letter to America’s most beloved sport and a tribute to its underlying spirituality. For more than a decade, John Sexton has taught a wildly popular New York University course about two seemingly very different things: religion and baseball. Yet Sexton argues that one is actually a pathway to the other. Baseball as a Road to God is about touching that something that lies beyond logical understanding. Sexton illuminates the surprisingly large number of mutual concepts shared between baseball and religion: faith, doubt, conversion, miracles, and even sacredness among many others. Structured like a game and filled with riveting accounts of baseball’s most historic moments, Baseball as Road to God will enthrall baseball fans whatever their religious beliefs may be. In thought-provoking, beautifully rendered prose, Sexton elegantly demonstrates that baseball is more than a game, or even a national pastime: It can be a road to enlightenment.
Blending scientific fact and sports trivia, Robert Adair examines what a baseball or player in motion does-and why. How fast can a batted ball go? What effect do stitch patterns have on wind resistance? How far does a curve ball break? Who reaches first base faster after a bunt, a right- or left-handed batter? The answers are often surprising—and always illuminating. This newly revised third edition considers recent developments in the science of sport such as the neurophysiology of batting, bat vibration, and the character of the "sweet spot." Faster pitchers, longer hitters, and enclosed stadiums also get a good, hard scientific look to determine their effects on the game. Filled with anecdotes about famous players and incidents, The Physics of Baseball provides fans with fascinating insights into America's favorite pastime.
"We wait for baseball all winter long," Bill Littlefield wrote in Boston Magazine a decade ago, "or rather, we remember it and anticipate it at the same time. We re-create what we have known and we imagine what we are going to do next. Maybe that's what poets do, too." Poetry and baseball are occasions for well-put passion and expressive pondering, and just as passionate attention transforms the prose of everyday life into poetry, it also transforms this game we write about, play, or watch. Editors Brooke Horvath and Tim Wiles unite their own passion for baseball and poetry in this collection, Line Drives: 100 Contemporary Baseball Poems, providing a forum for ninety-two poets. Line after line, like baseball itself game after game and season after season, these poems manage to make the old and the familiar new and surprising. The poems in these pages invite interrogation, and the reader--like the true baseball fan--must be willing to play the game, for these poems are fun, fresh, angry, nostalgic, meditative, and meant to be read aloud. They are keen on taking us deeply into baseball as sport and intent on offering countless metaphors for exploring history, religion, love, family, and self-identity. Each poem delivers images of pure beauty as the poets speak of murder and ghost runners and old ball gloves, of baseball as a tie that binds families--and indeed the nation--together, of the game as a stage upon which no-nonsense grit and skill are routinely displayed, and of the delight experienced in being one amid a mindlessly happy crowd. This book is true to the game's long season and to the lives of those the game engages.
Offers a history of African American exclusion from baseball, and assesses the changing racial attitudes that led up to Jackie Robinson's acceptance by the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Baseball is a strange sport: it consists of long periods in which little seems to be happening, punctuated by high-energy outbursts of rapid fire activity. Because of this, despite ever greater profits, Major League Baseball is bent on finding ways to shorten games, and to tailor baseball to today's shorter attention spans. But for the true fan, baseball is always compelling to watch -and intellectually fascinating. It's superficially slow-pace is an opportunity to participate in the distinctive thinking practice that defines the game. If baseball is boring, it's boring the way philosophy is boring: not because there isn't a lot going on, but because the challenge baseball poses is making sense of it all. In this deeply entertaining book, philosopher and baseball fan Alva Noë explores the many unexpected ways in which baseball is truly a philosophical kind of game. For example, he ponders how observers of baseball are less interested in what happens, than in who is responsible for what happens; every action receives praise or blame. To put it another way, in baseball - as in the law - we decide what happened based on who is responsible for what happened. Noe also explains the curious activity of keeping score: a score card is not merely a record of the game, like a video recording; it is an account of the game. Baseball requires that true fans try to tell the story of the game, in real time, as it unfolds, and thus actively participate in its creation. Some argue that baseball is fundamentally a game about numbers. Noe's wide-ranging, thoughtful observations show that, to the contrary, baseball is not only a window on language, culture, and the nature of human action, but is intertwined with deep and fundamental human truths. The book ranges from the nature of umpiring and the role of instant replay, to the nature of the strike zone, from the rampant use of surgery to controversy surrounding performance enhancing drugs. Throughout, Noe's observations are surprising and provocative. Infinite Baseball is a book for the true baseball fan.
