
The Inside Game
Bad Calls, Strange Moves, and What Baseball Behavior Teaches Us About Ourselves
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Narrated by:
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Rhett Samuel Price
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By:
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Keith Law
About this listen
In this groundbreaking book, Keith Law, the ESPN baseball writer and author of the acclaimed Smart Baseball, offers an era-spanning dissection of some of the best and worst decisions in modern baseball, explaining what motivated them, what can be learned from them, and how their legacy has shaped the game.
For years, Daniel Kahneman’s iconic work of behavioral science Thinking Fast and Slow has been required reading in front offices across Major League Baseball. In this smart, incisive, and eye-opening book, Keith Law applies Kahneman’s ideas about decision making to the game itself.
Baseball is a sport of decisions. Some are so small and routine they become the building blocks of the game itself - what pitch to throw or when to swing away. Others are so huge they dictate the future of franchises - when to make a strategic trade for a chance to win now, or when to offer a millions and a multi-year contract for a twenty-eight-year-old star. These decisions have long shaped the behavior of players, managers, and entire franchises. But as those choices have become more complex and data-driven, knowing what’s behind them has become key to understanding the sport. This fascinating, revelatory work explores as never before the essential question: What were they thinking?
Combining behavioral science and interviews with executives, managers, and players, Keith Law analyzes baseball’s biggest decision making successes and failures, looking at how gambles and calculated risks of all sizes and scales have shaped the sport, and how the game’s ongoing data revolution is rewriting decades of accepted decision making. In the process, he explores questions that have long been debated, from whether throwing harder really increases a player’s risk of serious injury to whether teams actually "overvalue" trade prospects.
Bringing his analytical and combative style to some of baseball’s longest running debates, Law deepens our knowledge of the sport in this entertaining work that is both fun and deeply informative.
©2020 Keith Law (P)2020 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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Featured Article: The Best Baseball Audiobooks of All Time
Ask any baseball fan and they'll tell you: some of their favorite sounds can only be heard at the ballpark—the smooth, satisfying pop of a catcher’s glove as a pitch hits its mark; the crack of a bat as it tears into a fastball, explosive and hopeful, drawing the crowd to their feet. Our list, a roundup of outstanding baseball audiobooks, offers a glimmer of that same ballpark magic with just a few of the greatest stories from our national pastime.
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Just too much cussing!
- By D Maybee on 04-19-20
By: Ben Lindbergh, and others
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Future Value
- The Battle for Baseball's Soul and How Teams Will Find the Next Superstar
- By: Eric Longenhagen, Kiley McDaniel, Keith Law - foreword
- Narrated by: Perry Daniels
- Length: 18 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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For the modern major-league team, player evaluation is a complex, multipronged, high-tech pursuit. But far from becoming obsolete in this environment - as Michael Lewis' Moneyball once forecast - the role of the scout in today's game has evolved and even expanded. Rather than being the antithesis of a data-driven approach, scouting now represents an essential analytical component in a team's arsenal. Future Value is a thorough dive into the world of the contemporary scout - a world with its own language, methods, metrics, and madness.
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Fantastic material needing an accompanying PDF
- By Tyler Burch on 08-27-20
By: Eric Longenhagen, and others
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Once a Giant
- A Story of Victory, Tragedy, and Life After Football
- By: Gary Myers
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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The 1986 New York Giants are legendary. A championship team coached by Bill Parcells and his wunderkind assistant Bill Belichick, featuring future Hall of Famers and All-Pros like Phil Simms, Lawrence Taylor, Mark Bavaro, and Harry Carson. They were dominant on the field and formed a unique and lasting bond off of it. More than thirty years later, it's the friendships that have proved more important—a matter of life and death. In Once a Giant, bestselling football writer Gary Myers tells the story of that team and what became of it.
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Must Read for Big Blue Fan
- By Mark A. McCoy on 03-05-24
By: Gary Myers
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The Last Folk Hero
- The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson
- By: Jeff Pearlman
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 22 hrs
- Unabridged
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From the mid-1980s into the early 1990s, the greatest athlete of all time streaked across American sports and popular culture. Stadiums struggled to contain him. Clocks failed to capture his speed. His strength was legendary. His power unmatched. Video game makers turned him into an invincible character—and they were dead-on. He climbed (and walked across) walls, splintered baseball bats over his knee, turned oncoming tacklers into ground meat.
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If you are a sports fan and over 35 years old, you have to listen/read this. Awesome!
- By betty sammons on 06-29-23
By: Jeff Pearlman
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The Arm
- Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Thing in Sports
- By: Jeff Passan
- Narrated by: Kevin Pierce
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Yahoo's lead baseball columnist offers an in-depth look at the most valuable commodity in sports - the pitching arm - and how its vulnerability to injury is hurting players and the game, from Little League to the majors.
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A MUST READ for every youth baseball parent and coach
- By Casey Fitzsimons on 05-29-16
By: Jeff Passan
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We Promised You a Great Main Event
- An Unauthorized WWE History
- By: Bill Hanstock
- Narrated by: Josh Bloomberg
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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In We Promised You a Great Main Event, longtime sports journalist Bill Hanstock pulls back the curtain to give a smart fan’s account of WWE and Vince McMahon’s journey to the top. Untangling the truth behind the official WWE storyline, Hanstock does a deep dive into key moments of the company’s history, from the behind-the-scenes drama at the Montreal Screwjob, to the company’s handling of the Jimmy Snuka scandal, to the real story of the Monday Night Wars.
