During that time, every home game was a sellout. Every play, call, word, gesture—on the field and off—was analyzed by thousands. And every decision was either genius, or disastrous. In those eight years, the Red Sox were transformed from a cursed franchise to one of the most successful and profitable in baseball history—only to fall back to last place as soon as Francona was gone. Now, in Francona: The Red Sox Years, the decorated manager opens up for the first time about his tenure in Boston, unspooling the narrative of how this world-class organization reached such incredible highs and dipped to equally incredible lows. But through it all, there was always baseball, that beautiful game of which Francona never lost sight. As no book has ever quite done before, Francona escorts readers into the rarefied world of a twenty-first-century clubhouse, revealing the mercurial dynamic of the national pastime from the inside out. From his unique vantage point, Francona chronicles an epic era, from 2004, his first year as the Sox skipper, when they won their first championship in 86 years, through another win in 2007, to the controversial September collapse just four years later. He recounts the tightrope walk of managing unpredictable personalities such as Pedro Martinez and Manny Ramirez and working with Theo Epstein, the general managing phenom, and his statistics-driven executives. It was a job that meant balancing their voluminous data with the emotions of a 25-man roster. It was a job that also meant trying to meet the expectations of three owners with often wildly differing opinions. Along the way, readers are treated to never-before-told stories about their favorite players, moments, losses, and wins. Ultimately, when for the Red Sox it became less about winning and more about making money, Francona contends they lost their way. But it was an unforgettable, endlessly entertaining, and instructive time in baseball history, one that is documented and celebrated in Francona, a book that examines like no other the art of managing in today’s game.

    But in the past fifteen years, a revolutionary new standard of measurement—sabermetrics—has been embraced by front offices in Major League Baseball and among fantasy baseball enthusiasts. But while sabermetrics is recognized as being smarter and more accurate, traditionalists, including journalists, fans, and managers, stubbornly believe that the "old" way—a combination of outdated numbers and "gut" instinct—is still the best way. Baseball, they argue, should be run by people, not by numbers.?In this informative and provocative book, teh renowned ESPN analyst and senior baseball writer demolishes a century’s worth of accepted wisdom, making the definitive case against the long-established view. Armed with concrete examples from different eras of baseball history, logic, a little math, and lively commentary, he shows how the allegiance to these numbers—dating back to the beginning of the professional game—is firmly rooted not in accuracy or success, but in baseball’s irrational adherence to tradition.While Law gores sacred cows, from clutch performers to RBIs to the infamous save rule, he also demystifies sabermetrics, explaining what these "new" numbers really are and why they’re vital. He also considers the game’s future, examining how teams are using Data—from PhDs to sophisticated statistical databases—to build future rosters; changes that will transform baseball and all of professional sports.

    8-page photo insert.

    When former Goldman Sachs colleagues Stuart Sternberg and Matthew Silverman assumed control of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 2005, it looked as if they were buying the baseball equivalent of a penny stock. But the incoming regime came armed with a master plan: to leverage their skill at trading, valuation, and management to build a model twenty-first-century franchise that could compete with their bigger, stronger, richer rivals—and prevail.Together with “boy genius” general manager Andrew Friedman, the new Rays owners jettisoned the old ways of doing things, substituting their own innovative ideas about employee development, marketing and public relations, and personnel management. They exorcized the “devil” from the team’s nickname, developed metrics that let them take advantage of undervalued aspects of the game, like defense, and hired a forward-thinking field manager as dedicated to unconventional strategy as they were. By quantifying the game’s intangibles—that extra 2% that separates a winning organization from a losing one—they were able to deliver to Tampa Bay something that Billy Beane’s “Moneyball” had never brought to Oakland: an American League pennant.A book about what happens when you apply your business skills to your life’s passion, The Extra 2% is an informative and entertaining case study for any organization that wants to go from worst to first.

