baseball

The star of this book is the data: an encyclopedia of thousands of major league pitchers and information on their pitch repetoire, along with sources. This is groundbreaking, never-before-collected data and it will surely prove to be a boon for baseball researchers. For their work collecting this data, Neyer and James deserve serious kudos.

The book also features articles describing pitches, how they're thrown, variations, their evolutions, and their key practitioners. This is good information as well.

However, these articles and others in the book seem to suffer from the authors' informal tone. Often, we're treated to disagreements between the two authors which don't particularly add to our understanding of the subject.

Though it could have used tighter editing, the book is still a joy. James remains a tremendously gifted writer and analyst and, again, this data is priceless.

If you take this book at its premise as spelled out in the intro - Bill and Rob talking about Harvey Haddix and asking "What did he throw?"- then I think the authors toed the rubber, threw strikes and delivered a highly enjoyable book. And I think the other reviewers who panned this book may have been taking it a bit too seriously.
I think anybody who's tossed the ball around and wondered at how the combination of horsehide, raised seams and air currents can do strange things to the white sphere can appreciate this book. At their best, Bill James and Rob Neyer have always made me appreciate and love the game of baseball, past, present and future. Reading this book helps me watch a game and appreciate the seemingly simple on the surface yet fascinating to the core - and utterly boring to the uninitiated - battle between pitcher and batter.

I disagree with a great deal of the material in this book. Not surprisingly, I found the 'refutation' of Pitcher Abuse Points weak and flawed.

But that doesn't really matter. This is a fun book to read. It's a great way to spend some time.

Maybe some minor changes that could have been made in terms of format, editorial decisions, and whatever, but that's true for every book. I think it's fascinating and entertaining to learn what's behind some of the numbers for guys I never got the chance to see.

I can disclaim and state that Rob is a friend and colleague, but it doesn't change the fact that this is a very entertaining book, and has a bunch of angles that will appeal to a bunch of different people. It's clear that Rob was passionate about this book, and I'm grateful for that. This is a winner, it's not expensive, and when you read it, your mind fills with images of baseball. That's high praise, and it's well earned here.