Finding the Hidden Ball Trick
Finding the Hidden Ball Trick

Author: Bill Deane

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2015-02-18

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 1442244348

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The dying art of the hidden-ball trick dates back to the early days of pro baseball, with seven successful executions documented in 1876 alone. This ruse occurs when a baseman conceals the ball instead of returning it to the pitcher. When the runner steps off the base, he is summarily tagged out with the hidden ball. The trick has been used some 264 times with success, a rarity roughly in the class of the no-hitter. The hidden-ball trick has produced many hilarious stories throughout the years, and even enjoyed a renaissance of sorts in 2013 when it was employed twice late in the season. In Finding the Hidden-Ball Trick: The Colorful History of Baseball’s Oldest Ruse, every known execution of the hidden-ball trick in the major leagues is documented, compiled from decades of research. This book recounts how the hidden-ball trick has completed triple plays, ended games, resulted in two arrests, cost a Hall of Famer a managing job, and even occurred in a World Series. Stories include how Fred Merkle gained revenge on Johnny Evers, how Gary Carter was caught to end a game—on his birthday—and how Lou Boudreau was nabbed the day after saying the play was obsolete. In addition to a complete chronological listing of every documented ruse, Finding the Hidden-Ball Trick also includes descriptions of tricks that went awry and a list of unsubstantiated accounts. This unique compilation of baseball stories will be of interest to baseball scholars and fans alike.

The Baseball Codes
The Baseball Codes

Author: Jason Turbow

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 2011-03-22

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 030727862X

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An insider’s look at baseball’s unwritten rules, explained with examples from the game’s most fascinating characters and wildest historical moments. Everyone knows that baseball is a game of intricate regulations, but it turns out to be even more complicated than we realize. All aspects of baseball—hitting, pitching, and baserunning—are affected by the Code, a set of unwritten rules that governs the Major League game. Some of these rules are openly discussed (don’t steal a base with a big lead late in the game), while others are known only to a minority of players (don’t cross between the catcher and the pitcher on the way to the batter’s box). In The Baseball Codes, old-timers and all-time greats share their insights into the game’s most hallowed—and least known—traditions. For the learned and the casual baseball fan alike, the result is illuminating and thoroughly entertaining. At the heart of this book are incredible and often hilarious stories involving national heroes (like Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays) and notorious headhunters (like Bob Gibson and Don Drysdale) in a century-long series of confrontations over respect, honor, and the soul of the game. With The Baseball Codes, we see for the first time the game as it’s actually played, through the eyes of the players on the field. With rollicking stories from the past and new perspectives on baseball’s informal rulebook, The Baseball Codes is a must for every fan.

Hidden Ball Trick
Hidden Ball Trick

Author: Jeremy Frank Jim Passon

Publisher:

Published: 2019-05-09

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 9781793996930

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Hidden Ball Trick: The Baseball Stats You Never Thought To Look For goes year-by-year throughout the history of baseball, starting with the founding of the National League in 1876 until the end of the Dead Ball Era in 1919. With a few pages dedicated to each season, Hidden Ball Trick tells a near century-and-a-half long story about baseball's history through it's craziest stats, wildest events, and mindblowing seasons starting with the Dead Ball Era.One doesn't have to be a statistics professor to appreciate the game from a numerical perspective; Hidden Ball Trick's simplicity appeals to everyone from a baseball card collecting little leaguer who grew up watching Mike Trout play, to their 80-year-old grandparent who had the same connection to Willie Mays. Written by a teenager and a cable guy who share a love for the world's greatest sport, Hidden Ball Trick is sure to be enjoyable and informative to anyone who loves the game of baseball.

Hidden Ball Trick
Hidden Ball Trick

Author: Jeremy Frank Jim Passon

Publisher:

Published: 2020-05-02

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13:

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Hidden Ball Trick: The Baseball Stats You Never Thought To Look For (Vol. 2) goes year-by-year throughout the history of baseball, starting with the beginning of the live-ball era in 1920 going until the end of the 1960s. With a few pages dedicated to each season, Hidden Ball Trick tells a near century-and-a-half long story about baseball's history through its craziest stats, wildest events, and mindblowing seasons starting. One doesn't have to be a statistics professor to appreciate the game from a numerical perspective; Hidden Ball Trick's simplicity appeals to everyone from a baseball card collecting little leaguer who grew up watching Mike Trout play, to their 80-year-old grandparent who had the same connection to Willie Mays. Written by a teenager and a cable guy who share a love for the world's greatest sport, Hidden Ball Trick is sure to be enjoyable and informative to anyone who loves the game of baseball.