    Sure, there have been plenty of great baseball teams--but which was the best ever? While it seems like an unwinnable argument, the authors of Baseball Dynasties have risen to the challenge. They took the top fifteen teams of the twentieth century, ran them through rigorous statistical analysis, and threw in some good old-fashioned opinion in their quest to determine, definitively, who was the greatest team in the history of baseball. Looking at continued brilliance over time (no one-season wonders allowed), Hall of Famers on the roster, offensive and defensive production, performance in the postseason, and numerous other tangibles and intangibles, Eddie Epstein and Rob Neyer put each team under the microscope--and picked a winner. Who will come out on top? Was it the 1927 Yankees, the legendary squad blessed with both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig? Or how about Earl Weaver's 1970 Orioles, who over a three-year span dominated their opponents at a higher level than any other team this century? Full of anecdotes, intriguing facts, and scores of statistics, Baseball Dynasties is a fascinating look at baseball history certain to provoke, entertain, and edify baseball fans of all ages.

    In October of 1912, seven years before gambling nearly destroyed the sport, the world of baseball got lucky. It would get two teams-the Boston Red Sox and the New York Giants, winners of a combined 208 games during the regular season-who may well have been the two finest ball clubs ever assembled to that point. Most importantly, during the course of eight games spanning nine days in that marvelous baseball autumn, they would elevate the World Series from a regional October novelty to a national obsession. The games would fight for space on the front pages of the nation's newspapers, battling both an assassin's bullet and the most sensational trial of the young century, with the Series often carrying the day and earning the "wood." In "The First Fall Classic," veteran sports journalist and author Mike Vaccaro brings to life a bygone era in cinematic and intimate detail-and gives fans a wonderful page-turner that re-creates the magic and suspense of the world's first "great" series.

    The American popular culture and counterculture collided head-on with the national pastime, rocking the once-conservative sport to its very foundations. Outspoken players embraced free agency, openly advocated drug use, and even swapped wives. Controversial owners such as Charlie Finley, Bill Veeck, and Ted Turner introduced Astroturf, prime-time World Series, garish polyester uniforms, and outlandish promotions such as Disco Demolition Night. Hank Aaron and Lou Brock set new heights in power and speed while Reggie Jackson and Carlton Fisk emerged as October heroes and All-Star characters like Mark "The Bird" Fidrych became pop icons. For the millions of fans who grew up during this time, and especially those who cared just as much about Oscar Gamble's afro as they did about his average, this book serves up a delicious, Technicolor trip down memory lane.

    Bacon has received rare access to Jim Harbaugh’s University of Michigan football team: coaches, players, and staffers, in closed-door meetings, locker rooms, meals, and classes. Overtime captures this storied program at the crossroads, as the sport’s winningest team battles to reclaim its former glory. But what if the price of success today comes at the cost of your soul? Do you pay it, or compete without compromising?In the spirit of HBO’s Hardknocks, Overtime delivers a deeply reported human portrait that follows the Wolverine coaches, players, and staffers through the 2018 season, including Harbaugh, offensive stars Shea Patterson and Karan Higdon, NFL-ready defensive standouts Rashan Gary, Devin Bush Jr., and Chase Winovich, second-stringers striving to find their place on the team, and their parents’ reactions to it all. Bacon met with them every week during a season that saw the Wolverines ride a ten-game winning streak to #4 in the nation, then take a beating at the hands of arch-rival Ohio State, led by controversial coach Urban Meyer, Harbaugh’s foil. Overtime also previews the crucial 2019 campaign ahead.Above all, this is a human story. In Overtime we not only discover what these public figures are like behind the scenes, we learn what the experience means to them as they go through it – the trials, the triumphs, and the unexpected answers to a central question: Is it worth it?From the “poet laureate of Michigan football” (according to New York Times’s Joe Drape), and one of the keenest observers of college football, Overtime offers a window into a legendary program and the sport itself that only John U. Bacon could deliver.

