Customer Reviews

Baseball for Dummies

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book has some good stuff, but it's definitely not for dummies, at least not for a baseball virgin like me. The presentation is extremely unclear and there are a lot of omissions in the main text (like, what on earth is an RBI?). After I read the book I still felt like a virgin, so I bought a copy of "Complete Idiot's Guide for Baseball," which is much better and cheaper, too.

This book is fun to read and very well written. However, it seemed to try too hard to suit all audiences. The danger in that, of course, is that it doesn't do a great job for any one type of reader. I got this book for the basic baseball knowledge it contains--I recently got "hooked" on baseball, and wanted to know more about the rules, how to keep score, how statistics are computed and what they mean. And there is some of that in this book. However, a great deal more of the book is aimed at little leaguers--how to pick out equipment, how to practice, and so on. Then there are the sections on great players. I think the readers who pick up this book are going to want more in-depth information on the particular area they are interested in. So, this book may be your first book on baseball, but it won't be your last! Just whets the appetite, so to speak.

The book tries to do too much, and would have better served the reader by concentrating on one area. Nonetheless, Joe Morgan comes across as very knowledgeable and a great guy!

Joe Morgan was a small man who became a Hall of Famer and the greatest second baseman ever by dint of hard work and intelligience. In Baseball for Dummies he translates that intelligience into a comprehensive primer that will captivate baseball novices and diehards. Joe starts with the basics ("This is a baseball..") and gradually moves the reader up to the more nuanced aspects of the game. The book is accessible to anyone who can read, yet it never talks down to the reader. And the prose is lively enough to interest even the most casual fan.
I've seen the other books that try to reveal how baseball should be played. None of them are as informative or focused as the terrific guide.

An excellent book, but badly focused. It really needs to be split into 'Playing Baseball for Dummies' and 'Watching Baseball for Dummies'.

I am a huge Dummies fan. So when I recently decided to learn more about baseball, I naturally turned to the Dummies guide. What I found was a book that, true to its name, does help a person who knows absolutely nothing about baseball. If you knew nothing about baseball, you could pick up this guide and read the first 3 chapters, and become conversant.

It also has a good deal of detailed information for those who play and want to improve their game. Strategy on hitting, pitching, running, and just about everything else about baseball is presented. This is also good stuff.

So aside from a minor though annoying problem in this book - which I will note in a moment - this is an all-around great book. Joe Morgan, hall-of-fame second baseman, and a cast of other well-known major leaguers contributing bits on their own positions make this book an excellent reference on baseball.

My problem with the book is that this book is difficult for me as a person in the middle ground of those who grew up around baseball, playing it occasionally but not seriously, and never having a deep knowledge of the game. For example, he starts using the player numbering system used on scorecards early in the book, but does not explain it until chapter 18. I have found this kind of problem several times in this book. In fact, it's not so much a matter of the information being lacking - it just seems not well organized or indexed.

But this is a relatively minor point. Get this book if you really want to know baseball!

As an avid baseball fan for most of my life, I often did not understand aspects of the game (e.g. types of pitches and how they work) to a great degree. Joe Morgan, in Baseball for Dummies, not only explains this information and other aspects of the game, he does it with unabashed enthusiasm and a simplicity that has only deepened my love and appreciation of our national pasttime. This book is a must-read for baseball fans at any level of understanding.

This book was amazing. It taught me how to pitch fastballs, curveballs, knuckleballs, etc. It tells you what you need to play all the positions in baseball. It teaches you to bat, to catch, it teaches you eveything. It also tells you how to calculate batting averages! It also has records and neat info at the back of the book. One example of the info is: The top ten records least likely to be broken. So all in all if you want to play baseball buy this book.

This is a good baseball starter book. It is not "great" as some of the other Dummies books that I have used. Some of it is more involved than I would expect, yet some of the more detailed sections skip important details that should have been included. Still, it is probably one of the better buys in this genre.

I have played ball over several decades and I even learned a couple things from this book. The coverage was fairly good and the strategies for the different positions and analysis of their requirements and difficulties was something that only a true professional could provide with conviction.

This list of "records that are least likely to be broken" were entertaining and convincing -- some things that I probably would not have thought of.

I thought this book was fantastic for anyone interested in the game of Baseball. Joe Morgan was an outstanding ballplayer winning the MVP title back to back while playing for the Reds in the 70's. Joe is very intelligent about the game of Baseball and knows the game better than anyone else. Thoughout this book, he explains the key fundamentals to becoming an all-rounded better ballplayer. He divides each section of the book into chapters and goes into very much detail and explains his philosophies better then anyone I know. He explains techniques he used to fix certain mechanical problems he had while learning the game as he went along and he also explains techniques that he thinks will help the common Baseball player. This book is also illustrated to help the reader better understand what Joe is talking about, incase you can't understand quite clearly what he is trying to say. I think this book is wonderful and should be owned by anyone associated with the sport (Players, Coaches, Managers, etc). Go out and buy this book today, I guarantee it will help you on all aspects of your game and teach you things about the sport you didn't know before.

Baseball for Dummies covers many different subjects, from great players to practice drills to how to set up a league. It may range over too many subjects - the beginning fan doesn't need to know about practice drills, and a Little Leaguer doesn't need to know about the great players. I think this book is better for novice players than for novice fans.