THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Thanks for the link, Tom.

I’m excited for this to come out.  One of my favorite parts of writing is getting feedback on my ideas, so I can hardly stand it when something I wrote five months ago has yet to see the light of day.

I guess I should think about that if I ever think about writing a full-length book, which is something that I’ve thought for a while now that I would love to do some day in the future.

Mike:

I presume you don’t have children that can walk yet?  Because, my hat is off to anyone who can write a book, and has children who require attention.

I have four children of elementary-school and pre-school age.  That is a major reason why I won’t be writing a book any time soon.  At least not on my own.  I enjoy contributing pieces like I did to this book and the upcoming BBTN2 and like I have in the past to the Hardball Times Annual.

!!! FOUR!  Wow.  First off, congratulations, and bless your soul.

Secondly, that you can contribute as much as you have with four (!) kids that young and close in age speaks volumes of your time management skills, or your spouse’s level of understanding.

I have one, and I can’t and couldn’t do what you do.

Twenty some years ago my wife and I had two and stopped. Now there’s six - son, daughter, daughter’s fiance, and three grandchildren, 6, 3 and 2.

The three year old was just in here a few minutes ago asking to look at pictures (which she does at least twice a day). And then when children get out of control, Grandma yells “Brian!”

Hit Tracker sent me into a parallel existence with my family, in which I spent the hours up until about 8PM either at work or with them, and then spent from 8PM to midnight or 1AM doing baseball stuff.  1AM to about 1:30 AM was often spent doing dishes (if I forgot to do them earlier, pretty common actually).  This with the occasional easy (3 hour) Monday or Thursday during the season, and off-season I could take a couple nights a week off from that schedule if I needed to.

Good thing the kids were in bed by 8 (they really have no idea how hard I worked those years), and my wife was/is very understanding.  Still, I did that for 5 1/2 years.  It’s been easier the past couple seasons, although heating up again…

The phrase “catch a tiger by the tail” fits perfectly…

Mike, my hat is off to you as well (and your wife, maybe more so!).  Four is exponentially tougher than two…

Wow, Mike!  I feel exhausted with two little ones these days.  Not sure how you do it.