Posts tagged as:

umpires

The August 23 edition of The New Yorker features an interesting/disheartening article by Zach Helfand on the imminent (?) arrival of automated umpiring systems to call balls and strikes. A telling quote from the story: According to Sword, A.B.S. was part of a larger project to make baseball more exciting. Executives are terrified of losing […]

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Humbly submitted for your interest, a doubleheader featuring They Called Me God by Doug Harvey with Peter Golenbock and Called Out but Safe by Al Clark with Dan Schlossberg; and another one on Stars and Strikes by Dan Epstein that were published by Bookreporter.com yesterday.  

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Review roundup, April 30

April 30, 2014

I’m all for newspapers and that includes student newspapers. Here’s a review form the Royal Purple News, from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater about a “local” baseball novel, It Happened in Wisconsin, by Ken Moraff Hmm, haven’t even heard of this one — Just Out of Reach: The 1980s New York Yankees, by Greg Prato —  […]

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Bits and pieces, April 4

April 4, 2014

Been a hectic week, so I’ve let a few things slide. First and foremost, the next books in Tom Hoffarth’s annually excellent 30-in-30 series: John Feinstein’s Where Nobody Knows Your Name and Ed Sherman’s Babe Ruth’s Called Shot. Here’s another Feinstein item from WRALSPortsfan.com. And maybe you can find the link in this piece from […]

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The Negro League umpire turned author celebrates the big 9-1 today.

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Baseball book ‘prospects’

February 27, 2014

This it the time of year when the baseball media offer their considered opinions on their favorite prospects. Sometimes they’re spot on, other times, not so much. So I thought, why not apply this to the upcoming “rookie crop” of baseball books? That is, titles that are making their debuts in 2014 — no reprints/reissues […]

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* Review: As They See 'Em

January 5, 2010

BleedCubbieBlue,  a — what else — Cubs blog, posted this review of Bruce Weber’s book. Upshot: “Bruce Weber, you wrote one heckuva book.”

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* "I can see clearly now…"

October 29, 2009

Umpires have beengetting a lot of bad press lately, and deservedly so. Sports pundits are calling for wider use of instant replay in an effort to make the right calls, primarily on fair and foul balls and other on-base issues. One area they pretty much agree should not be touched is balls and strikes. Sure, […]

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William Fisher takes umbrage with the anaology in his Aug. 10 Huffington Post column: But Republican Senators, evidently chagrined at being unable to hit a home run based on the nominee’s judicial record, turned to The Nation’s Pastime. The baseball analogy has become widely used by nominees ever since now-Chief Justice John Roberts famously stated […]

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* Review: As They See 'Em

August 7, 2009

from the aptly-named New-Books-Review.com, this collection of reviews on Bruce Weber’s gem.

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* Here come de judge?

July 13, 2009

Bruce Weber, author of As They See ‘Em: A Fan’s Travels in the Land of Umpires (one of my top three books of the year), published this piece in The New York Times’ Week in review section, comapring the roles of arbiters in the legal system and on the baseball diamond. “Have you read Roe v. […]

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This entry on Officiating.com refers George F. Will’s column on Bruce Weber’s new book, As They See ‘Em. Strictly speaking, it is not, as the title asserts, a paean for umpires, but rather dap for the book.

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* Review: As They See 'Em

April 21, 2009

From George Will, syndicated in the Seattle Times. Upshot: Forests are felled to produce baseball books, about 600 a year, most of them not worth the paper they should never have been printed on. Weber’s, however, is a terrific introduction to, among much else, the rule book’s Talmudic subtleties…

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Bruce Weber is making the rounds for his new book on umpires. This week, it’s Fresh Air. As an added bonus (like a box of cereal), the page comes with an excerpt from his book, As They See ‘Em, which was selected for NPR’s “Books We Like.” More recent baseball items from NPR: Secret Dirt’s […]

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Would baseball fans want a world in which all the calls on the field could be made by Questec-type devices or the Cyclops machines used in tennis? Are umpires part of the game or outside it? Are they, as one baseball personality suggested, pieces of human equipment, like bases: necessary but not thought about that […]

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* Review: As They See 'Em

March 23, 2009

Another review of Bruce Weber’s book on umpires? This one is by Jim Bouton, and the author of the seminal Ball Four, who does his usual witty job. But as interesting as it is to get different takes, one wonders why the publication that employs Weber would publish more than one critique just over a […]

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Dodger Blue and umpires, that is. The Leonard Lopate Show on NPR today featured two baseball segments. In the first, Although Walter O’Malley has been dead for nearly 30 years his, the former Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers owner is still one of the most controversial persons ever associated with the sport. Michael D’Antonio’s exhaustive […]

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* Review: As They See 'Em

March 15, 2009

Scott Simon reviews Bruce Weber’s new book on umpires. You can read an excerpt here.

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* Going to the tape

August 31, 2008

Is it just me, or has there been a surprisingly small amount of outcry from baseball traditionalists (aka, old folks like me), objecting to the use of instant replay in baseball? MLB instituted the practice this week, using it primarily for home runs. Seems someone high up on the food chain was tired of too […]

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