Buy The Book
Friends of The Book Pete Palmer and Sean Forman have produced a baseball guide book, in hardcopy (available at lulu.com) and color PDF download. Looks very nice from the sample pages.
I ordered, received and read most of it. It is the kind of book that you probably do not want to read cover to cover unless you have absolutely nothing better to do with your life.
I love the initiative of the blogger fandom to take creative control and put out a book. Friend of The Book ducksnorts did such that, and the preview (pdf) looks fine so far. I’ll buy the download today, and I’ll let you know next week what I think of it.
Just as I prefer the local paper’s view of the local teams over the “national experts”, the same goes here. The Fans have an indelible experience with their team, and that’s what we need more of.
Rob Neyer latest book. He actually uses my pitch count estimator in one piece (page 60). (I say “my”, but it was really inspired by the data I saw in the STATS Scoreboard.)
Anyway, one of the things I loved about the Bill James books was those sidebar “trackers”, where a player would “remember” something so vividly, and then Neyer or one of James’s assistants would do the research to show that the player was right or full of it. This book looks like this is what it’s about. The above Amazon link gives you a good set of previews. There is no “search inside” at Amazon right now for this book. However… shockingly to me, Google has an enormous amount of the material in preview mode. How does Google get away with publishing copyrighted material this way? Reading everything on Google’s version, they seem to give you enough to make it seem you are flipping through the book at the bookstore, and not so much that you can read it all online. They seem to have found the right balance to make you want to buy the book.
My Amazon order is in transit with Gold Mine, THT08 Preview and BP08. Feel free to use this thread to comment on either of the two preview books, or any other preview books around. Or any Fantasy Forecast books or magazines.
I just got the book, skimmed through it, and read a couple of the articles. So far, “eh.” The title is a little grandiose (of course), although it is catchy (with a gold colored cover to go along with the title).
Here are the details. If you haven’t made any THT purchases, I would suggest making one.
I see THT very much PBS-style: they are fairly non-profit, any money they get goes into the writers, R&D, or getting data. This book has basically a who’s who of team bloggers, so it’s a great thing to support.
Studes could decide to turn THT into his own personal moneymaker, and for some reason, chooses not to. I wouldn’t begrudge him if he did, but as long as he doesn’t, it’s extra reason to support THT.
A cool collection of writers and bloggers (including MGL and me) in the latest annual. Bill James is the big name, but I’m looking forward to reading everyone there. Is that cool, or what, that I’ve got an article right after my biggest inspiration?
I think it behooves all to support THT, as studes et al provide excellent analysis every week. studes must kill himself this time of year every year. I know I couldn’t stand doing the editing when we were finishing up our book. Show studes (our version of Jerry Lewis) that you care, and buy this book. We need studes to keep going like this every year. We get a few thousand people visiting our blog every day: if ever you felt like you wanted to, then support THT instead. THT is sabermetrics’ best friend.
If you can avoid Amazon, do so and order directly from the publisher. It’s win-win for THT and the publisher.
Or, if you insist on Amazon, then go through this Amazon link (we get a small referral from Amazon), and also make a direct donation to Hardball Times (bottom right corner). It’s win-win for The Book, THT and you. You can even get “super saver shipping” from Amazon if you buy a second book. The Bill James Handbook 2008 is out there as well. Or The Book, if you’ve somehow managed to avoid getting it.
There’s also lots of great minds out there I’ve come across this year. You guys should seriously think about contributing a piece to THT (be it annual or online). Mike, Joe, Joe, Justin, Matt, and others: support the cause.
When one of your favorite websites posts a tip jar, it behooves all to drop a few bucks in there every year. It’s a gratitude for service. The gang at Hardball Times certainly has provided me with more favorable service than the local pub. But, Hardball Times is not content to put out a tip jar, but are instead providing you with a goodie bag:
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/its-the-hardball-times-2007-season-preview/
I’d say, regardless of the quality, drop the ten spot, and get it. Don’t look at it as to whether “is it worth it?”.
But, what about non-regular readers? This blog entry is for you. Is it worth it? Beats me. But I’ll tell you the highlights and you can decide:
Just got by book in the mail. I will post comments as I read.
At the bottom, you will see a list of recommended books for 2006. I’m a sucker for “behind-the-scenes” type books of well-known things, so #1, which I’ve never heard of, looks promising.
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