Baseball Miscellany: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Baseball (Books of Miscellany) Paperback – April 7, 2015

Just as it's hard to throw a perfect game, it's also hard to write a perfect book. That said, this is one of the best treatments of "general baseball questions" I've read. It's not dumbed down enough to insult someone who knows baseball, but it also does a good job of covering the basics for the novice fan. I think the audience for this book is the casual baseball fan who already can watch and understand a game but might be a little lost on some of the odder plays or might miss some of those off-the-cuff comments by the commentators. I also like that you get a sense of the author's feelings about the game rather than just dry facts and explainations. My favorite thing about the book is the little boxes where the author explains baseball terminology -- things like tater, cheese, pepper, twin bills, etc.That said, the book would have benefited from a closer editing. There are quite a few typos, but I've come to expect that in books. More seriously, there are a few factual mistakes which is really bad for a book intended for an audience that might not know any better. For example, in attempting to explain a (I think) backup slider Silverman says that a regular slider, if thrown by a right-handed pitcher, will break across the outside corner to a LEFT-HANDED batter. If I didn't know how a slider behaves, then I'd have the complete opposite mental image of a slider. Little things like that keep it from getting 5 stars from me, but a very good book none the less. I bought it as a gift for a friend who is an "advanced novice" fan and I think it'll be perfect for her.

this is a great read. delivered quickly

There are all sorts of baseball books out there -- big books, small books, stat books, history books, dense books, light books."Baseball Miscellany" is one of the small, light ones.Written by Matthew Silverman, the idea is to go through some relatively obscure portions of baseball history with a light touch. How well it works may depend on your base of knowledge.Silverman starts with a reasonable enough idea. He presents 27 questions about baseball, covering a wide variety of subject. Why does the visiting team bat first? What is a Met? Why is the spitball illegal? Why is Fenway Park's "Green Monster" so tall? And so on.The answers tie in to the questions ... sort of. To be sure, there are lots of tangents here. Sometimes in fact, Silverman asks questions that don't really have a factual answer, or they could be answered in a sentence or a paragraph.For example: "So who invented baseball?" You might know that there's no true answer to that, because the game went through a very gradual evolution spanning decades if not centuries. At least we don't believe Abner Doubleday sat down and made up the game anymore; Doubleday is better known now for being at Fort Sumter in South Carolina when the Civil War started in 1861."Why do managers wear uniforms in the dugout?" Mostly tradition, a remnant of the time when the manager played on the field as well. "How many times did Ty Cobb steal home?" The answer is 54, which would make a very short chapter without more information about the baseball great.The chapters are filled out with some quotes about baseball, definitions of baseball terms such as "fungo" and "doubleheader," and some photographs that have a least a small connection to the chapter heading.The success rate for the questions are a mixed bag. I've never read an explanation of why batters are "on deck," and never heard the story of why Joe DiMaggio was the "Yankee Clipper." Others, though, are rather basic in nature."Baseball Miscellany" is short enough at only 180 pages, and can be read in no time at all. What's more, how many hard cover books can be purchased for $14.95 retail, or about $10 at amazon.com? Not many.It's a little difficult to say where the audience is for this one -- perhaps the mid-teen set that is looking for a quick course on some of the quirks of baseball history. But I shouldn't be too hard on this book; it's designed as feathery, harmless entertainment, and it meets that test.

This book would be an excellent choice for many new baseball fans. It provides many facts about the game and is a very quick read. On the other hand, for people that know baseball well, there is little information here that you haven't heard somewhere else. It is a very basic look at the game.