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Title: Fair Ball : A Fan's Case for Baseball by Bob Costas ISBN: 0-7679-0466-4 Publisher: Broadway Pub. Date: 03 April, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.09 (85 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Too bad this book wasn't around in 1993 or 1994
Comment: Costas for commissioner? Great candidate but the last guy was an ardent, principled fan also and look what happened to him. The owners took over the commissioner's office and the game with it as well. They should read this book. As should the players and Don Fehr. All parties are greedy and shortsighted.
A thought provoking read for any fan. Costas, as he states early on, is no starry-eyed-baseball is poetry Field of Dreams guy, just a fan who loves the game. Costas makes great arguments for revenue-sharing (this resistant fan was won over), the elimination of the wildcard (even if he beats it to death, it does cheapen the regular season), eliminating the DH (almost convinced me), and a good one for salary caps (how do you handle guys locked into $11 milllion plus salaries if $10's your cap?)
A lot of great ideas. Let's hope someone in a position of power and influence picks up on them.
Rating: 4
Summary: Costas Pitches Relief For Pastime's Future In "Fair Ball"
Comment: In "Fair Ball," longtime NBC-TV sports journalist Bob Costas has written a succint, numbers-soggy, yet unsentimental look at how far baseball's on and above-field stewards let its image and financial management slip.
But unlike Mike Lupica's mad, mindless manure spreading in "Mad As Hell," Costas aims facts and proposed solutions at baseball's hard numbers: on the schedule (his criticism of interleague play) at the gate (everything from a proposed revenue sharing plan to the constant between inning noise; he cites the Montreal Expos' and Texas Rangers' star-crossed, strike-shortened seasons as examples), on TV (the disastrous "Baseball Network," wild card folly destroying September pennant game-by-game tension), World Series games starting too late for younger fans and peppered with commercial messages. His description of 1997's Marlins-Indians World Series accurately descibes how interminable and unapproachable the game had become in less than a decade.
Costas outlines his plan to address baseball's large and small, money and image issues: Pete Rose's Hall of Fame induction (he favors it while strongly opposing that gambling that got Rose suspended) the DH (he opposes it despite its extending the careers of stars like Eddie Murray) radical, georgaphical realignment (a disaster still discussed but earlier dismissed).
Costas' book is welcome because, unlike more emotional stories like David Halberstam's "October 1964" or Lupica's "Summer of 98" (both chronicling World Series which changed baseball's image) you don't smell the green grass and hear the bat crack. "Fair Ball" is the work not of a baseball poet (Costas' writing is broadcast-tight, although more charts and graphs would have made his revenue sharing plan more accessible ). Costas here is a baseball doctor diagnosing a decade's baseball owner obesity and union player gluttony, prescribing diet and weight redistribution.
Bob Costas' book is recommended reading for fans, those they cheer for (everyone should read Chapter Three, "The Nature of Sports Leagues," among the most accurate descriptions of player perks and pressures), and all deriving employment, profit or pleasure from the national pastime.
Rating: 2
Summary: Philosophically dubious
Comment: There isn't a book's worth of material here, that's for sure. This could easily have been boiled down to a lengthy magazine piece for Sports Illustrated. And his prose is merely serviceable - far short of George Will's eloquent standard.
I'm not familiar enough with the background of this debate to say whether his ideas are "original" or not. But they're certainly plausible enough to warrant examination. My only real beef with them is philosophical in nature, I suppose. He repeatedly insists that the few superstar players asked to sacrifice under his salary cap proposal could easily afford the loss.
First of all: they wouldn't be "asked" anything. They would be legally prohibited from earning their full market worth. Say it's "for the good of the game" if you like, but that seems like one slippery damned slope to me. Second: I don't know if that's a judgment you're entitled to make, Bob. I'm sure you're making plenty of scratch these days too. Feel free to donate as much of your salary to the Expos - in the name of "competitive balance" - as you like. But taking money out of someone's pocket - even Alex Rodriguez's pocket - without their consent is usually called theft.
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Title: My Prison Without Bars by Pete Rose, Rick Hill ISBN: 1579549276 Publisher: Rodale Press Pub. Date: 08 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: May the Best Team Win: Baseball Economics and Public Policy by Andrew S. Zimbalist, Bob Costas ISBN: 0815797281 Publisher: The Brookings Institution Pub. Date: 05 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Clearing The Bases : The Greatest Baseball Debates of the Last Century by Allen Barra ISBN: 0312265565 Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books Pub. Date: 03 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: Confessions of a Baseball Purist: What's Right, and Wrong, With Baseball, As Seen from the Best Seat in the House by Jon Miller, Mark Hyman ISBN: 0801863163 Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr Pub. Date: April, 2000 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Ball Four by Jim Bouton ISBN: 0020306652 Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: 12 July, 1990 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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