Download or read book The MVP Machine written by Ben Lindbergh and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Move over, Moneyball -- this New York Times bestseller examines major league baseball's next cutting-edge revolution: the high-tech quest to build better players. As bestselling authors Ben Lindbergh and Travis Sawchik reveal in The MVP Machine, the Moneyball era is over. Fifteen years after Michael Lewis brought the Oakland Athletics' groundbreaking team-building strategies to light, every front office takes a data-driven approach to evaluating players, and the league's smarter teams no longer have a huge advantage in valuing past performance. Lindbergh and Sawchik's behind-the-scenes reporting reveals: How undersized afterthoughts José Altuve and Mookie Betts became big sluggers and MVPs How polarizing pitcher Trevor Bauer made himself a Cy Young contender How new analytical tools have overturned traditional pitching and hitting techniques How a wave of young talent is making MLB both better than ever and arguably worse to watch Instead of out-drafting, out-signing, and out-trading their rivals, baseball's best minds have turned to out-developing opponents, gaining greater edges than ever by perfecting prospects and eking extra runs out of older athletes who were once written off. Lindbergh and Sawchik take us inside the transformation of former fringe hitters into home-run kings, show how washed-up pitchers have emerged as aces, and document how coaching and scouting are being turned upside down. The MVP Machine charts the future of a sport and offers a lesson that goes beyond baseball: Success stems not from focusing on finished products, but from making the most of untapped potential.

Download or read book You Know Me Al written by Ring Lardner and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 1995 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fictional series of letters from a popular baseball hero to his friend. Humorous collection showcases Lardner as a satirical master at the peak of his form.

Download or read book Ch vez Ravine 1949 written by Don Normark and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2003-03 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The past fifty years have not erased the memories of Los Desterrados, the uprooted descendants of Chavez Ravine. After extensive research, Don Normark has tracked them down in order to share his old photographs and to record their poignant reactions. He has captured the images, the stories, and the bittersweet memories of Los Desterrados in this book."--Jacket.

Download or read book Dreaming in Cuban written by Cristina García and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2011-06-08 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Impressive . . . [Cristina García’s] story is about three generations of Cuban women and their separate responses to the revolution. Her special feat is to tell it in a style as warm and gentle as the ‘sustaining aromas of vanilla and almond,’ as rhythmic as the music of Beny Moré.”—Time Cristina García’s acclaimed book is the haunting, bittersweet story of a family experiencing a country’s revolution and the revelations that follow. The lives of Celia del Pino and her husband, daughters, and grandchildren mirror the magical realism of Cuba itself, a landscape of beauty and poverty, idealism and corruption. Dreaming in Cuban is “a work that possesses both the intimacy of a Chekov story and the hallucinatory magic of a novel by Gabriel García Márquez” (The New York Times). In celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the novel’s original publication, this edition features a new introduction by the author. Praise for Dreaming in Cuban “Remarkable . . . an intricate weaving of dramatic events with the supernatural and the cosmic . . . evocative and lush.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Captures the pain, the distance, the frustrations and the dreams of these family dramas with a vivid, poetic prose.”—The Washington Post “Brilliant . . . With tremendous skill, passion and humor, García just may have written the definitive story of Cuban exiles and some of those they left behind.”—The Denver Post

Download or read book Big Data Baseball written by Travis Sawchik and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2015-05-19 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Big Data Baseball provides a behind-the-scenes look at how the Pittsburgh Pirates used big data strategies to end the longest losing streak in North American pro sports history. New York Times Bestseller After twenty consecutive losing seasons for the Pittsburgh Pirates, team morale was low, the club’s payroll ranked near the bottom of the sport, game attendance was down, and the city was becoming increasingly disenchanted with its team. Big Data Baseball is the story of how the 2013 Pirates, mired in the longest losing streak in North American pro sports history, adopted drastic big-data strategies to end the drought, make the playoffs, and turn around the franchise’s fortunes. Big Data Baseball is Moneyball for a new generation. Award-winning journalist Travis Sawchik takes you behind the scenes to expertly weave together the stories of the key figures who changed the way the Pirates played the game, revealing how a culture of collaboration and creativity flourished as whiz-kid analysts worked alongside graybeard coaches to revolutionize the sport and uncover groundbreaking insights for how to win more games without spending a dime. From pitch framing to on-field shifts, this entertaining and enlightening underdog story closely examines baseball’s burgeoning big data movement and demonstrates how the millions of data points which aren’t immediately visible to players and spectators, are the bit of magic that led the Pirates to finish the 2013 season in second place and brought an end to a twenty-year losing streak.

