Customer Reviews

Weaver on Strategy: The Classic Work on the Art of Managing a Baseball Team

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Earl Weaver reveals some of the reasons he was such a successful manager. Baseball fans can use this book to get a better understanding of the strategy behind the managerial decisions. Some of Earl Weaver's advice is admittedly questionable for the current game, so he added a 2002 epilogue to comment on his past advice. Earl Weaver was not as hot headed as was the impression from his arguments with umpires. His additude is that it was better for the manager to be thrown out of a game than to have one of his valuable players thrown out. He explains how he looked upon each decision as a type of gamble, basing the odds of success largely on past performace when a player was in a similar situation. That is why he kept and used lots of player statistics.

Years of statistical research and number-crunching have proven one thing: Earl Weaver was a pretty smart guy. Weaver, who didn't frown on using numbers himself, was a living hybrid of old-fashioned baseball wisdom and a forward-thinking organizational mind that helped turn the Baltimore Orioles into a dynasty.
For the fan, you can read about how Weaver achieved such great success in the majors with methods not out of line with modern, or "sabermetric" analysis.
For a manager or coach, Weaver offers a lot of practical advice about managing a ballclub. This won't teach you how to hit a curveball, but it will tell you what lineup to use against a curveball pitcher, how to handle players both young and old, and how to run an effective spring training regimen.
Weaver's advice is pertinent and insightful even now, 20 years after he managed his last game.

This is a great, quick read on the basics of managing a Major League Baseball Team. Weaver preaches many principles of sabermetrics, before they had come into vogue. Instead, he had come to espouse many sabermetric principles (i.e. high OBP guys at the top of the lineup, eschewing stealing/the hit and run/sacrifice bunting) not by reading Bill James, but simply from watching thousands of baseball games. His book lays out his simple yet innovative approaches to the game, and also, indirectly proves how intelligent of a manager he had been.

Admittedly, this book is a little dated, but his main points still hold true in today's game. For anyone who wants to talk intelligently about managers in the Majors. This is a must read.

Earl Weaver was manager of the Baltimore Orioles during most of their glory years, 1968-1982 and 1985-1986 (skipping the World Series year of 1983). The team only had one losing record during that season and had stars like Jim Palmer, Eddie Murray, a young Cal Ripken, Lee May, and Mike Cuellar. The book is Weaver's fairly straight forward view on every position and most elements of baseball from the third base coach to the lineup card. Weaver has ten rules, many of which still apply today though some are more outdated (a four man rotation would be an anachronism today). Weaver was known for fighting with umpires and gives some perspective on that here, emphasizing that his job was to keep the players from fighting with the umps so he did it for them. One thing that really surprised me was the lack of interaction Weaver had with players, admitting that he did not speak to them much when things were going well, which they usually were during the years he managed the Orioles. As an Orioles fan, it can be a little depressing reading about these glory and win filled years. The book is short, to the point, and great for any baseball fan.

As a person who has become very interested in baseball over the past couple of years, this book is a great beginners guide for baseball strategy. Earl Weaver has been one of the greatest managers of all time and his thoughts are very valuable. Although this was written in the 80s (with an epilogue by Weaver about updating his rules), it is still perfectly applicable to todays baseball.

Great book. I highly recommend for anyone who is interested in Baseball strategy and/or is interested in the Orioles of the Earl Weaver years.

This book was exactly what I was looking for. I read this at the beginning of last season because I wanted to get a better understanding of the game. Of course I already knew all the rules, a lot of the history and the fundamentals; but I never played the game and I was looking to go much further and get into the subtleties. I wanted the kind of understanding a seasoned player has. I wanted to understand more of the strategy of the game. This was well written, easy to understand, and amusing. The tone is conversational, and there are a lot of funny and interesting anecdotes. I plan on reading it again this year. Even though it was a fairly short book, I know I didn't absorb everything. If you're a casual fan and you're looking for a good book on baseball strategy, look no further.

Earl Weaver has a win-loss record in professional baseball that sets him a notch above the rest of the world. Spend a little time with this book and you can get a feel for what goes on inside the head of a the guy in the dugout that guides a team to world championships. It offers great insights into Earl's approaach to winning baseball games. He tells you how the Orioles won all those championship games and how he used the incredible talent he had on those rosters. Earl wont win all the games with 25 guys that can't play good, fundamental baseball. And 25 star players may not always end up in the world series. But, if you put Earl and the talent together, there's a good chance he win again and again. This is excellent reading for a baseball fan that wants to learn about how games are won.

Great book for any baseball coach. An written by a great baseball manager

Weaver on Strategy is a mindful look into managing a baseball game. Weaver's opinions on getting on base and preserving outs (by not giving them away via the sacrifice bunt, for example) have been brought back into vogue by the current generation of baseball sabermetricians. I recommend this book to all thoughtful baseball coaches and managers looking for a different look at negotiating your team through a baseball game.