PLEASE NOTE: This book is available only as an ebook. Print copies are not available. Baseball and the Law: Cases and Materials explores the jurisprudence of baseball through 110 principal readings, 619 notes, and 26 photographs. After an introductory chapter that acquaints students with the sport and the role lawyers have played in its development, the authors proceed to examine a multitude of legal issues, from player salaries, franchise relocations, and steroids to fan safety, broadcast rights, and gambling. Special attention is paid to racial and sexual discrimination; tax planning, asset protection, and bankruptcy; and the burgeoning use of technology. A concluding chapter focuses on amateur and youth baseball. The book draws on a variety of materials--including court decisions, arbitration awards, law review articles, newspapers stories, and blog posts--to place baseball in three different contexts: cultural, historical, and legal. The exhaustive notes make numerous references to movies, TV shows, and videos to further demonstrate the connection between baseball and the law. In addition to being a fun read, this work will strengthen a student''s understanding of such core subjects as civil procedure, constitutional law, property, and torts while improving his or her ability to read contracts and parse statutes. The accompanying Teacher''s Manual provides invaluable tips for both new and experienced instructors. Baseball and the Law received the 2017 Baseball Research Award, awarded by the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR). "The authors have adopted a familiar casebook format, presenting edited opinions followed by notes providing legal and factual context. While this book''s format is traditional, the content is anything but. Chapters are designed to orient readers to the variety of legal issues involving commissioners, teams, stadiums, players, fans, and amateurs. Through the authors'' efforts to collect and organize these cases, Baseball and the Law illuminates how the law shapes the way baseball is played and enjoyed." -- The Harvard Law Review "[This book] is like no baseball book I''ve ever had the pleasure to pick up (or, at hardback and 1,040 pages, do curls with). [...] I''m neither a lawyer nor a reviewer of books, but I find Baseball and the Law to be a fun volume to have on the bookshelf. Gift givers looking for a baseball item for the fan who has everything have something unique to consider as a stocking stuffer. Because unless your fan is a student or a professor at a participating law school, (s)he doesn''t have this." -- Howard Cole, Forbes "I must confess that when I read Baseball and the Law, it was the first textbook I could remember that I actually enjoyed reading. It is not only a significant compilation of the cases that have provided the law relating to baseball, it is also a remarkable history of the sport and the business surrounding it. After a couple of essays in the introduction, the authors begin with a review of baseball cases dating back to the 1800s. While I am no expert in baseball law, I cannot conceive of any area of baseball law that is not covered by the book. I have to assert that Baseball and the Law is a phenomenal compilation of the law regarding most, if not all, facets of baseball litigation and law. It is truly an enjoyable read." -- Major B. Harding (former chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court and shareholder with Ausley McMullen in Tallahassee), The Florida Bar Journal "For anyone who has a deep interest in the game of baseball and wants to understand its legal history, this is a fascinating book as well as a great reference tool." -- Vince Gennaro, President of Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) "[Schiff and Jarvis have] combined their work and play to create an innovative way to teach law--and perhaps expand the trivia repertoire of diehard fans. [Baseball and the Law] is a 1,040-page look at 110 of the game''s most intriguing or iconic legal disputes...The extensive and sometimes intriguing case notes span centuries. They reach from 1791, when a Massachusetts town passed an ordinance banning baseball from being played within 250 feet of a church (to protect its windows) to modern-day rulings reflecting the rise of performance drug use by professional athletes." -- Diane C. Lade, South Florida Sun-Sentinel "[This book] covers a slew of cases involving Baseball and the law...Readers can find litigation involving George Steinbrenner, Pete Rose, John Rocker and the Black Sox, along with cases about antitrust laws, fans, teams, comissioners, broadcast rights, gambling, owner conduct, competitive balance, baseball cards and even hot dogs being shot into the stands. Schiff and Jarvis spice up the book with informative and colorful notes that even a layman can understand. The scope of their research is breathtaking, drawing from books, magazines, broadcasts, scholarly works and newspapers." -- Bob D''Angelo, The Sports Bookie "As prolific baseball book reviewer Ron Kaplan has already written about this one: "The closest I''ll ever get to law school" is reading this. We agree. And we''d also encourage anyone who thinks they may have a shot at becoming the MLB Commissioner some day, start by lawyering up and investing knowledge here about how the game is still held together by the strings of historical court documents." -- Tom Hoffarth, Farther Off the Wall "The casebook''s coverage is comprehensive. Cases are organized from baseball''s point of view, rather than traditional categoies of legal subject areas. There are chapters on Commissioners, Teams, Stadiums, Players, Fans and Amateurs. I think this is a helpful approach: generally speaking, outside the walls of law schools and law firms, client''s legal problems are not organized into legal categoies, and the sooner students realize this, the better. [...]I wondered whether women would be missing entirely from such a casebook, but this isn''t true of Baseball and the Law and it feels like the authors made a deliberate effort to address this concern. In addition to a number of cases dealing with sex discrimination ... the Notes discuss MLB''s domestic violence policy and women''s history and future in professional baseball as players and umpires; a number of women are cited in the Notes, particularly in the Introduction; and