Book Review: Dueling with Kings
Daily fantasy certainly seems to be everywhere. Perhaps not as much as it was two years ago when every other commercial during any sporting event seemed to be for FanDuel or DraftKings—the two behemoths of the Daily Fantasy arena—but it’s still fairly hard to avoid. Journalist Daniel Barbarisi became intrigued by the influx in daily […]
Book Review: You Herd Me
If you have spent any time watching or listening to sports media over the past decade, you are more than likely familiar with Colin Cowherd. The former ESPN radio voice, and current host of The Herd on FS1 and Fox Sports Radio, Cowherd has been a dominant voice in sports media for many years. In […]
Book Review: Every Day I Fight
By the time of his passing, Stuart Scott may have been the most popular and recognizable face at ESPN. And that’s saying something considering the folks they had on staff at the time. Scott was seen by many as the one who made ESPN, SportsCenter and broadcasting in general “hip”, but he was much more […]
Book Review: A Hero All His Life
Mickey Mantle was, to many, a hero. He was the type of person men wanted to be and women dreamed they could be with. Obviously, those feelings were all contrived from what Mantle did on the baseball field, and some other interactions he would have in public. As most are now aware, Mantle’s private life […]
Book Review: Murder at Fenway Park
Murder and baseball? As long as it’s fiction, those are two of my favorite things in one (certainly never OK with actual murder), so this reviewer was expecting to be entertained when he picked up Murder at Fenway Park by Troy Soos. Hailed as “A Mickey Rawlings Baseball Mystery” on the front cover, the work […]
Book Review: I Don’t Care if We Never Get Back
Visit all 30 MLB stadiums. Sounds like a good life goal. In fact, many readers of this blog probably have that goal themselves, or at least know someone who does. Imagine doing that in 30 days. That’s right. Every MLB stadium in 30 days. 30 in 30. Sound reasonable? Well, two recent college grads attempted […]
Book Review: Dealing
Many other books by well-known Northeast Ohio journalist Terry Pluto have been reviewed on this site before and this one is no different in terms of its entertainment value. In Dealing: The Cleveland Indians’ New Ballgame (Inside the Front Office and the Process of Rebuilding a Contender), Pluto takes readers through the steps it took […]
Book Review: The Stark Truth
Who’s the best first baseman ever? Who’s the worst second baseman of all time? What pitcher has a big name, but doesn’t live up to it? Which outfielder is unheralded, but always delivers in the clutch? These are the questions Jayson Stark attempts to answer in his book, The Stark Truth: The Most Overrated and […]
Book Review: Heroes, Scamps and Good Guys
Professional sports in Cleveland has quite the colorful history with a number of interesting personalities who have provided entertainment through the years. In Heroes, Scamps and Good Guys: 101 Colorful Characters from Cleveland Sports History by Bob Dolgan, the author looks at some of the more interesting athletes to be involved in Cleveland Sports. As […]
Book Review: Free Byrd
Paul Byrd was a journeyman Major Leaguer who played 14 seasons for 7 different teams, but just like everyone, he has a story to tell. This story is told in his book Free Byrd: The Power of a Liberated Life. This 219-page work details the life of the major leaguer as well as how his […]
Book Review: Baseball Before We Knew It
Our national pastime has a long-debated history. Was it really good o’ Abner Doubleday who invented the game? How ‘bout that Spalding character we keep hearing about and to this day has his name on baseball gloves in sporting goods stores? How was he involved? The New York Knickerbockers…weren’t they the first club? Aren’t they […]
Book Review: Mind Game
Sabermetrics almost seems old hat now. It doesn’t have the cache it did even just a decade ago when it seemed like it was still being shunned by some in the baseball community. While the new age statistics are now widely accepted and pretty much everyone has accepted that using them is the way to […]
Book Review: Omar!
