Download or read book Can He Play A Look at Baseball Scouts and their Profession written by Jim Sandoval and published by SABR, Inc.. This book was released on 2011-11 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: They dig through tons of coal to find a single diamond. They spend countless hours traveling miles and miles on lonely back roads and way too much time in hotels. Their front offices expect them to constantly provide player reports and updates. So much of their time is spent away from family and friends, missing birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays. Their best friend is Rand McNally. Always asking the question, "CAN HE PLAY?" Such is the life of a professional scout. CAN HE PLAY? collects the contributions of 26 members of the Society for American Baseball Research on the subject of scouts, including biographies and historical essays. The book touches on more than a century of scouts and scouting with a focus on the men (and the occasional woman) who have taken on the task of scouring the world for the best ballplayers available. In CAN HE PLAY? we meet the "King of Weeds," a Ph.D. we call "Baseball's Renaissance Man," a husband-and-wife team, pioneering Latin scouts, and a Japanese-American interned during World War II who became a successful scout--and many, many more. The legendary Tom Greenwade and the development of the New York Yankees scouting system, interviews with former players Johnny Pesky and Fernando Perez about being scouted, and much more.
Download or read book How to Make Pro Baseball Scouts Notice You written by Al Goldis and published by Skyhorse Publishing Inc.. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Al Goldis has spent more than forty years as a major league scout, having worked in the front offices of the Cincinnati Reds, Baltimore Orioles, Anaheim Angels, Chicago White Sox, Chicago Cubs, and New York Mets. In those forty years he has seen and signed some of the game?s greatest talents. As the Scouting Director of the Chicago White Sox in the late 1980s, Goldis spearheaded the amateur drafts that brought future All-Stars Frank Thomas, Robin Ventura, and Jack McDowell into the Sox organization. After so many years scouting young players, Goldis has a pretty good idea what to look for in a player beyond the commonly accepted standard of the?five tools? (hitting for average, hitting for power, a strong throwing arm, excellent defensive skills, and speed on the basepaths). And in How to Make Pro Scouts Notice You, he and former pro ballplayer John Wolff have set out to create a blueprint for young ballplayers with big league aspirations to follow. The purpose of the book is twofold: one, to give young ballplayers an inside look at what scouts are really looking for in their search for professional-caliber ballplayers; and two, to help them market and sell themselves so that those scouts will know they exist and see them put their best skills on display. How to Make Pro Scouts Notice You is written with the intent of helping young ballplayers keep their dreams of playing pro ball alive and flourishing.
Download or read book Scout s Honor written by Bill Shanks and published by Sterling & Ross Publishers, Incorporated. This book was released on 2005 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A look at what it takes to build a major league ball club.
Download or read book How to Make Pro Baseball Scouts Notice You written by Al Goldis and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-06-23 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The purpose of this book is twofold: one, to give ballplayers an inside look at just what scouts are really looking for in their search for professional ballplayers; and two, to help them market and sell themselves so that scouts will know they exist and see them put their best skills on display. This book has been written with the intent of helping ballplayers keep their dreams of playing pro ball alive and flourishing. All any ballplayer wants is a shot at playing pro ball, and by reading this book, they will be that much closer to having their dreams come true.
Download or read book Scouting and Scoring written by Christopher Phillips and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-30 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An in-depth look at the intersection of judgment and statistics in baseball Scouting and scoring are considered fundamentally different ways of ascertaining value in baseball. Scouting seems to rely on experience and intuition, scoring on performance metrics and statistics. In Scouting and Scoring, Christopher Phillips rejects these simplistic divisions. He shows how both scouts and scorers rely on numbers, bureaucracy, trust, and human labor to make sound judgments about the value of baseball players. Tracing baseball’s story from the nineteenth century to today, Phillips explains that the sport was one of the earliest fields to introduce numerical analysis, and new methods of data collection were supposed to enable teams to replace scouting with scoring. But that’s not how things turned out. From the invention of official scorers and Statcast to the creation of the Major League Scouting Bureau, Scouting and Scoring reveals the inextricable connections between human expertise and data science, and offers an entirely fresh understanding of baseball.
Download or read book The Art of Scouting written by Art Stewart and published by Ascend Books Llc. This book was released on 2014-07 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The heart and soul of Kansas City's major league baseball franchise is a 5-foot 6 and impeccably dressed man you probably haven't heard of. You don't know the Royals history and successes until you know him. His name is Art Stewart and he helped bring Bo Jackson to the Royals on a hunch. He fell in love with baseball when he snuck into his attic and found his late father's baseball gloves, and his seven decades on the wild ride of major league baseball make him a living, breathing, storytelling personification of America's pastime. From George Brett to Frank White, Bret Saberhagen to Bo Jackson, Carlos Beltran to Eric Hosmer, the Royals' history is Art's history. Art just tells it better than anyone else.
Download or read book Baseball America 2007 Directory written by Baseball America (Firm) and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-03-27 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 2007 Baseball America Directory is the definitive reference guide for the upcoming season. The Directory features major, minor, and independent league schedules, ballpark directions, and how to get in touch with anyone in the game-by phone, fax or on the web. From schedules to personnel to addresses to phone numbers and websites, the Directory is the guide to finding information in baseball, from the majors to the minors to college, high school, and amateur baseball.