    But far from becoming obsolete in this environment⁠—as Michael Lewis' Moneyball once forecast⁠—the role of the scout in today's game has evolved and even expanded. Rather than being the antithesis of a data-driven approach, scouting now represents an essential analytical component in a team's arsenal.Future Value is a thorough dive into the world of the contemporary scout—a world with its own language, methods, metrics, and madness. From rural high schools to elite amateur showcases; from the back fields of spring training to major league draft rooms, FanGraphs' Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel break down the key systems and techniques used to assess talent. It's a process that has moved beyond the quintessential stopwatches and radar guns to include statistical models, countless measurable indicators, and a broader international reach. Practical and probing, discussing wide-ranging topics from tool grades to front office politics, this is an illuminating exploration of what it means to watch baseball like it's your job.

    In If These Walls Could Talk: Boston Red Sox, former player and longtime broadcaster Jerry Remy provides insight into the team's inner sanctum as only he can. Readers will gain the perspective of players, coaches, and personnel in moments of greatness as well as defeat, making for a keepsake no fan will want to miss.

    . . a riveting journey through the world of minor-league baseball“No one grows up playing baseball pretending that they’re pitching or hitting in Triple-A.” —Chris Schwinden, Triple-A pitcher“If you don’t like it here, do a better job.” —Ron Johnson, Triple-A managerJohn Feinstein gave readers an unprecedented view of the PGA Tour in A Good Walk Spoiled. He opened the door to an NCAA basketball locker room in his explosive bestseller A Season on the Brink. Now, turning his eye to our national pastime, sports journalist John Feinstein explores the colorful and mysterious world of minor-league baseball—a gateway through which all major-league players pass in their careers . . . hoping never to return.      Baseball’s minor leagues are a paradox. For some players, the minors are a glorious launching pad toward years of fame and fortune; for others, a crash-landing pad when injury or poor play forces a big leaguer back to a life of obscure ballparks and cramped buses instead of Fenway Park and plush charter planes. Focusing exclusively on the Triple-A level, one step beneath Major League Baseball, Feinstein introduces readers to nine unique men: three pitchers, three position players, two managers, and an umpire. Through their compelling stories, Feinstein pulls back the veil on a league that is chock-full of gifted baseball players, managers, and umpires who are all one moment away from getting called up—or back—to the majors.      The stories are hard to believe: a first-round draft pick and pitching ace who rocketed to major-league success before finding himself suddenly out of the game, hatching a presumptuous plan to get one more shot at the mound; a home run–hitting former World Series hero who lived the dream, then bounced among six teams before facing the prospects of an unceremonious end to his career; a big-league All-Star who, in the span of five months, went from being completely out of baseball to becoming a star in the ALDS, then signing a $10 million contract; and a well-liked designated hitter who toiled for eighteen seasons in the minors—a record he never wanted to set—before facing his final, highly emotional chance for a call-up to the big leagues.      From Raleigh to Pawtucket, from Lehigh Valley to Indianapolis and beyond, Where Nobody Knows Your Name gives readers an intimate look at a baseball world not normally seen by the fans. John Feinstein gets to the heart of the human stories in a uniquely compelling way, crafting a masterful book that stands alongside his very best works.

    Things scarcely got any better for the ensuing six years--they were baseball's laughingstock, but somehow lovable in their ineptitude, building a fiercely loyal fan base. And then came 1969, a year that brought the lunar landing, Woodstock, nonstop antiwar protests, and the most tumultuous and fractious New York City mayoral race in memory--along with the most improbable season in the annals of Major League Baseball. It concluded on an invigorating autumn afternoon in Queens, when a Minnesota farm boy named Jerry Koosman beat the Baltimore Orioles for the second time in five games, making the Mets champions of the baseball world.     It wasn't merely an upset but an unprecedented, uplifting achievement for the ages. From the ashes of those early scorched-earth seasons, Gil Hodges, a beloved former Brooklyn Dodger, put together a 25-man whole that was vastly more formidable than the sum of its parts. Beyond the top-notch pitching staff headlined by Tom Seaver, Koosman, and Gary Gentry, and the hitting prowess of Cleon Jones, the Mets were mostly comprised of untested kids and lightly regarded veterans. Everywhere you looked on this team, there was a man with a compelling backstory, from Koosman, who never played high school baseball and grew up throwing in a hayloft in subzero temperatures with his brother Orville, to third baseman Ed Charles, an African-American poet with a deep racial conscience whose arrival in the big leagues was delayed almost a decade because of the color of his skin.     In the tradition of The Boys of Winter, his classic bestseller about the 1980 U.S. men's Olympic hockey team, Wayne Coffey tells the story of the '69 Mets as it has never been told before--against the backdrop of the space race, Stonewall, and Vietnam, set in an ever-changing New York City. With dogged reporting and a storyteller's eye for detail, Coffey finds the beating heart of a baseball family. Published to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Mets' remarkable transformation from worst to best, They Said It Couldn't Be Done is a spellbinding, feel-good narrative about an improbable triumph by the ultimate underdog.

