sweaver's Full Review: The Hardball Times - 2004 Hardball Times Baseball ...
Like the previous review in this category/book, the review refers not to the 2004 Annual pictured, but a more recent release, in this case the 2007 version.
The Hardball Times is an on-line site that posts articles and keeps statistics about the game of baseball. After the season has been completed, the same group published a hard-copy version of new material for the book market. The 2007 version, released in early November 2006, is another successful entry in the series.
Co-founder Aaron Gleeman has moved on to a full-time gig with NBC Sports' website, but the rest of the gang moves on without him. As always, the book is boosted by a strong array of guest writers, this time including Rob Neyer and Will Leitch. The regulars provide as fine a review of the just-completed season as you can get anywhere, there are 24 articles on the 2006 season, baseball history, statistics, and baseball in general, and a solid package of stats for each major league team.
The articles are the real meat of the book. They vary in quality, but overall are excellent. John Brattain's look at the Federal League in particularly excellent, Rich Lederer's look at 2006 as the Year of the Rookie was quite illuminating, and David Gassko's articles on the greatest pitchers and pitching seasons in history as well as on the history of "Tommy John surgery" are worthy of mention. Dave Studenmund's take on "Ten Things I Learned This Year" is fun and entertaining. While those are my favorites, you may have different tastes. There is plenty to like here.
On the other hand, if you prefer numbers to words, there are plenty here as well. Studenmund's love for graphs is apparent as there are lots of graphs here. There's also batting, pitching and fielding stats, as well as batted ball stats on percentages of line drives, flyballs and groundballs for each hitter and pitcher. Who was lucky and who was unlucky? You can find out here.
There are a few clunkers. Vince Gennaro's articles on basebal business and competitive balance seemed to me to miss the mark, although from his resume he certainly should know more about it than I do. I also don't care that much for Steve Treder's writing style, but his articles are nonetheless well researched and informative. On those rare occasions I found something I didn't like, a turn of a page or two put me back in baseball fan heaven. This is a great book to spend those cold offseason days with, curled up someplace warm.
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