Kleinknecht’s piece is a nicely-done pioneering historical study, by the way. Editor Bob Davids contributed a fine summary of the known statistical record of pinch hitting, and describes the need for further research. Bill Haber’s description of his successful effort to find biographical details on 1911 Cleveland pitcher George Paige is great fun; he keeps finding dead ends and false leads, but sorts it all out mostly by persisting. Bill Borst’s portrait of Helene Britton’s stint as owner of the Cardinals is excellent.
Filed under
Miscellania
Posted on
March 29th 2012
Ignoring a For Dummies guide, the currently-available (or soon to be available) Nikon 1 books are by David Busch (three books, all for sale through the usual channels) and this Thom Hogan book, which is available from the author’s website. This is the usual case for any new Nikon camera with serious intentions; Hogan typically gets his out quickly as a self-published ebook, then Busch’s book hits a few weeks later. Both authors produce books with much value, but their approaches–and their opinions–differ significantly.
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Bookworm Alley
Picture Show
Posted on
March 22nd 2012
This is a better book than I anticipated. Edwards was obviously fascinated by Google’s founders, and the culture of the company they created. We watch as they repeatedly reorganize the leadership structure–an important concern for a middle manager–and as the author learns how he can contribute to the company. It’s an interesting, nitty-gritty view of the office (and its politics) from a privileged seat. This is well worth your time.
Filed under
Bookworm Alley
Bureaucratic Whimsy
Semi-Geekery
Posted on
March 20th 2012
Joan and I have contrasting viewpoints about the Nikon 1 menu system. To Joan, coming to the J1 from a point-and-shoot background, the menues seem long and complicated. Compared to my D300 the menues seem abbreviated and occasionally disappointing. I already know I’m going to miss my D300 presets. (I’m old enough to remember IBM’s PCjr. Some of Nikon’s design decisions have that feel.)
Filed under
Picture Show
Semi-Geekery
Posted on
March 17th 2012
Bill James’ introductory note takes delight in the fact that two of these are followups on articles in earlier editions. Sabermetrics was a new field, back then, and the practitioners needed to cross-pollinate; Bill’s Analyst was a way to make that happen.
Filed under
Baseball CrankSpace
Bookworm Alley
Posted on
March 14th 2012
The player essays, written by volunteers who had obviously been watching the guy, were often glorious. Scott Segrin pointed out that the Brewers habit of always moving Paul Molitor likely contributed to his injury and playing time problems. Dennis Bretz offered a delightful portrait of an aging Reggie Jackson. Michael O’Donnell took a peek at Barry Bonds’ rookie season, and speculated about his future. Merrianna McCully used Dick Williams as a lens to examine Ken Phelps. Craig Wright reminded us how good Oddibe McDowell looked when he arrived in Arlington. Geoff Beckman differed with Dan Okrent about Cecil Cooper. Each essay’s a half page, with is long enough for an extended comment but too short for a full-blown essay. Not all of these are excellent, of course, but enough are to justify working through them. Even now, 26 years later.
Filed under
Baseball CrankSpace
Bookworm Alley
Posted on
March 2nd 2012
For some books, design is important. It’s less significant for most, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter, as good design can make reading easier. Design has long been a feature differentiating publishers, all of whom use it to add value for readers. Basically all paper books show the impact of a designer; not just the cover and illustrations, but typeface, margins, chapter headings, page headings/footers, and even paragraph orphans are items within design purview. None of these things make it into your typical ebook. Partly it’s that the delivery devices are mostly concerned with presenting text. Partly it’s that most of the current generation of ebooks began as scans, rather than electronic documents. And partly it’s a failure on everyone’s part to take this seriously.
Filed under
Bookworm Alley
Posted on
March 1st 2012
I ended up living in the house pictured at the top of this page for five months. The place is east of the central business district, a block or so from the State Journal‘s newsroom. It wasn’t a bad place, but everyone was pretty poor and the police tended to keep the neighborhood under surveillance. The Grand River’s just a block away, and I’d wander along the waterfront park when I needed to get out of the house. Downtown’s a couple blocks the other direction, and bad as that was I could easily find a meal or a bookstore, which met my needs.
Filed under
Used to Live Here
Yarns and Tales
Posted on
February 23rd 2012
I rather expected the book to begin with an overview of the place scouting occupies in the typical baseball organization, with other chapters explicitly discussing the history and development of scouting practice, the role scouting plays in player development (and perhaps some discussion of how specific organizations have employed different scouting/player development strategies), and an explication of the things scouts look for when they watch a baseball game. The book contains all of that material, at least in part, but only the “what do they look” for part has a specific discussion, and that is tucked into a rather brief chapter introduction. The other general topics can be gleaned from the book’s material, but at best there are only partial summaries.
Filed under
Baseball CrankSpace
Bookworm Alley
Posted on
February 20th 2012
Kent’s Richard Bolitho is sort of an alternative Horatio Nelson. He has a very similar, largely concurrent, career in the Royal Navy, working his way from midshipman to admiral over the course of twenty-some novels, fighting in different theaters from Nel but with similar results. He’s a hero to the masses in London, inspiring to his friends and subordinates, and a bit of a loose cannon (less so than Nelson, but that is pretty much a given). Bolitho, like Nelson, has a scandalous relationship with a woman, which annoys his superiors and troubles his friends. Also like Nelson, he dies in a major battle just as victory becomes certain.
Filed under
Bookworm Alley
Posted on
February 12th 2012
