How to Watch Baseball

I recently borrowed from the library the book How to Watch Baseball: A Fan's Guide to Savoring the Fine Points of the Game by Steve Fiffer. It was first published in 1987 and is very much of its time. 

It is a nice, good read by a writer passionate about the sport. The chapter break downs cover the details before game, pitching, hitting, defense, base stealing, the manager, on-field communication, and "What the Box Score Doesn't Reveal: Watching with the Experts", and "Watching the Players: The Ultimate Lesson". 

There were many interviews with stars such as George Brett, Dave Winfield, Reggie Jackson, Carlton Fisk, and Darryl Strawberry,  to name a few, but also a lot of other players like Tim Wallach, Dan Quisenberry, Jeff Reardon, Mike Easler, Ron Guidry, Willie McGee, Walt Terrell, Frank White, and managers like Dick Howser. And many others like Ken "Hawk" Harrelson. There is a lot of discussion of the Lau-Hriniak theory/method of hitting; probably a very lost concept these days. There are a couple of extensive inspections of games that go inning by inning with perspectives from players and managers. Much of it's still relevant, and I particularly liked the digs that were made at the early days of computers and advance analytics. There was a lot of focus on the 1985 to 1986 seasons, so it was Vince Coleman and the Cardinals, George Brett and the Royals. If you enjoyed baseball from the 1970s to 1986 or so, you will probably enjoy this book.

You will notice my 1989 checklist baseball card-turned-bookmark wanted to be photographed. I've been using it as a "bookmark" for years, now. 

If I were to grade this with PSA it might be the first PSA 12 out there. One thing I recently noticed when I was inspecting said checklist/bookmark was that certain cards are listed as "... :Bonus". See cards 21, 51, 81, 111... These are the team leader cards. Now I knew they were team leader cards just from browsing the set, but I didn't realize they were considered "Bonus" per the checklist. Did you? In 1988, Team cards were the same numbers in the set but they appeared on the checklist as "Red Sox Team", for example. In 1990, they issued the checklists by team, not by card number. No thank you. I guess they futzed with and tweaked checklists much the same way car manufacturers or shoe makers feel like they have to try to improve something year after year.

Thanks for stopping by.