Download or read book The Scout written by Red Murff and published by Thomas Nelson Inc. This book was released on 1996-02-08 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Baseball s Last Great Scout written by Daniel L. Austin and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2013-04-01 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Late in 1937 Hugh Alexander, a kid fresh out of small-town Oklahoma, had just finished his second year playing outfield for the Cleveland Indians when an oil rig accident ripped off his left hand. Within three months he was back with the Indians, but this time as a scout—the youngest ever in Major League history. In the next six decades he signed more players who made it to the Majors than any other scout. His story, Baseball’s Last Great Scout, reads like a backroom, bleacher-seat history of twentieth-century baseball—and a primer on what it takes to find a winner. It gives a gritty picture of learning the business on the road, from American Legion field to try-out camp to beer joint, and making the fine distinctions between “performance” and “tools of the trade” when checking out prospects. Over the years Alexander worked for the Indians, the White Sox, the LA Dodgers, the Phillies, and the Cubs—and signed the likes of Allie Reynolds, Don Sutton, and Marty Bystrom. This book, based on extensive interviews and Alexander’s journals, is filled with memorable characters, pithy lessons, snapshots of American life, and a big picture of America’s pastime from one of its great off-the-field players.
Download or read book How to Make Pro Scouts Notice You written by Al Goldis and published by McGraw-Hill Companies. This book was released on 1998 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the straight talk the book you've wanted to see in print. Read it and re-read it. The sections on why scouts sign certain ballplayers and bypass others are right on the mark.----Joe McIlvaine, former New York Mets vice president, Baseball Operations
Download or read book Moneyball The Art of Winning an Unfair Game written by Michael Lewis and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2004-03-17 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael Lewis’s instant classic may be “the most influential book on sports ever written” (People), but “you need know absolutely nothing about baseball to appreciate the wit, snap, economy and incisiveness of [Lewis’s] thoughts about it” (Janet Maslin, New York Times). One of GQ's 50 Best Books of Literary Journalism of the 21st Century Just before the 2002 season opens, the Oakland Athletics must relinquish its three most prominent (and expensive) players and is written off by just about everyone—but then comes roaring back to challenge the American League record for consecutive wins. How did one of the poorest teams in baseball win so many games? In a quest to discover the answer, Michael Lewis delivers not only “the single most influential baseball book ever” (Rob Neyer, Slate) but also what “may be the best book ever written on business” (Weekly Standard). Lewis first looks to all the logical places—the front offices of major league teams, the coaches, the minds of brilliant players—but discovers the real jackpot is a cache of numbers?numbers!?collected over the years by a strange brotherhood of amateur baseball enthusiasts: software engineers, statisticians, Wall Street analysts, lawyers, and physics professors. What these numbers prove is that the traditional yardsticks of success for players and teams are fatally flawed. Even the box score misleads us by ignoring the crucial importance of the humble base-on-balls. This information had been around for years, and nobody inside Major League Baseball paid it any mind. And then came Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland Athletics. He paid attention to those numbers?with the second-lowest payroll in baseball at his disposal he had to?to conduct an astonishing experiment in finding and fielding a team that nobody else wanted. In a narrative full of fabulous characters and brilliant excursions into the unexpected, Michael Lewis shows us how and why the new baseball knowledge works. He also sets up a sly and hilarious morality tale: Big Money, like Goliath, is always supposed to win . . . how can we not cheer for David?
Download or read book Baseball s Forgotten Black Heroes written by Bill Leibforth and published by Outskirts Press. This book was released on 2019-07-09 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1947, Jackie Robinson changed the game of baseball by becoming the first black player on a modern day major league team. Jackie made history with the Brooklyn Dodgers and this story is about Jackie and the seventeen players who followed him. These Black Heroes challenged the status quo and policies of team owners and were part of the first wave of black players who played on the sixteen major league teams that existed in 1947. It was not until 1959 (three years after Jackie retired) that the last of the sixteen teams added a black player to their roster.
Download or read book A Scout s Report written by George Genovese and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-10-14 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many in baseball consider the scout to be the most important figure in any organization: It is the scout's work in the high school and college bleachers that unearths future legends. Few have achieved more--and in such grand style--than George Genovese. In a game that values numbers, Genovese's are staggering. No other scout has been responsible for more players in a single lineup, more home runs by players signed or more All-Star and World Series highlights than Genovese. Genovese's eye for talent is unmatched, his advocacy for the players he discovers is unrivaled, and the investment he makes toward their success is a difference maker. This autobiography is the story of his seven decades in baseball as a player, manager and scout.
