The Baseball Fan's Companion: How to Master the Subtleties of the World's Most Complex Team Sport and Learn to Watch the Game Like an Expert [Paperback]

Nick Bakalar (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 15, 1996

For the fan who just needs to brush up on America's favorite pastime to the novice learning the finer points of the game, The Baseball Fan's Companion stands ready at the plate to answer all your questions.

From the pitcher to the hitter, the strategy. of each position is covered, complex rules are explained, and baseball terminology is demystified. Intermingled in all this handy information are sidebars and boxes filled with fun and useful tidbits -- from The Most Frequently Unenforced Rules list to the Pine-Tar Game, from Jimmy Piersall's Backwards Home Run to the Most Notorious Disputed Plays in Major League History. Hard-to-find facts on the business side of the game are included here as well, covering everything from no-cut contracts to free agency.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (March 15, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0028608488
• ISBN-13: 978-0028608488
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #414,143 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A top-notch comprehensive guide, February 20, 2000

By 

Ben Walsh - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Baseball Fan's Companion: How to Master the Subtleties of the World's Most Complex Team Sport and Learn to Watch the Game Like an Expert (Paperback)

This is a book that badly needed to be written, and written well. Many people who watch the game on a regular basis - even relatively hard-core fans - do not necessarily know everything they think they do. Bakalar's talent lies in expressing complicated and arcane baseball minutiae concisely. For example, most respectable fans know what a balk is. Sort of. We know basically what it entails, and we can slog through the legalese in the rule book to figure it out. Bakalar sums the rule up neatly and advises the reader how to spot a balk for fun and profit. He also advises how to watch players away from the ball, and how they move in certain circumstances, how to watch the coaches and managers and how information flows between players, the dugout and the coaches' boxes.

Bakalar also brings an understated dry wit to all of his topics, and covers on-the-field details of how to defend in a possible hit-and-run situation with the same depth and tenacity as the history of Major League labor relations.

This book is probably a bit much for an absolute neophyte, but handy for almost everyone else and might even contain a few surprises or revelations for the hoariest old baseball sage.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This Book Made Me a Fan of the Game Again, March 14, 2000

By 

Andrew D. Muhlbach - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Baseball Fan's Companion: How to Master the Subtleties of the World's Most Complex Team Sport and Learn to Watch the Game Like an Expert (Paperback)

Although I played baseball every day as a kid and was a major league fan, as I grew older I stopped watching the game and became a fan of the other 3 major pro sports. I found watching baseball to be a bore. However, reading this book opened my eyes to baseball and made me a fan once again.

If you are a baseball nut, there may not be much to learn from this book (but you might be surprised). For everyone else, this witty, fun to read treatment of the game's rules, strategy and history can teach you what you need to know to appreciate the game. It teaches you the subtleties of the game, what to watch for and why. The tone is completely irreverent and the author does not take himself or the game too seriously. When I was done reading this book, I realized that the game is not boring at all if you know what to watch for. I now enjoy watching baseball, even on TV where the stock camera angles don't show all the action away from the ball. And thanks to this book, I now know that half the game is played away from the ball.

This book delivers on the promise in it's title. What more can you ask?

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly a companion, December 28, 2005

By 

J. Stoner "Plants and Books" (Parkville, MO United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Baseball Fan's Companion: How to Master the Subtleties of the World's Most Complex Team Sport and Learn to Watch the Game Like an Expert (Paperback)

"More than any other American sport, baseball creates the magnetic, addictive illusion that it can almost be understood."
-Tom Boswell

I would consider myself an above average baseball fan. By no means am I a fanatic and can name off tons of statistics that are important to the history of the game, but I do appreciate the intricacies of the game. A few years ago I did not like baseball very much, but recently, I went to a few games with some friends who know a lot about baseball and I learned to appreciate the game through them. Now I go to every game that I can.

"The Baseball Fan's Companion" really educated me on a lot of topics within the game of baseball. Everything from infield positions based on various situations: two-outs, man on first, two-outs, etc; to pitching strategies; to types of pitches; to player psychology.

This book will help any person, no matter how much of a fan they are or not, to at least appreciate the game of baseball. Many people just pass off the game of baseball as boring and not interesting at all. This book, if read by those people, would provide enlightenment about the details of the game that make it less boring. They would understand why baseball fans watch the game away from the ball. These people would at least learn to appreciate the game or at the very least appreciate the reasons why people love the game of baseball.

There is something in this book for everyone, including baseball fanatics. I believe that this book is a good compilation of baseball facts, information, and general knowledge. It is witty, clever, and a well-composed book.

I recommend this book to anyone. As the quote above says, this game may be impossible to understand, but with this book, you can come a little closer.