Watching Baseball Smarter: A Professional Fan's Guide for Beginners, Semi-experts, and Deeply Serious Geeks

I purchased this book for my husband who happens to be a deeply serious baseball geek. He's not much of a reader so I wasn't sure if the book would keep him enthralled enough to keep reading it. Much to my surprise he's yet to put the book down. The two of them have been inseparable since Christmas. I figure if it can keep his interest it most certainly will keep the interest of other baseball fans wanting to learn the sport. For this reason I highly recommend the book.

Zack Hample wrote this book in an easy-to-understand and pleasant writing style. His writing style is conversational and you almost feel as if he is there in person talking to you. He provides an extensive glossary near the back and words that are in the glossary are italicized when they're used in the body of the book. The book provides a lot of insight into professional baseball and is really useful for someone who is not an aficionado. It helped me enjoy the game more by understanding strategy and understanding baseball jargon. Hample also provides some history of the game and of the league as a tool for helping the reader understand why certain rules or strategies exist. A book on a subject like baseball could easily be written in a dry style; this book is anything but dry. I enjoyed reading it.

Table of content for this book:

Ch. 1, The Basics
Covers the draft, how players get into the Major League, How the League is organized, spring training, regular season, post season.

Ch 2, Pitchers and Catchers
Covers the signs they use, the different types of pitches (with diagrams), pitching strategy, what's really going on during time-outs at the mound.

Ch. 3, Hitting
Covers how the lineup is determined, fundamentals, stances, recognizing pitches, hitting strategy, and more.

Ch. 4 Baserunning
Covers the rules, strategy, signs, base-stealing,the various types of slides, signs given by coaches to runners, duties of the first base coach.

Ch. 5 Fielding
Covers the various types of defensive alignments (and why), why you'll probably never see a left-handed catcher, types of ball bounces and how the player responds to each, field positions and the skills needed to play each, and more.

Ch. 6 Stadiums
Covers the challenges of playing in various well-known stadiums.

Ch. 7 Umpires
How umpires get to be umpires, what life is like for an umpire, meaning of gestures used by umpires, why umpires work in fours, why the ump places a hand on the back of the catcher, why the ump puts mud on the balls, why the ump goes with the trainer when the trainer goes to the mound to talk to the pitcher, and lots more.

Ch. 8 Statistics
Lists baseball stats, gives formulas for how the stats are determined, and explains how they are used. (This chapter could have been dry, but was not. It was as fun to read as the rest of the book).

Ch. 9 Random Stuff to Know
Why the players grab and adjust their crotches, why the letter K represents a strike in scoring, how baseball began using numbers on the uniforms (and negative reaction to it), unwritten rules, controversies, and more.

Ch 10 Random Stuff to Notice
A few pages of odds and ends; some of it interesting and some of it mundane.

Glossary: Baseball Slang
42 pages of terms with definitions

Appendix A: More Statistics
Baseball stats with their abbreviations, the record holders, and informative commentaries.

Appendix B: Uniform Numbers
Shown in order by number, provides list of famous players who wore the numbers 1 - 55.

I'd give this book to a girlfriend or anyone who wants to understand the game. It's on par with Baseball for Dummies. Not much new for the real fan. Disappointing.

excellent for all level of fans. great reference and a fun read. I have been looking for this book along time, it's not too technical (like some coaching books) and it's far from dry.

I have gone to probably over two hundred baseball games and counting in my lifetime so I know quite a bit about the rules and little details of the game, and by the time I was done reading I even learned a few things that I had always been a little unclear on in the past regarding the rules, strategies, etc. The good thing is that just about any one with any knowledge level of baseball from knowing hardly anything to experienced watchers will get something out of this book. Some more than others but everyone will get something. It's also a very easy read, I think I got through it in a day or two.