Play Ball

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Season Inside presents a thoroughly entertaining and deeply reflective examination of America’s greatest sport: baseball. What makes baseball what it is—the good as well as the bad? Who are the game’s heroes, and who its villains? What roles do managers play, and umpires and announcers and mascots and the media? What is the game’s future? To answer these questions, renowned sports journalist John Feinstein spent an entire season examining the game from the inside. He had access to general managers, who gave him never-before-revealed information on trades and the maneuverings behind these trades. He looks at managers to examine strategy and the psychology of success; he shows the frustrating decline of a once-great franchise. Feinstein answers questions about escalating salaries, reveals the identities of the real controlling forces in the game, explains why the owners so totally despised commissioner Fay Vincent, and graphically illustrates the financial state of the game as well as the pressures, the politics, and the joys that come with playing, managing, negotiating, and simply surviving a 162-game season. Beyond the obsession with money and salaries, Feinstein knows it’s the players who make and break the game. In Play Ball, we hear stories of how they were shaped; see how stardom—or lack of stardom—further shapes them; we finally understand what it means to be a major league baseball player, in every possible sense. He gives us intimate portraits of such longtime superstars as Cal Ripken, Jr. and George Brett, as well as revealing glimpses—some flattering, some not so flattering—of such newer stars as Gary Sheffield, Bobby Bonds, and Ken Griffye, Jr. Beyond the obsession with money and salaries, Feinstein knows it's the players who make and break the game. In Play Ball, we hear stories of how they were shaped; see how stardom—or lack of stardom—further shapes them; we finally understand what it means to be a major league baseball player, in every possible sense.