Download or read book The Persona Principle written by Derek Armstrong and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1997-05-08 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Image is a tool that guarantees success - but only if you know how to use it. Even if you are the best, the most experienced, or the most talented, you cannot enjoy prosperity until you build an image that makes you visible to your potential market. The Persona Principle will teach you the most powerful Image-Marketing secrets of the world's leading enterprises. You'll learn to create an effective plan to reach your business, sales, marketing, and personal goals - all on image alone.

Download or read book The Only Rule Is It Has to Work written by Ben Lindbergh and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2016-05-03 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestseller about what would happen if two statistics-minded outsiders were allowed to run a professional baseball team. It’s the ultimate in fantasy baseball: You get to pick the roster, set the lineup, and decide on strategies -- with real players, in a real ballpark, in a real playoff race. That’s what baseball analysts Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller got to do when an independent minor-league team in California, the Sonoma Stompers, offered them the chance to run its baseball operations according to the most advanced statistics. Their story in The Only Rule is it Has to Work is unlike any other baseball tale you've ever read. We tag along as Lindbergh and Miller apply their number-crunching insights to all aspects of assembling and running a team, following one cardinal rule for judging each innovation they try: it has to work. We meet colorful figures like general manager Theo Fightmaster and boundary-breakers like the first openly gay player in professional baseball. Even José Canseco makes a cameo appearance. Will their knowledge of numbers help Lindbergh and Miller bring the Stompers a championship, or will they fall on their faces? Will the team have a competitive advantage or is the sport’s folk wisdom true after all? Will the players attract the attention of big-league scouts, or are they on a fast track to oblivion? It’s a wild ride, by turns provocative and absurd, as Lindbergh and Miller tell a story that will speak to numbers geeks and traditionalists alike. And they prove that you don’t need a bat or a glove to make a genuine contribution to the game.

Download or read book The Baseball Bibliography written by Myron J. Smith (Jr.) and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "With over 57,000 entries, this two-volume set is the most comprehensive non-electronic, non-database, print bibliography on any American sport. Represented here are books and monographs, scholarly papers, government documents, doctoral dissertations, masters' theses, poetry and fiction, novels, pro team yearbooks, college and professional All-Star Game and World Series programs, commercially produced yearbooks, and periodical and journal articles"--Provided by publisher.

Download or read book The Hits Just Keep on Coming written by Ben Fong-Torres and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2001 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (Book). This lively blast from the past peels back the many layers of the Top 40 phenomenon: the DJs, fans, singles, jingles, dedications, contests, requests and more. The book features interviews with such renowned radio personalities and programmers as Casey Kasem, Dick Clark, Wolfman Jack, "Cousin Brucie" Morrow, Gary Owens and many others, and includes an exclusive CD with "airchecks" rare recordings from 16 legendary DJs on actual Top 40 broadcasts so that readers can hear the crazed, creative and compelling voices that made Top 40 so memorable. Also includes lots of fantastic black-and-white photos to help readers put faces to the voices they know so well, a bibliography and index, and a special Top of the Pops section featuring the Number One records of Top 40 radio from 1957 through 1997 as calculated by the staff of Gavin.

Download or read book Weedflower written by Cynthia Kadohata and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-06-30 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twelve-year-old Sumiko feels her life has been made up of two parts: before Pearl Harbor and after it. The good part and the bad part. Raised on a flower farm in California, Sumiko is used to being the only Japanese girl in her class. Even when the other kids tease her, she always has had her flowers and family to go home to. That all changes after the horrific events of Pearl Harbor. Other Americans start to suspect that all Japanese people are spies for the emperor, even if, like Sumiko, they were born in the United States! As suspicions grow, Sumiko and her family find themselves being shipped to an internment camp in one of the hottest deserts in the United States. The vivid color of her previous life is gone forever, and now dust storms regularly choke the sky and seep into every crack of the military barrack that is her new "home." Sumiko soon discovers that the camp is on an Indian reservation and that the Japanese are as unwanted there as they'd been at home. But then she meets a young Mohave boy who might just become her first real friend...if he can ever stop being angry about the fact that the internment camp is on his tribe's land. With searing insight and clarity, Newbery Medal-winning author Cynthia Kadohata explores an important and painful topic through the eyes of a young girl who yearns to belong. Weedflower is the story of the rewards and challenges of a friendship across the racial divide, as well as the based-on-real-life story of how the meeting of Japanese Americans and Native Americans changed the future of both.