there are photos of Justice Sonia Sotomayor (''''the woman who saved baseball'''' and the 1995 season) throwing out the first pitch at a Yankees game and of Little League World Series pitching phenom Mo''ne Davis. [...]the Notes are a goldmine of baseball facts and lore, and, more importantly, help to place the cases in their historical and social context. This brings the cases to life and made me want to read the next case which is exactly what law professors want their students to do, and should be the ultimate goal of any law school casebook." -- Gail Henderson, University of Alberta''s Faculty Blog "Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball. So wrote French philosopher Jacques Barzum in a 1954 book, "God''s Country and Mind." Maybe he should have written that whoever wants to know about American law should learn baseball. That''s the approach taken by a Broward County judge and a Nova Southeastern law professor who have just published Baseball and the Law, a 1,040 page textbook intended to spark teaching the subject at law schools, and just maybe provide some entertaining and educational reading for the baseball-afflicted lawyers." -- Gary Blankenship, The Florida Bar News "When it comes to baseball and the courts ... Baseball and the Law spells out many of the cases that made Milwaukee famous in baseball jurisprudence--cases that helped shape the game as it is today." -- Chris Foran, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (from 11 new baseball books to add to your lineup) "Baseball and the Law offers a wealth of information for students and baseball fans alike... Schiff and Jarvis present cases and notes that help us appreciate, understand, and gain insight into some of the most important legal and social issues of the past and present... The abundance of information and wealth of knowledge that this text offers makes it an invaluable resource... [I]t is current, enthusiastic, well-researched, thorough, and full of fascinating, historical details (lots of interesting baseball trivia too)... One of the most enjoyable aspects of the text is the notes following the cases. The notes practically comprise a treatise on baseball law and lore in and of themselves." -- Russ VerSteeg, Marquette Sports Law Review "Baseball and the Law is intended to be a textbook for courses in this specialized area. It is probably ideal for its intended purpose, but it is also a remarkable reference tool for anyone interested in the topic. The greatest strength of the book is its level of detail. It is more than one thousand pages of big-picture overview, small details, and reference after reference. Every baseball-related legal case I have ever heard of, as well as hundreds that I knew nothing about, appears to be excerpted or described in the text. Further, the authors reference baseball historians, philosophers, political scientists, journalists, and bloggers who have written on the topic. These references are more than simply citations; rather, they are brief summations of the author''s points and sometimes a critique of that perspective. These references are more like an annotated bibliography than the traditional footnotes to which a sport historian might be used." --Sarah K. Field, Journal of Sport History "This is a book that every lawyer who is also a baseball fan (or any kind of sports fan) will enjoy reading and referencing... It is hard to write about baseball without, wel
Teaching Statistics Using Baseball is a collection of case studies and exercises applying statistical and probabilistic thinking to the game of baseball. Baseball is the most statistical of all sports since players are identified and evaluated by their corresponding hitting and pitching statistics. There is an active effort by people in the baseball community to learn more about baseball performance and strategy by the use of statistics. This book illustrates basic methods of data analysis and probability models by means of baseball statistics collected on players and teams. Students often have difficulty learning statistics ideas since they are explained using examples that are foreign to the students. The idea of the book is to describe statistical thinking in a context (that is, baseball) that will be familiar and interesting to students. The book is organized using a same structure as most introductory statistics texts. There are chapters on the analysis on a single batch of data, followed with chapters on comparing batches of data and relationships. There are chapters on probability models and on statistical inference. The book can be used as the framework for a one-semester introductory statistics class focused on baseball or sports. This type of class has been taught at Bowling Green State University. It may be very suitable for a statistics class for students with sports-related majors, such as sports management or sports medicine. Alternately, the book can be used as a resource for instructors who wish to infuse their present course in probability or statistics with applications from baseball. The second edition of Teaching Statistics follows the same structure as the first edition, where the case studies and exercises have been replaced by modern players and teams, and the new types of baseball data from the PitchFX system and fangraphs.com are incorporated into the text.
DIVDIVA fascinating and revealing look inside the lives of umpires, from the godfather of creative nonfiction/divDIV In 1974, Lee Gutkind walked into Shea Stadium, then home of the New York Mets, with an unusual proposal. He wanted to chronicle one of the least celebrated cadres in professional baseball: the umpires. Gutkind spent one exhilarating season traveling with the officiating crew he found that day—Doug Harvey, Nick Colosi, Harry Wendelstedt, and Art Williams, the first African American umpire in National League history. Gutkind’s narrative reveals much about the peculiarities of the men charged with the “thankless and impossible task of invoking order”—their work ethic, fallibility, and perhaps most strikingly, their pride./divDIV As resonant today as when it was first published, The Best Seat in Baseball, But You Have to Stand! is an engrossing story of the men who work on one of the nation’s biggest stages, their victories and their failures, and their inner worlds that are rarely—if ever—explored./divDIV/div/div