The Bookshelf Conversation: Rob Neyer, Part One

When I saw that Rob Neyer was coming out Power Ball: Anatomy of a Modern Baseball Game back in 2018, a new book after many years of inactivity in that regard, I looked forward to absorbing it and finally getting a chance to sit down — virtually, at least — and talk with the man whose work I have been writing about for more than a decade. His 2008 release, Rob Neyer’s Big Book of Baseball Legends: The Truth, the Lies, and Everything Else, was the basis of an entry that garnered more views than any other.

Power Ball takes a look at a single game, a construct which has been the subject of previous books including Arnold Hano’s classic, A Day In The Bleachers, as well as Nine Innings by Daniel Okrent and Pure Baseball: Pitch by Pitch for the Advanced Fan by Keith Hernandez and Mike Bryan. Neyer also pays tribute to George Will’s Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball which, while it does not focus on a single game, does put the microscope on four key players and a manager. You can hear the Bookshelf Conversation with Hano here. If Messers Will, Hernandez, or Okrent would like to chat, by all means, get in touch!

Neyer, who has written several other thought provoking books, has gone on to bigger and better things, including his own podcast, SABRCast (sponsored by the Society for American Baseball Research).

This particular entry launches an experiment: chopping the conversation in two to see if the audio quality is any better. I hate having to shorten these chats because they’re always so much fun.