Books about Major league from Amazon.com

The official rules used by professional baseball umpires contains the casebook of the Official Playing Rules Committee, providing insight into rules intent..
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Go behind closed doors in the Cleveland Indians' front office as award-winning sportswriter Terry Pluto analyzes the team's controversial recent moves to scrap a roster of popular stars and rebuild a new kind of contender.
Granted unprecedented access to the team's top management and financial data, Pluto delivers an up-close account of how decisions were made to radically reshape the franchise.
Indians fans grew accustomed to winning in the mid-1990s. They had an owner with deep pockets, a brand-new ballpark, and a team of high-priced all stars who delivered a division championship nearly every year.
But that glorious ride ended with a jolt of reality after savvy owner Richard Jacobs sold the franchise at the top of the market in 2000. New owners Larry and Paul Dolan and new general manager Mark Shapiro faced a challenge: an aging team, a mounting payroll, and a shrinking budget. First they made mistakes. Then they made bold changes. Stars such as Manny Ramirez, Roberto Alomar, and Jim Thome were gone, replaced with roster of unproven youngsters and veteran rehab projects. Fans were alarmed and dismayed. Then, in 2002, Shapiro boldly predicted that the Indians would return to contend for the playoffs after just three years of rebuilding. Critics scoffed.
Yet at the end of the 2005 season, the Indians were indeed back in contention, one tantalizing game away from a return to the playoffs. The core of an exciting young team was beginning to take shape, and Shapiro was voted American League Executive of the Year as his team won an impressive 93 games despite a payroll ranked in baseball's bottom five.
How was it done? In his familiar clear writing style, Pluto carefully explains the many risky moves made by management and tells which ones have paid off, which ones haven't, and why.
This rare behind-the-scenes look at a modern front office will intrigue fantasy leaguers and fans fascinated by baseball dealmaking. It will be an eye-opener for Indians fans who may still be wondering, What happened to my team?.
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It’s baseball season, and Katie and her friends are busy rooting for their favorite team, the Cherrydale Porcupines. Katie loves the team, but can’t understand why her friends are so obsessed with the team’s star shortstop, Mike Reed; she prefers the old shortstop who now sits on the bench every game. But when Katie is switcherooed into the team’s star shortstop, she learns that she should never judge someone until she’s standing in their size-12 baseball cleats!.
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The obsessive reference for every baseball nut, THE TEAM-BY-TEAM ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL is a comprehensive, original, devour-it-like-salted-peanuts single-volume encyclopedia that marries history and statistics and delivers them team by team. Organizing by teams gives the wide view—how do the Murderer’s Row Yankees compare to the Big Red Machine? The long view—what team has given the Red Sox the most trouble over the last 100 years? And the hidden view—name the team that went through all the 1990s without a Gold Glove winner. It’s how the game is played, and now, finally, it’s presented in the way the game is best understood.

Created by baseball historian Dennis Purdy, a true buff’s buff, THE TEAM-BY-TEAM ENCYCLOPEDIA offers the history of every existing major league baseball franchise told through narrative, bios, anecdotes, photographs, and the most comprehensive team statistics ever assembled in a single book. Every year’s record, standing, attendance, and primary starting lineup for each of baseball’s 30 franchises. Top-10 leader lists for every major category (and some minor ones), plus all-time won-loss records versus all opponents. All the awards—MVP, Rookie of the Year, Cy Young, Gold Glove. Manager records. Post-season records. Even retired uniform numbers. But the stats are just the beginning—each chapter contains entertaining thumbnail biographies of every franchise’s key players, recalling, for example, how the game’s greatest shortstop, Honus Wagner, was ecruited when spotted throwing rocks across a river. And sprinkled throughout are spicy team facts, bizarre anecdotes, statistical anomalies, and little-known gems—like what Babe Ruth said to Lou Gehrig after hitting his “called shot” homerun in the 1932 World Series..
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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..
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In this unique guide to playing better baseball, Bob Cluck draws upon actual situations encountered during his more than two decades as a major-league coach and scout to provide answers to critical questions coaches and players have about the complex strategic aspects of America's most beloved sport. Think Better Baseball is for coaches and players interested in taking their games to a higher level of sophistication. Cluck covers a host of knotty situations commonly encountered during the course of a game and describes various successful strategies that many of the greatest coaches and players in the history of the game have employed to their advantage.

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An inspiring 23-year baseball odyssey laid bare, from one of the greatest hitters to play the game.

When the season was on the line, Carl Yastrzemski made history. No New Englander who lived through the summer of 1967 will ever forget Yaz single-handedly powering the also-ran Red Sox through the tightest race ever--winning the American League pennant on the final day of the season. Leading the league in batting average, home runs and RBIs that year, Yaz became the last player to win baseball's Triple Crown.

Now Yaz tells the very personal story of one of the most prolific and eventful careers in baseball. From Ted Williams to Carlton Fisk, from the "Impossible Dream" season to the Greatest Game Ever Played, Yastrzemski's story is filled with the greatest players and most exciting moments in baseball history..
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You love to argue about the game and its players, delving into baseball history and lore in search of support for your points of view. You'll find plenty of food for thought -- and argument! -- in Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Lineups.

• All-time Red Sox starting pitcher -- Pedro or the Rocket?

• Gold Glovers -- who looked like one, who was one, and who ought to have been one?

• Lopsided trades that'll sting forever, and phenoms who seemed so real

• Classic nicknames -- from "Charlie Hustle" to "Big Hurt" to "The Mad Hungarian"

Neyer presents a series of lineups for each franchise -- from the All-Time and the All-Rookie to the All-Bust and the Traded Away. In notes, sidebars, and essays, he explores the careers of players both famous and obscure. The book includes information on all thirty current teams, as well as a special section covering legendary clubs like the Brooklyn Dodgers and Washington Senators. Neyer's Big Book is an unparalleled reference for settling the debates that arise every day in the lives of baseball fans..
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