For Indians fans of the 1990’s there was no one who defined the era more than Omar Vizquel. The gregarious shortstop awed fans with his plays with the glove, earning him nine Gold Glove awards by the time he published his auto-biography with Bob Dyer of the Akron Beacon Journal. As the book title eludes, […]
Book Review: The Book
While it may seem commonplace today, and even a requirement, to use advanced statistics to measure the success of baseball players, a decade ago, these methods weren’t nearly as widely accepted. While Bill James certainly did his due diligence, along with those at Baseball Prospectus (and many others), there was still a long tentative feelings […]
Book Review: A Deadly Game
As baseball novels go, the world is full of stories of a regular guy who all of a sudden makes it big or a kid with an amazing arm. Gary Lepper’s new work, A Deadly Game, breaks from that mold to provide baseball fanatics a murder mystery that keeps the reader intrigued from beginning to […]
Book Review: Endless Summers
Author Jack Torry had seen many years of nothing from the Cleveland Indians and then, surprisingly, almost out of nowhere, in the mid-1990s, the team took off. Experiencing this rejuvenation led him to write Endless Summers: The Fall and Rise of the Cleveland Indians. The Tribe were a cellar dweller for so long that the […]
Book Review: Indians on the Game
Ever wonder what people actually involved with the game say about the topics we, as fans, discuss on a daily basis. Author Wayne Stewart must have as he set out to write his book, Indians on the Game. Presented as, “An inside look at baseball in the words of Cleveland’s favorite players,” Stewart spends a […]
Book Review: The Yogi Book
Ask any baseball fan what baseball player in history has said the silliest things and they will no doubt reply with the words Yogi Berra. It’s hard to argue with that answer. Yogi is well known for his quips and jabs, so much so that some may remember that more than they do his Hall […]
Book Review: Our Tribe: A Baseball Memoir
Cleveland’s baseball team stinks, right? They are always not going to be any good, correct? There is absolutely no way they’re even going to make the playoffs let alone run of a streak of consecutive division titles. These were all things that many fans of the Indians thought in the early 1990s after experiencing decades […]
Book Review: The Curse of Rocky Colavito
Outside of Cleveland, even casual baseball fans may not know who Rocky Colavito is, but in Northeast Ohio there was a time that he was practically Babe Ruth. Colavito was a hard hitting outfielder for the Tribe in the 1950s. Before being traded away for Harvey Kuenn in 1960, he was solidly the fan favorite […]
Bob Feller’s Little Black Book of Baseball Wisdom
Ever want extra advice from a respected elderly gentleman? Well, if that’s the case, look no further. Head to your nearest bookstore and pick up a copy of Bob Feller’s Little Black Book of Baseball Wisdom. This book is comprised of a selection of advice from Feller on a variety of topics. It will no […]
Book Review: Whatever Happened to “Super Joe”?
Prior to the mid-90s there was no fan base more used to losing than those who rooted for the Cleveland Indians. That being said, there were still many who cared deeply about the team and its players throughout their years in the cellar. While these players never brought home a pennant, or even a division […]
Book Review: Cooperstown Hall of Fame Players
Ever wanted a picturesque book complete with large full page stories and statistics of all of the great ballplayers enshrined in Cooperstown (through 2005)? Well, look no more because Cooperstown: Hall of Fame Players is as good as it gets. This coffee table sized work has magnificent pictures and in depth stories about every player […]
Book Review: The Entitled by Frank Deford
Since baseball is so romantic, many have tried their hand at writing a novel on the subject. Perhaps Bernard Mulamud’s classic work The Natural, since turned into a movie, is the best known of baseball novels. However, after reading Frank Deford’s work The Entitled: A Tale of Modern Baseball, this reviewer has a new favorite. […]
Real Fantasy Baseball
In preparation for the upcoming season, here at Baseball Reflections we have decided to do something to get us even more excited for the start of baseball than we already were. We are putting a different spin on fantasy baseball. The writers of BR.com will be submitting their all-time fantasy teams for readers to see […]
Book Review on Handsome Ranson Jackson: Accidental Big Leaguer
Ransom Jackson isn’t the household name it once was, but back in the 1940s and 50s, Jackson was well known to those who followed baseball. During that time, if you followed sports, you followed baseball, so that meant many knew the man who they called handsome. During his ten-year career in the Majors with the […]
Book Review: Every Town is a Sports Town
There are many people who feel at this point that ESPN is such a part of their lives, that it is a member of their family. In his new book, Every Town is a Sports Town: Business Leadership at ESPN from the Mailroom to the Boardroom, former ESPN President George Bodenheimer tells the story of […]
Book Review: You Can’t Make this Up
“Do you believe in miracles?” If sports fans were asked to bring up the first thing they remember about Al Michaels, his quote from the 1980 Olympic Hockey game which pitted the United States against Russia is probably the best AND the first thing that comes to mind. While hockey isn’t what this site is […]
Book Review: The Manager’s Daughter
If you are looking for a summer page turner, look no further than The Manager’s Daughter. Author Matthew Kastel combines the topics of baseball and murder mystery flawlessly in this book that keeps the reader guessing right up until the end. The work follows the same mysterious cadence as The Da Vinci Code, as it […]
August Reflections on the Cleveland Indians
Indians fans are currently partying like its 1995! As of this writing, the team has just won eight straight games and is heading to Miami to face the Marlins after a convincing sweep of the Chicago White Sox. While in past years, the team has tailed off after the All Star Break, this team certainly […]
