The Baseball Codes

Author: Jason Turbow
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 030727862X
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Book Description
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.

Baseball Hacks

Author: Joseph Adler
Publisher: "O'Reilly Media, Inc."
ISBN: 1491949422
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 486

Book Description
Baseball Hacks isn't your typical baseball book--it's a book about how to watch, research, and understand baseball. It's an instruction manual for the free baseball databases. It's a cookbook for baseball research. Every part of this book is designed to teach baseball fans how to do something. In short, it's a how-to book--one that will increase your enjoyment and knowledge of the game. So much of the way baseball is played today hinges upon interpreting statistical data. Players are acquired based on their performance in statistical categories that ownership deems most important. Managers make in-game decisions based not on instincts, but on probability - how a particular batter might fare against left-handedpitching, for instance. The goal of this unique book is to show fans all the baseball-related stuff that they can do for free (or close to free). Just as open source projects have made great software freely available, collaborative projects such as Retrosheet and Baseball DataBank have made great data freely available. You can use these data sources to research your favorite players, win your fantasy league, or appreciate the game of baseball even more than you do now. Baseball Hacks shows how easy it is to get data, process it, and use it to truly understand baseball. The book lists a number of sources for current and historical baseball data, and explains how to load it into a database for analysis. It then introduces several powerful statistical tools for understanding data and forecasting results. For the uninitiated baseball fan, author Joseph Adler walks readers through the core statistical categories for hitters (batting average, on-base percentage, etc.), pitchers (earned run average, strikeout-to-walk ratio, etc.), and fielders (putouts, errors, etc.). He then extrapolates upon these numbers to examine more advanced data groups like career averages, team stats, season-by-season comparisons, and more. Whether you're a mathematician, scientist, or season-ticket holder to your favorite team, Baseball Hacks is sure to have something for you. Advance praise for Baseball Hacks: "Baseball Hacks is the best book ever written for understanding and practicing baseball analytics. A must-read for baseball professionals and enthusiasts alike." -- Ari Kaplan, database consultant to the Montreal Expos, San Diego Padres, and Baltimore Orioles "The game was born in the 19th century, but the passion for its analysis continues to grow into the 21st. In Baseball Hacks, Joe Adler not only demonstrates thatthe latest data-mining technologies have useful application to the study of baseball statistics, he also teaches the reader how to do the analysis himself, arming the dedicated baseball fan with tools to take his understanding of the game to a higher level." -- Mark E. Johnson, Ph.D., Founder, SportMetrika, Inc. and Baseball Analyst for the 2004 St. Louis Cardinals

Baseball Cheat Codes

Author: Michael Zgorzelski
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 107

Book Description
Get a mental edge on the baseball field with Baseball Cheat Codes: A Player's Best Friend. If you want to take your game to the next level, this book can help you get there. The strategies contained within this easy-to-read work will pave the way to success. This book is a great tool for players and coaches of all ages.

The Doubleday Code

Author: Jim Pieczynski
Publisher: Our Sunday Visitor (IN)
ISBN: 9781681926728
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 64

Book Description
For fans of the sport, professional baseball is like a religious experience because it offers mystery -- the visible with the invisible. Blazing speeds, graceful fielding, and blistering hitting occur amidst ever-changing strategies, signs, substitutions, and situations. One pitch builds on another, one out on another, one inning on another, and one game on another. Watching players perform with wit, skill, and courage at the highest level satisfies the yearning of our hearts and minds to witness nobility in action. That's why we can "religiously" follow the sport. It speaks to our soul. In The Doubleday Code, author Jim Pieczynski draws parallels between the sport we love -- baseball -- and the faith we embrace -- Catholicism. Each chapter also provides prompts for prayer and personal reflection and can be used as a study guide for retreats. Fans who appreciate baseball are students of the game. They understand the deeper mysteries and are rewarded immensely. So, too, are committed Catholics who understand the teachings of the Faith and seek not an earthly Hall of Fame, but a heavenly one. About the Author Jim Pieczynski is a Catholic speaker who offers presentations on the Eucharist, Mary, and the Catholic mysteries hidden in Major League Baseball. Jim and his wife, Mary, live in Fairhope, Alabama. They have five children and eleven grandchildren.

The Ultimate Baseball Book

Author: Daniel Okrent
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780618056682
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 462

Book Description
THE ULTIMATE BASEBALL BOOK has more than lived up to its name. Spanning the complete history of the sport from the fledgling leagues in the late 1870s to the powerhouses of the 1990s and revealing in the process what a remarkable effect baseball has had on our collective experience, this is THE book for any and all baseball fans, certain to grace coffee and bedside tables alike. Designed with that wonderful nostalgia that the sport itself so often evokes, THE ULTIMATE BASEBALL BOOK combines timeless images with a sweeping narrative history as well as essays on various idols and icons by such heavy hitters as Red Smith, Wilfrid Sheed, Roy Blount, Jr., Tom Wicker, and Geoge Will. This new edition covers baseball through the nineties, the decade when home run records fell and the sport reclaimed its hold on America, and celebrates the national game in ultimate style.

