Author: Brad Bauer
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595441238
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
It is a dark time for Jack "Clutch" Thompson. After the release of his first book, Hitting in the Clutch, his cool and trusted friends have abandoned him. Although cheered by the fans and media for his brutal, honest writings about baseball, he has angered his former friends and teammates for giving away too much information about what happens behind closed doors. Now an outcast journeyman across Major League Baseball, he has landed on the Texas Rangers and seeks to regain his old notoriety and status amongst baseball's best. To do so, he'll have to ally with the not-so-popular crowd, ignore his new horrendous and generic nickname, and attempt to take his sub par team to the playoffs, as he has in years past. Follow him through another crass and outrageous season in what critics are calling, "hands down, the best book you will ever read in your entire life."* New friends. Old enemies. Same Clutch. *No critic has said this
Author: Dale Morgan
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595479065
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 299
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Book Description
It has healed generations after times of war and throughout the depression. In more recent years, America's pastime has lost its prestige. Even so, baseball is still one of the most popular sports among youth all over the world. These kids don't care about contracts and don't cheat to be better at baseball. They still dream about playing for their favorite team. Zeke Morgan had the same dream. He and his best friend, Ronnie, dreamed of playing on the same diamond in the pros throughout their childhood. After a falling out and after fielding many of life's curve balls, Zeke Morgan followed that dream and made it his own. Follow young Zeke Morgan as he breaks into the world of baseball, makes a name for himself, and tries to resurrect a dream that died years earlier, while fending off a greedy and corrupt baseball system. Can he remain the pure and innocent baseball player he always wanted to be or will he fold under the dollar signs and glamour that are just within his reach?
Author: Mike Stadler
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1440623252
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 246
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Book Description
Get inside the minds of the stars of the diamond in this extraordinary tour of brain power, psyche, and sheer will. Yogi Berra once said, "Baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical." Even so, the Yankee great may have underestimated the brain power professional baseball players routinely draw on to perform such astounding feats of athleticism as hitting 98-mph fastballs and diving to catch line drives. In The Psychology of Baseball, Mike Stadler goes beneath the surface of the game to explore the psychology behind the actions of the game’s greats--and breaks down legendary moments from baseball history, such as Willie Mays’s full-sprint over-the-shoulder grab in the 1954 World Series. Stadler begins with the mind’s role in the game’s basic skills, explaining the anticipatory thinking that can make a hitter see a "rising fastball," the complex muscular coordination required to throw a major league heater, and the intense spatial calculations the brain must perform in a split second in order for a fielder to catch a struck ball. Stadler then discusses the hidden nature of streaks and slumps, explaining why a "hot" hitter is most likely just getting lucky and why there’s no such thing as a clutch hitter, and also looks at the psychological basis of the so-called "sophomore slump" and the effect that a big-money contract has on a player’s performance. He also examines the personality types that are best suited to baseball, and explains what traits are most associated with success at the highest levels. A revolutionary new look at America’s pastime that will appeal to the many fans of bestsellers like Moneyball and Three Nights in August, The Psychology of Baseball is a must-read book for the serious baseball fan.
Author: Jonah Keri
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465003737
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 520
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Book Description
In the numbers-obsessed sport of baseball, statistics don't merely record what players, managers, and owners have done. Properly understood, they can tell us how the teams we root for could employ better strategies, put more effective players on the field, and win more games. The revolution in baseball statistics that began in the 1970s is a controversial subject that professionals and fans alike argue over without end. Despite this fundamental change in the way we watch and understand the sport, no one has written the book that reveals, across every area of strategy and management, how the best practitioners of statistical analysis in baseball-people like Bill James, Billy Beane, and Theo Epstein-think about numbers and the game. Baseball Between the Numbers is that book. In separate chapters covering every aspect of the game, from hitting, pitching, and fielding to roster construction and the scouting and drafting of players, the experts at Baseball Prospectus examine the subtle, hidden aspects of the game, bring them out into the open, and show us how our favorite teams could win more games. This is a book that every fan, every follower of sports radio, every fantasy player, every coach, and every player, at every level, can learn from and enjoy.
Author: Jim Albert
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1498782779
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 142
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Book Description
Visualizing Baseball provides a visual exploration of the game of baseball. Graphical displays are used to show how measures of performance, at the team level and the individual level, have changed over the history of baseball. Graphs of career trajectories are helpful for understanding the rise and fall of individual performances of hitters and pitchers over time. One can measure the contribution of plays by the notion of runs expectancy. Graphs of runs expectancy are useful for understanding the importance of the game situation defined by the runners on base and number of outs. Also the runs measure can be used to quantify hitter and pitch counts and the win probabilities can be used to define the exciting plays during a baseball game. Special graphs are used to describe pitch data from the PitchFX system and batted ball data from the Statcast system. One can explore patterns of streaky performance and clutch play by the use of graphs, and special plots are used to predict final season batting averages based on data from the middle of the season. This book was written for several types of readers. Many baseball fans should be interested in the topics of the chapters, especially those who are interested in learning more about the quantitative side of baseball. Many statistical ideas are illustrated and so the graphs and accompanying insights can help in promoting statistical literacy at many levels. From a practitioner’s perspective, the chapters offer many illustrations of the use of a modern graphics system and R scripts are available on an accompanying website to reproduce and potentially improve the graphs in this book.
