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Rating: 
Summary: Outstanding
Review: 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?
Rating: 
Summary: An excellent all-around book
Review: As a new fan to baseball, I found this book immensely helpful in understanding the subtleties of the game. Before I started watching baseball, I thought that it was boring because it seemed so simple. Once I started paying attention, I discovered that this game is anything but simple - in fact, it is very complex and there are rules to cover almost every situation. Bakalar discusses the rules, the players, the strategies, and even has a section on the managers, omners, coaches and umpires. He has a chapter at the end on how to talk like true baseball fan. I found this book very helpful in understanding baseball. I think that even a long-time fan would enjoy reading this book. It would also make an excellent gift for a baseball fan (though not for very young fans, as it is too complicated for a younger reader.)
Rating:
Summary: LETS PLAY BALL!!!
Review: I am a woman who loves the game of baseball. Nick Bakalar makes it easier with his facts, tidbits, and complete knowledge of the game. His book makes it more fun to watch the game. Without a doubt he is a humorous baseball fan, who must enjoy this sport to the max. His book makes you want to go out and PLAY BALL!!!
Rating:
Summary: Is a second edition forthcoming?
Review: It is a shame this book is out of print. I have some hope that the publisher has pulled this title and is waiting for Bakalar to update. If not, the publisher should sell the rights to another publisher who will market the book more effectively. This book delivers exactly what the subtitle promises. Baseball is so thoroughly discussed in this book that either a newcomer to the game or a person who has been following baseball a long time will learn much about the game. Bakalar's descriptions of defense/offense duties make for exciting reading, and his sense of humor enlivens the subject matter even more. (The humor starts with the hilarious acknowledgments.) Mr. Bakalar, please update!
Rating:
Summary: Don't loan this book out!
Review: The book is out of print.....And copies are hard to come by...I've owned 4..the first 3, I loaned out, and never got back. My 4th? I'm keeping it.
Great book, I'm 40, lifelong fan, but this changed the way I looked at the game. MAN, it's a great game! I merely enjoyed the game before, now it's a passion. Now if you want hardcore, see Keith Hernandez' book!
Rating:
Summary: A top-notch comprehensive guide
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Refreshing refresher
Review: When the Dodgers left Brooklyn, I left baseball. Recently, in response to what ancient impulse I know not, and now living near Boston instead of in Brooklyn, I began to feel stirrings of interest in the Red Sox, perhaps because their dreams of glory have been as hopeless as those of the Dodgers of yesteryear. So, I turned to Nick Bakalar's paean to baseball to bring me back up to speed. Bakalar loves the game, admires (most of) the big league players, and loathes (most of) the owners. The basic purpose of the book is to let us know the underlying strategies and tactics of the game, and what skills make a player valuable in the field and at bat. Along the way he provides some useful reminders of the game's rules and regulations and its cast of characters. It's fun to read, very informative, and a good general review of a game that is more complex than it appears. For someone who already knows the game well and watches it with some regularity I would guess is would be of little value, but to those like me, rusty from years of neglect, it serves a real purpose.
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