The Talent Code

Author: Daniel Coyle
Publisher: Bantam
ISBN: 0553906496
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
What is the secret of talent? How do we unlock it? This groundbreaking work provides readers with tools they can use to maximize potential in themselves and others. Whether you’re coaching soccer or teaching a child to play the piano, writing a novel or trying to improve your golf swing, this revolutionary book shows you how to grow talent by tapping into a newly discovered brain mechanism. Drawing on cutting-edge neurology and firsthand research gathered on journeys to nine of the world’s talent hotbeds—from the baseball fields of the Caribbean to a classical-music academy in upstate New York—Coyle identifies the three key elements that will allow you to develop your gifts and optimize your performance in sports, art, music, math, or just about anything. • Deep Practice Everyone knows that practice is a key to success. What everyone doesn’t know is that specific kinds of practice can increase skill up to ten times faster than conventional practice. • Ignition We all need a little motivation to get started. But what separates truly high achievers from the rest of the pack? A higher level of commitment—call it passion—born out of our deepest unconscious desires and triggered by certain primal cues. Understanding how these signals work can help you ignite passion and catalyze skill development. • Master Coaching What are the secrets of the world’s most effective teachers, trainers, and coaches? Discover the four virtues that enable these “talent whisperers” to fuel passion, inspire deep practice, and bring out the best in their students. These three elements work together within your brain to form myelin, a microscopic neural substance that adds vast amounts of speed and accuracy to your movements and thoughts. Scientists have discovered that myelin might just be the holy grail: the foundation of all forms of greatness, from Michelangelo’s to Michael Jordan’s. The good news about myelin is that it isn’t fixed at birth; to the contrary, it grows, and like anything that grows, it can be cultivated and nourished. Combining revelatory analysis with illuminating examples of regular people who have achieved greatness, this book will not only change the way you think about talent, but equip you to reach your own highest potential.

The Baseball Player and the Walrus

Author: Ben Loory
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698401816
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 36

Book Description
A sweet and poignant story of friendship, from acclaimed short-story writer Ben Loory The baseball player has it all—money, fame, and success. But something is missing. He doesn’t know what it is until he goes to the zoo and sees a walrus. What a splendid creature! Surely it could bring joy to his life. With happiness just a walrus away, the baseball player sets out to create the perfect enclosure for his new friend. He’s even willing to give up his job to be with the walrus. But without a job, he won’t be able to afford his new friend’s care and keeping. And without the walrus, he won’t be able to smile. Luckily, there’s a compromise to be had and a walrus just waiting to be reunited with his resourceful friend.

Nolan Ryan's Pitcher's Bible

Author: Nolan Ryan
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0671705814
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 180

Book Description
Offers advice on the mechanics of pitching, and recommends a program of weight training, aerobic exercise, and sound nutrition.

Attack! Boss! Cheat Code!

Author: Chris Barton
Publisher: POW! Kids Books
ISBN: 9781576877012
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Bone up on your gaming knowledge with this gently ironic yet thoroughly informative guide to video game terminology, presented as a picture book for all ages.Attack! Boss! Cheat Code! A Gamer's ABCis an indispensableguide, a lively look at the language of video games that might actually bridge the gap between game-obsessed kids and their often-perplexed parents. If you can decipher the following sentence, you don't need this book: "This open beta game is in third-person but first-person is unlockable if you know the cheat code or install your own mod, but either way, for the best attack on the boss on this level, try to grab that power-up!" Almost any 9-year old could translate for you but if you don't have access to one, try this book instead. Video games are the dominant form of pop culture today, a $75 billion industry worldwide, and an inescapable part of modern living. Don't be left out! A quick perusal ofAttack! Boss! Cheat Code!is all you need to get in the game. Brilliantly colorful illustrations by video game artist Joey Spiotto vividly embody the terminology of video games, bringing the world of video games to life.Lucid definitions make terms clear and understandable, even for non-players. Presented as an alphabet,Attack! Boss! Cheat Code!is also an entertaining visual history and glossary of gaming, providing a solid understanding of terms that have made their way into everyday language, from to "mod" to"RPG."

The Pole Vault Toolbox

Author: Shawn Francis
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780578650241
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 186

Book Description
Whether you're a pole vaulter chasing personal records or a coach trying to coach them, The Pole Vault Toolbox is the blueprint. Shawn is a highly sought-after pole vault coach andeducator. In this book, he shares the tools that have helped thousands of coaches and their athletes vault personal records, break state records, win state medals, and received college scholarships. He breaks down his Master's Degree research on the pole vault and explains how he uses it today. Finally, he reveals the tricks he figured out as a professional pole vaulter, including how to overcome the fear of moving up to bigger poles or what to do if you struggle running through. Filled with his trademark humor, The Pole Vault Toolbox is invaluable for veterans in the sport as well as those who just picked up a pole for the first time. Often drawing from Shawn's personal and often humbling experiences.