The Invisible Gorilla
The Invisible Gorilla

Author: Christopher Chabris

Publisher: Harmony

Published: 2011-06-07

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 0307459667

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Reading this book will make you less sure of yourself—and that’s a good thing. In The Invisible Gorilla, Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, creators of one of psychology’s most famous experiments, use remarkable stories and counterintuitive scientific findings to demonstrate an important truth: Our minds don’t work the way we think they do. We think we see ourselves and the world as they really are, but we’re actually missing a whole lot. Chabris and Simons combine the work of other researchers with their own findings on attention, perception, memory, and reasoning to reveal how faulty intuitions often get us into trouble. In the process, they explain: • Why a company would spend billions to launch a product that its own analysts know will fail • How a police officer could run right past a brutal assault without seeing it • Why award-winning movies are full of editing mistakes • What criminals have in common with chess masters • Why measles and other childhood diseases are making a comeback • Why money managers could learn a lot from weather forecasters Again and again, we think we experience and understand the world as it is, but our thoughts are beset by everyday illusions. We write traffic laws and build criminal cases on the assumption that people will notice when something unusual happens right in front of them. We’re sure we know where we were on 9/11, falsely believing that vivid memories are seared into our minds with perfect fidelity. And as a society, we spend billions on devices to train our brains because we’re continually tempted by the lure of quick fixes and effortless self-improvement. The Invisible Gorilla reveals the myriad ways that our intuitions can deceive us, but it’s much more than a catalog of human failings. Chabris and Simons explain why we succumb to these everyday illusions and what we can do to inoculate ourselves against their effects. Ultimately, the book provides a kind of x-ray vision into our own minds, making it possible to pierce the veil of illusions that clouds our thoughts and to think clearly for perhaps the first time.

Here's the Catch
Here's the Catch

Author: Ron Swoboda

Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books

Published: 2019-06-11

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 1250235677

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In time for the 50th anniversary of the Mets' miraculous 1969 World Series win, right fielder Ron Swoboda tells the story of that amazing season, the people he played with and against (sometimes at the same time), and what life was like as an Every Man ballplayer. Ron Swoboda wasn’t the greatest player the Mets ever had, but he made the greatest catch in Met history, saving a game in the 1969 World Series, and his RBI clinched the final game. By Met standards that makes him legend. The Mets even use a steel silhouette of the catch as a backing for the right field entrance sign at Citi Field. In this smart, funny, insightful memoir, which is as self-deprecating as a lifetime .249 hitter has to be, he tells the story of that magical year nearly game by game, revealing his struggles, his triumphs and what life was like for an every day, Every Man player, even when he was being platooned. He shows what it took to make one of the worst teams in baseball and what it was like to leave one of the best. And when he talks about the guys he played with and against, it’s like you’re sitting next to him on the team bus, drinking Rheingold. Here's the Catch is a book anyone who loves the game will love as much.

Cardboard Gods
Cardboard Gods

Author: Josh Wilker

Publisher: Seven Footer Press

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 9781934734162

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Wilker marks the stages of his life through the baseball cards he collected as a child. He captures the experience of growing up obsessed with baseball cards and explores what it means to be a fan of the game.

The Matheny Manifesto
The Matheny Manifesto

Author: Mike Matheny

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2015-02-03

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 0553446711

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St. Louis Cardinals manager Mike Matheny's New York Times bestselling manifesto about what parents, coaches, and athletes get wrong about sports; what we can do better; and how sports can teach eight keys to success in sports and life. Mike Matheny was just forty-one, without professional managerial experience and looking for a next step after a successful career as a Major League catcher, when he succeeded the legendary Tony La Russa as manager of the St. Louis Cardinals in 2012. While Matheny has enjoyed immediate success, leading the Cards to the postseason four times in his first four years−a Major League record−people have noticed something else about his life, something not measured in day-to-day results. Instead, it’s based on a frankly worded letter he wrote to the parents of a Little League team he coached, a cry for change that became an Internet sensation and eventually a “manifesto.” The tough-love philosophy Matheny expressed in the letter contained his throwback beliefs that authority should be respected, discipline and hard work rewarded, spiritual faith cultivated, family made a priority, and humility considered a virtue. In The Matheny Manifesto, he builds on his original letter by first diagnosing the problem at the heart of youth sports−it starts with parents and coaches−and then by offering a hopeful path forward. Along the way, he uses stories from his small-town childhood as well as his career as a player, coach, and manager to explore eight keys to success: leadership, confidence, teamwork, faith, class, character, toughness, and humility. From “The Coach Is Always Right, Even When He’s Wrong” to “Let Your Catcher Call the Game,” Matheny’s old-school advice might not always be popular or politically correct, but it works. His entertaining and deeply inspirational book will not only resonate with parents, coaches, and athletes, it will also be a powerful reminder, from one of the most successful new managers in the game, of what sports can teach us all about winning on the field and in life.