I majored in History. Of course I read. A lot. Sometimes I write about reading.
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.
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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.
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Bookworm Alley
Posted on
March 1st 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.
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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.
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Bookworm Alley
Posted on
February 12th 2012
But the last half of the book is just wonderful, with Budu’s army of massive tenors and countertenors, Victor’s absolutely perfect revenge on his masters, Lewis’s escape from his fate, and all the threads converging on Catalina on The Day of Silence. There are obvious jokes, jokes that assume you read carefully, and jokes that assume you’re well-read. Gosh this is fun.
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Bookworm Alley
Posted on
February 8th 2012
I raise this question because A Town Called Immaculate is certainly worth reading. It features a dozen well-drawn characters, a conflicted setting, and a monster Christmas storm which conspire to create a family crisis. It’s a well-plotted novel which mixes strong characterization, building tension, and some surprisingly physical humor to bring everything to a boil. There are oddly-paired couples, an ex-POW, some wonderful memories, and a delightful youngster in the mix. All in all it’s a convincing and intriguing portrait of a small town’s quirks, and a family’s love. Highly recommended.
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Bookworm Alley
Posted on
February 2nd 2012
But the book’s mainly about the team’s management philosophy, which amounts to “do everything better,” with a large dollop of buy low/sell high. The management group is portrayed as both detail-oriented and willing to delegate, which is unusual but hardly unheard of. Basically, these guys set goals, execute them, then review and revise. Over and over again. Despite the book’s subtitle (How Wall Street Strategies Took a Major League Team from Worst to First), there’s nothing particularly Wall Street about what they do. The important point is knowing what you want to do and making those things happen. Many baseball teams–and many corporations–have difficulty doing that.
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Baseball CrankSpace
Bookworm Alley
Posted on
January 30th 2012
Once again, these offerings demonstrate an enormous amount of data collection and number crunching, long before Retrosheet and Baseball Reference. (Bill James comments on that in the introduction.) All in all, a useful outing, but flawed.
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Baseball CrankSpace
Bookworm Alley
Posted on
January 21st 2012
The best piece is Eugene Murdock’s profile/interview of 96-year-old Paddy Livingston, at that time the oldest living major leaguer. What makes the piece more than a reminiscence is Paddy’s attitude about the game; all things considered, he preferred to be home in Philadelphia. Not many journeyman players sit out entire seasons because they didn’t like the contract.
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Baseball CrankSpace
Bookworm Alley
Posted on
January 21st 2012
This is not exactly a beginner’s book. The expected reader has some familiarity with photography and wants to better understand and master their camera. Advanced users may find the book useful as a review, and may find a tip or two they’d not previously seen, but may find some of the explanations annoying. That’s OK, as they’re not the intended audience.
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Bookworm Alley
Picture Show
Posted on
January 18th 2012
