Major League Baseball has been in crisis in recent years. Game attendance is down by millions and fan interest is in free fall. The future of the game is in jeopardy. While the League acknowledges the issues, many are stumped as to how to address them. This book explores in detail the critical challenges facing MLB, and their ramifications, along with some potential solutions. Interviews with baseball insiders, players to executives, give a perspective on baseball's struggle to reinvent itself for future generations.

"Author Ken Mochizuki reads his award-winning book. There is some soft background music, and a few gentle sound effects, but the power of the words need little embellishment...This treasure of a book is well-treated in this format." - School Library Journal

All across the country in 1919, people are throwing down their bats, and giving up America's national pastime, so it is up to Babe Ruth to win back fans and save baseball.

Tom Gallagher is in a tight spot. The fate of the Dillontown team rests on the outcome of one baseball game, winner take all. If Tom's team loses, they lose their field too. But how can they possibly win? Just when everything seems hopeless, a mysterious boy named Cruz de la Cruz rides into town and claims to know the secret of hitting. Not to mention the secrets of Dante Del Gato, Dillontown's greatest hitter ever. Since he walked away from the game years ago, Del Gato hasn't spoken a word to anyone. But now he might be Tom's only hope for saving his hometown. From the award-winning author of Over the Wall and Choosing Up Sides comes this imaginative tale of one boy's struggle to preserve the spirit of the game he loves.

In 2005, Jose Canseco blew the lid off Major League Baseball's steroid scandal--and no one believed him. His New York Times bestselling memoir Juiced met a firestorm of criticism and outrage from the media, coaches, clubs, and players, many of whom Canseco had personally introduced to steroids--with a needle in the ass. Baseball's former golden boy, Rookie of the Year, onetime Most Valuable Player, and owner of two World Series rings was called a liar. In Vindicated, Canseco picks up where Juiced left off, revealing details even more shocking than in his controversial first book. He spills never-before-implicated names--arguably the biggest in the game of baseball--and explores the mystery of one celebrated player about whom key information was suddenly excised from Juiced at the last minute. He talks candidly about what the Mitchell Report did--and didn't--get right, why steroid use became so rampant, and how his life has changed since he tore the lid off Pandora's box.--From publisher description.

Baseball Hacks isn't your typical baseball book--it's a book about how to watch, research, and understand baseball. It's an instruction manual for the free baseball databases. It's a cookbook for baseball research. Every part of this book is designed to teach baseball fans how to do something. In short, it's a how-to book--one that will increase your enjoyment and knowledge of the game. So much of the way baseball is played today hinges upon interpreting statistical data. Players are acquired based on their performance in statistical categories that ownership deems most important. Managers make in-game decisions based not on instincts, but on probability - how a particular batter might fare against left-handedpitching, for instance. The goal of this unique book is to show fans all the baseball-related stuff that they can do for free (or close to free). Just as open source projects have made great software freely available, collaborative projects such as Retrosheet and Baseball DataBank have made great data freely available. You can use these data sources to research your favorite players, win your fantasy league, or appreciate the game of baseball even more than you do now. Baseball Hacks shows how easy it is to get data, process it, and use it to truly understand baseball. The book lists a number of sources for current and historical baseball data, and explains how to load it into a database for analysis. It then introduces several powerful statistical tools for understanding data and forecasting results. For the uninitiated baseball fan, author Joseph Adler walks readers through the core statistical categories for hitters (batting average, on-base percentage, etc.), pitchers (earned run average, strikeout-to-walk ratio, etc.), and fielders (putouts, errors, etc.). He then extrapolates upon these numbers to examine more advanced data groups like career averages, team stats, season-by-season comparisons, and more. Whether you're a mathematician, scientist, or season-ticket holder to your favorite team, Baseball Hacks is sure to have something for you. Advance praise for Baseball Hacks: "Baseball Hacks is the best book ever written for understanding and practicing baseball analytics. A must-read for baseball professionals and enthusiasts alike." -- Ari Kaplan, database consultant to the Montreal Expos, San Diego Padres, and Baltimore Orioles "The game was born in the 19th century, but the passion for its analysis continues to grow into the 21st. In Baseball Hacks, Joe Adler not only demonstrates thatthe latest data-mining technologies have useful application to the study of baseball statistics, he also teaches the reader how to do the analysis himself, arming the dedicated baseball fan with tools to take his understanding of the game to a higher level." -- Mark E. Johnson, Ph.D., Founder, SportMetrika, Inc. and Baseball Analyst for the 2004 St. Louis Cardinals

After Boss outlaws baseball in America, spring stops coming--until a young boy beats the tyrant at his own game.