Download or read book The Natural written by Bernard Malamud and published by Random House. This book was released on 2017-08-24 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a book about heroism - of sorts. Roy Hobbs has an immense natural gift for playing baseball. He could become one of the great ones of the game, a player unmatched in his time - a hero. But his first hard-won big chance ends violently, at the hands of a crazy girl, and then it is years before he gets another shot. At last, in a few short seasons, or never, he must achieve the towering reputation that he feels is his right.

Download or read book Guinness World Records 2015 Gamer s Edition written by Guinness World Records and published by Guinness World Records. This book was released on 2014-11-11 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now in its eighth edition, Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition is the ultimate guide to videogames. With all-new design and photography, the fresh-looking 2015 edition is packed full of news and views about the most up-to-date achievements and developments in gaming. It offers the most dazzling images from this year's top titles, along with fascinating facts, figures and features on the games and characters you love – from Minecraft to the world-beating Grand Theft Auto V, from thrilling new games to all-time classics. The latest edition includes gameplay tips and hints, interviews and features exploring gaming from different perspectives, and quotes from leading figures in the industry. Find out about the biggest-selling games, the highest scores, and the world's most amazing gamers. Read about the latest hardware developments in the battle of the eight-generation consoles, and explore the most exciting news stories across all the major gaming genres.

Download or read book Teach Us to Sit Still written by Tim Parks and published by Rodale. This book was released on 2012-07-03 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Teach Us to Sit Still is the visceral, thought-provoking, and inexplicably entertaining story of how Tim Parks found himself in serious pain, how doctors failed to help, and the quest he took to find his own way out. Overwhelmed by a crippling conditionwhich nobody could explain or relieve, Parks follows a fruitless journey through the conventional medical system only to find relief in the most unexpected place: a breathing exercise that eventually leads him to take up meditation. This was the very last place Parks anticipated finding answers; he was about as far from New Age as you can get. As everything that he once held true is called into question, Parks confronts the relationship between his mind and body, the hectic modern world that seems to demand all our focus, and his chosen life as an intellectual and writer. He is drawn to consider the effects of illness on the work of other writers, the role of religion in shaping our sense of self, and the influence of sports and art on our attitudes toward health and well-being. Most of us will fall ill at some point; few will describe that journey with the same verve, insight, and radiant intelligence as Tim Parks"--Provided by publisher.

Download or read book Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight written by Eric Avila and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2006-04 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight, Eric Avila offers a unique argument about the restructuring of urban space in the two decades following World War II and the role played by new suburban spaces in dramatically transforming the political culture of the United States. Avila's work helps us see how and why the postwar suburb produced the political culture of 'balanced budget conservatism' that is now the dominant force in politics, how the eclipse of the New Deal since the 1970s represents not only a change of views but also an alteration of spaces."—George Lipsitz, author of The Possessive Investment in Whiteness

Download or read book Creating Powerful Radio written by Valerie Geller and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A handbook of sound byte advice on making talk radio a success written by Rush Limbaugh's consultant--a dubious distinction depending on one's point of view. As Geller points out in her preface, this is her "STUFF," and she regales the reader with often repetitive and unoriginal advice on "how to handle the talent," avoid burnout, interviews, news programming, and promotion. The scanty text is beefed up with vignettes on popular radio personalities from the reputable Mervin Block (former CBS news writer) to the more disreputable Danny Bonaduce (of Partridge Family fame). Not surprisingly, lacks a bibliography although there's a recommended reading list which includes Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus for effective communication strategies. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Download or read book Baseball Research Journal written by and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Chavez Ravine Echoes written by Ken R. Aven and published by Rosedog Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Hidden beneath the vast acreage of Dodger Stadium's parking lot is an almost forgotten Mexican/American [sic] community that once thrived in the area known as Chavez Ravine. A journey to uncover the culture and vibrancy of the displaced community is embarked upon after a late night serendipitous meeting between Dodger third baseman, Joe Shapiro, and Dodger marketing assistant, Liz Reyes. Using diary pages from a young 1950s Chavez Ravine inhabitant to guide them, Shapiro and Reyes's fictionalized voyage of discovery will bring to life the fascinating truths of Chavez Ravine and the forces that conspired to destroy the community."--P. [4] of cover.