    As a result he has written perhaps the best book yet about a professional sports team in America. Feeding the Monster shows what it takes to win a championship, both on and off the field. Seth Mnookin spent mornings in the front office, afternoons in the clubhouse, and evenings in the owners' box. He learned how the Sox persuaded Curt Schilling to sign, why Nomar Garciaparra resented his teammates, and what led to Pedro Martinez's acrimonious exit. He knows the real story behind Theo Epstein's brief departure and witnessed the development of his rift with Larry Lucchino. And in a new epilogue, Mnookin examines the 2006 offseason, including the negotiations for Japanese phenom Daisuke Matsuzaka. In a juicy narrative that is filled with thrilling detail, Feeding the Monster peels back the curtain to show what it means to be a part of a major league sports team today.

    The Astros were the worst baseball team in half a century, but they were more than just bad. They were an embarrassment, a club that didn't even appear to be trying to win. The cover story, combined with the specificity of Reiter's claim, met instant and nearly universal derision. But three years later, the critics were proved improbably, astonishingly wrong. How had Reiter predicted it so accurately? And, more important, how had the Astros pulled off the impossible?Astroball is the inside story of how a gang of outsiders went beyond the stats to find a new way to win--and not just in baseball. When new Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow and his top analyst, the former rocket scientist Sig Mejdal, arrived in Houston in 2011, they had already spent more than half a decade trying to understand how human instinct and expertise could be blended with hard numbers such as on-base percentage and strikeout rate to guide their decision-making. In Houston, they had free rein to remake the club. No longer would scouts, with all their subjective, hard-to-quantify opinions, be forced into opposition with the stats guys. Instead, Luhnow and Sig wanted to correct for the biases inherent in human observation, and then roll their scouts' critical thoughts into their process. The numbers had value--but so did the gut.The strategy paid off brilliantly, and surprisingly quickly. It pointed the Astros toward key draft picks like Carlos Correa and Alex Bregman; offered a path for developing George Springer, Jos� Altuve, and Dallas Keuchel; and showed them how veterans like Carlos Beltr�n and Justin Verlander represented the last piece in the puzzle of fielding a championship team.Sitting at the nexus of sports, business, and innovation--and written with years of access to the team's stars and executives--Astroball is the story of the next wave of thinking in baseball and beyond, at once a remarkable underdog story and a fascinating look at the cutting edge of evaluating and optimizing human potential.

    Now in Pedro, the charismatic and always colorful pitcher opens up for the first time to tell his remarkable story. Martinez entered the big leagues a scrawny power pitcher with a lightning arm who they said wasn’t “durable” enough, who they said was a punk. But what they underestimated about Pedro Martinez was the intensity of the fire inside. Like no one before or since, Martinez willed himself to become one of the most intimidating pitchers to have ever played the game. In Pedro we relive it all in Technicolor brightness, from his hardscrabble days in the minor leagues clawing for respect; to his early days in lonely Montreal, where he first struggled with the reputation of being a headhunter; to his legendary run with the Red Sox when start after start he dazzled with his pitching genius; to his twilight years on the mound as he put the finishing touches on a body of work that made him an icon. Bold, outspoken, intimate in its details, and grand in ego and ambition, this new memoir by one of baseball’s most enigmatic figures will entertain and inspire generations of fans to come.