Author: Jim Albert
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1351678965
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 463
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Book Description
This handbook will provide both overviews of statistical methods in sports and in-depth treatment of critical problems and challenges confronting statistical research in sports. The material in the handbook will be organized by major sport (baseball, football, hockey, basketball, and soccer) followed by a section on other sports and general statistical design and analysis issues that are common to all sports. This handbook has the potential to become the standard reference for obtaining the necessary background to conduct serious statistical analyses for sports applications and to appreciate scholarly work in this expanding area.
Author: William F. McNeil
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786481285
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 263
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Book Description
After Babe Ruth erased Buck Freeman's record in 1919, the new mark stood for 34 years before Maris bettered it, defying as he did an incredulous sporting public. And just as fans' anger grew old and Maris was grudgingly credited--or discredited--with an unrepeatable hot streak, along came Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, two goliaths who in 1998 and the years just after proved fans wrong again. But when in 2001, only three years after McGwire seemed to put the record beyond reach, Barry Bonds topped him by three. This time fans were staunch in their disbelief, and while many celebrated Bonds' achievement, others questioned its significance. This revised edition of Bill McNeil's Ruth, Maris, McGwire, and Sosa ("libraries especially will want this"--Library Journal) reviews the careers of each home run titan, with special attention to the record-breaking seasons. The cultural and social changes that may have affected both the players' season totals and fan reception are also considered.
Author: Jim Albert
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1584888695
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 312
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Book Description
Since the first athletic events found a fan base, sports and statistics have always maintained a tight and at times mythical relationship. As a way to relay the telling of a game's drama and attest to the prodigious powers of the heroes involved, those reporting on the games tallied up the numbers that they believe best described the action and bes
Author: Rich Westcott
Publisher: Temple University Press
ISBN: 9781566398589
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 242
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Book Description
The home run is the single most dramatic moment in baseball. Often it has been the exclamation point that appears at the end of a game, a season, a playoff, or a World Series. For fans, certain images-such as that of Carlton Fisk urging his shot fair over Green Monster or of Kirk Gibson limping around the bases-are engraved in memory.From Babe Ruth to Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, the author tells of the stories, complete with box scores and photographs, of what he has selected as the thirty most memorable home runs. Many of the stories include comments from the author's interviews with home run hitters. Other sections cover sixty additional noteworthy home runs, All Star Game home runs, and milestones such as total home run production and grand slams.In Rich Westcott's journey through baseball history, fans will encounter the most famous moments and longest blast, as well as fascinating sidelights like these about balls that didn't travel as far.Who won a home run title without hitting a single ball out of the park?*Who hit the first inside-the-park home run in a World Series game?**Who hit the shortest home run, one that failed to reach the pitcher's mound?**** Ty Cobb won the title in 1909 with nine inside-the-park home runs.** Casey Stengel for the New York Giants in 1923.*** Andy Oyler of the Minnesota Millers scored on a two-foot drive into a mud puddle in front of home plate during a game in 1900. ( Baseball historians disagree on the truth of this account.) Author note: Rich Westcott has been a writer and editor for almost 40 years. He is the author of 10 other books, including The New Phillies Encyclopedia (with Frank Bilovsky), Phillies '93: An Incredible Season, and Philadelphia's Old Ballparks, all published by Temple University Press. He is the founder of Phillies Report, the nation's oldest continuous, baseball team newspaper. Currently, Westcott teaches sportswriting at LaSalle University and is an official scorer at Phillies games.
Author: Paul F. Petricca
Publisher: Archway Publishing
ISBN: 1480853542
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 264
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Book Description
Paul Petricca draws on his experience as a coach, player, blogger, and student of baseball and softball to share what hes learned about hitting in this essential guide for players seeking dramatic results at the plate. The author presents easy to understand hitting mechanics highlighting how the engineering concept of torque can be applied to hitting and is often the difference between a weak groundball or a long home run. Topics covered include understanding where hitting power really comes from and the importance of increasing bat speed through the fundamentals of a repeatable and powerful rotational swing. Hitters of all ages who adopt his eight hitting keys will enjoy a dramatic increase in bat speed and power almost immediately. Hitting with Torque is more than a set of hitting mechanics---its a mindset. Readers will be challenged to look past the worn-out hitting theories and myths that have been holding back hitters from reaching their full potential. With an open mind and practice, all hitters can unlock the power and consistency that is Hitting with Torque.