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Pronounce names correctly!
- By JLA4 on 12-29-20
By: Bill Hanstock
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The Big Bam
- The Life and Times of Babe Ruth
- By: Leigh Montville
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 15 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Babe Ruth was more than baseball's original superstar. For 85 years, he has remained the sport's reigning titan. He has been named Athlete of the Century...more than once. But who was this large, loud, enigmatic man? In The Big Bam, Leigh Montville brings his trademark touch to this groundbreaking, revelatory portrait of the Babe.
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The Big Bam
- By Alan on 06-13-06
By: Leigh Montville
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Cheated
- The Inside Story of the Astros Scandal and a Colorful History of Sign Stealing
- By: Andy Martino
- Narrated by: Andy Martino
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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The ensuing scandal rivaled that of the 1919 "Black Sox" and the more recent steroid era, and became one of the most significant that the game had ever seen. The fallout ensnared many other teams, either as victims, alleged cheaters or both. The Los Angeles Dodgers felt robbed of a World Series title, and fended off accusations about their organization. Same for the New York Yankees. The Boston Red Sox were soon under investigation themselves. The New York Mets lost a promising manager before he ever managed a game.
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Take away the 2017 WS Trophy!!
- By Sonny on 07-10-21
By: Andy Martino
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Chasing the Bear
- How Bear Bryant and Nick Saban Made Alabama the Greatest College Football Program of All Time
- By: Lars Anderson
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Both Bear Bryant and Nick Saban are undeniable kings of college football, two coaches at Alabama who have each won more national championships - six apiece - than anyone else in the history of the game. Chasing the Bear examines how they did it, revealing along the way their similarities in style, background, football philosophy, and recruiting methods, while providing listeners a rare inside look at two of the greatest leaders in the history of sports.
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Half great half fair
- By jonathan meharg on 09-26-19
By: Lars Anderson
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The Baseball Codes
- By: Jason Turbow, Michael Duca
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Everyone knows that baseball is a game of intricate regulations, but it turns out to be even more complicated than we realize. What truly governs the Major League game is a set of unwritten rules, some of which are openly discussed (don’t steal a base with a big lead late in the game), and some of which only a minority of players are even aware of (don’t cross between the catcher and the pitcher on the way to the batter’s box).
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A bit dry, both in content and narration...
- By Everett on 09-17-10
By: Jason Turbow, and others
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North
- By: Scott Jurek, Jenny Jurek
- Narrated by: Scott Jurek, Jenny Jurek
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Scott Jurek is one of the world's best known and most beloved ultrarunners. Renowned for his remarkable endurance and speed, accomplished on a vegan diet, he's finished first in nearly all of ultrarunning's elite events over the course of his career. But after two decades of racing, training, speaking, and touring, Jurek felt an urgent need to discover something new about himself. He embarked on a wholly unique challenge, one that would force him to grow as a person and as an athlete: breaking the speed record for the Appalachian Trail.
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Couldn’t take Jenny
- By M. Bissett on 08-27-18
By: Scott Jurek, and others
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Charlie Hustle
- The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball
- By: Keith O'Brien
- Narrated by: Ellen Adair, Keith O'Brien
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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A captivating chronicle of the incredible story of one of America’s most iconic, charismatic, and still polarizing figures—baseball immortal Pete Rose—and an exquisite cultural history of baseball and America in the second half of the twentieth century.
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Narrator not appropriate
- By Charles C. Dean on 06-03-24
By: Keith O'Brien
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Spellbound
- Seven Principles of Illusion to Captivate Audiences and Unlock the Secrets of Success
- By: David Kwong
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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David Kwong has astounded corporate CEOs, TED talk audiences, and thousands of other hyper-rational people, making them see, believe, and even remember what he wants them to. Illusion is an ancient art that centers on control: commanding a room, building anticipation, and appearing to work wonders. Illusion works because the human brain is wired to fill the gap between seeing and believing.
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Awesome
- By Tayeee on 06-12-24
By: David Kwong
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The Matheny Manifesto
- A Young Manager's Old-School Views on Success in Sports and Life
- By: Mike Matheny, Jerry B. Jenkins
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Mike Matheny was just 41, without professional managerial experience and looking for a next step after a successful career as a Major League catcher, when he succeeded the legendary Tony La Russa as manager of the St. Louis Cardinals in 2012. While Matheny has enjoyed immediate success, leading the Cards to the postseason three times in his first three years, people have noticed something else about his life, something not measured in day-to-day results.
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If your a youth coach, get this book
- By Brady on 12-11-15
By: Mike Matheny, and others
Best Baseball book ever
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Interesting Read
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Narrator wasn't a good fit
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still a good book, definitely worth a listen
Great Book, Quirky Performance
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Get the hardcopy
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Baseball: Stats & Life-Lessons
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zzzzz
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Amazing book.
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The narrator, on the other hand, is Rockies-signing-Ian Desmond level bad. He was so flat that at first I wondered if it was actually AI. Then he started doing accents.
There were bad attempts at mimicking people that speak with accents. There were weird attempts to do accents for people that do NOT speak with accents. There were no accents from any specifically distinguishable region, dialect, or individual.
Somehow this open mic-level reader managed to both make the case both for and against the need for human narrators. Uncanny.
Solid, if overstated, takes on baseball’s sacred truths
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Not great.
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