Download or read book The Body Scout written by Lincoln Michel and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2021-09-21 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this “timeless and original” sci-fi thriller (New York Times), a hardboiled baseball scout must solve the murder of his brother in a world transformed by body modification, perfect for readers of William Gibson and Max Barry. An Esquire Pick for the Top 50 Sci-Fi Books of All Time A New York Times Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Novel of 2021 "A breathlessly paced techno-thriller characterized by stunning, spiky worldbuilding." — Esquire In the future you can have any body you want—as long as you can afford it. But in a New York ravaged by climate change and repeat pandemics, Kobo is barely scraping by. He scouts the latest in gene-edited talent for Big Pharma-owned baseball teams, but his own cybernetics are a decade out of date and twin sister loan sharks are banging down his door. Things couldn't get much worse. Then his brother—Monsanto Mets slugger J.J. Zunz—is murdered at home plate. Determined to find the killer, Kobo plunges into a world of genetically modified CEOs, philosophical Neanderthals, and back-alley body modification, only to quickly find he's in a game far bigger and more corrupt than he imagined. To keep himself together while the world is falling apart, he'll have to navigate a time where both body and soul are sold to the highest bidder. Diamond-sharp and savagely wry, The Body Scout is a timely science fiction thriller debut set in an all-too-possible future. "I devoured it." —Jonathan Lethem "Completely weird and still completely real. Delightful—I couldn't put it down."—Shea Serrano
Download or read book Character Is Not a Statistic the Legacy and Wisdom of Baseball s Godfather Scout Bill Lajoie written by Bill Lajoie and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2010-01-21 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bill Lajoie just had it. When it came to drafting ballplayers and building a World Series club, few in baseball history can match his extraordinary success. The lessons of Lajoies illustrious career and the brilliance of his philosophy are put to print in Character is Not a Statistic. After a playing career that fell achingly short of the major leagues, Lajoie returned to Detroit to become a teacher in the mid-1960s. But his unyielding passion for baseball and desire to atone for a broken dream pulled him back to the game as a scout. From there, hed go on to build World Series Championships from scratch by finding players who possessed the very character he lacked as a young athlete. Starting as an area scout for the Cincinnati Reds in 1965, Lajoie later moved up the ladder with the Detroit Tigers and was the architect and general manager of their 1984 World Series crowning. Lajoie would then be instrumental as an assistant GM for two more franchises who dominated their decades with championships and titles; the 1990s Atlanta Braves and the 2000s Boston Red Sox. Perhaps no one alive has scouted more baseball over the last 50 years or has better stories to tell about finding the greats. Though the modern era has seen the depersonalization of scouting via statistics and radar gun readings, Lajoie was immensely successful through five decades by emphasizing what a player had inside him. His belief in a players humanity and character persists to this day. This book is not only a biography, but a collection of great baseball stories and a manual for the next generation of fans and scouts alike. Lajoie tackles such controversial issues as the Moneyball movement, the importance of a strong manager, scouting for makeup, making trades, preventing pitching injuries, running a farm system, and ranking both the best general managers and scouting directors of the modern era.
Download or read book Dollar Sign on the Muscle written by Kevin Kerrane and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2013-11-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: MEET THE MEN WHO SHAPE THE GAME OF BASEBALL the men who can make--or break--careers, the men who, more than any others, were responsible for getting Mike Schmidt, Al Kaline, Darryl Strawberry, Mickey Mantle, Roberto Clemente, Sandy Koufax, and Brooks Robinson--to name just a few--into their major league positions. Here is all the inside information--trade secrets, player development, original scouting reports; the history and economics of this pivotal side of baseball, and how the scouting system is changing--from the baseball scouts themselves. This edition includes an all-new chapter updating the original with thoughts on the state of scouting in 2013. DAVID SIMON ON DOLLAR SIGN ON THE MUSCLE "The story of a quest is one of the most basic and essential narratives in human existence. Kevin Kerrane strains the Homeric through the voices of American baseball scouts, those journeymen who search the sandlots for raw athletic potential. Dollar Sign on The Muscle was essential reading when it first arrived nearly three decades ago. And now, as big money has arrived to magnify the entire dynamic, Kerrane has returned to update his classic. "They use 'inside baseball' as a term to suggest esoteric knowledge. That's ridiculous. The inside is where anything worth knowing actually begins to matter." -- David Simon, creator, The Wire and Treme THE CRITICS AGREE, INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE GAME "An entertaining, in-depth look at a fascinating part of baseball invisible to most. I loved this book." -- Tim Kurkjian, ESPN "Dollar Sign on the Muscle is the scouting bible for the baseball executive as well as the baseball enthusiast." -- Kevin Towers, General Manager, Arizona Diamondbacks "Updating a classic is always risky, but given the dramatic changes in baseball since Dollar Sign's original publication, the time had certainly come for a modernized examination of the game... and who better to give it to us than Kevin Kerrane and Baseball Prospectus." -- Dan O'Dowd, General Manager, Colorado Rockies "The last word on a profession even baseball fans may find they knew little about." -- Sports Illustrated "One of baseball literature's most noble and enjoyable works." -- Diamond Classics "A must read for anyone who wants the inside stories on baseball scouts and the happenings on their daily quest for the next MLB all-star." -- Don Welke, Senior Special Assistant to the GM & Scouting, Texas Rangers
Download or read book Dearborn Independent written by and published by . This book was released on 1921 with total page 854 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: