Customer Reviews

Balls and Strikes: The Money Game in Professional Baseball

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This book is an intense and pretty thorough historical contemplation of the economic aspects of Major League Baseball. For someone interested in learning more about how baseball functions as a business and not just as a pastime, Jennings's book is a helpful starting point, because not a lot of books have been written which focus solely on the various labor and business issues in baseball. He gives many different aspects of the business of baseball their due, including a thorough analysis of the reserve clause, the aftermath of free agency, and Marvin Miller's success (with the help of the Major League Baseball Players Association) in cultivating a union consciousness among the players. I read this book right before Marvin Miller's autobiography, and it provided me with a lot of background information on free agency and the various labor disputes which have surfaced in baseball over the years. Jennings has a flair for writing history, and integrating his analysis with anecdotes which draw the reader into the reality of the business world of baseball. Jennings's one downfall in this book is that he kind of leaves it blowing in the wind- I would have liked for him to speculate more on the future of the economics of baseball. After such a thorough critique of the various elements and events which have become pivotal in baseball's business, I expected him to carry it further. Still, I would reccommend it to anyone interested in examining baseball from a more business or labor-oriented perspective.