Tim McCarver - Tim McCarvers Baseball for Brain Surgeons and Other Fans: Understanding and Interpreting the Game So You Can Watch It Like a Pro

PRAISE FOR
TIM MCCARVERS BASEBALL FOR BRAIN SURGEONS AND OTHER FANS

Tim McCarver is one of the most intelligent men in America. I only wish more politicians and educators were in his class. To support my claim, I refer all readers to this simple volume, the most intelligent book ever written about our secular national religion.

P ETE H AMILL

A discourse that all players could study profitably from, from Little Leaguers to major league regulars. McCarver and Peary have joined forces to produce one of the most significant baseball books in years.

Publishers Weekly

This is the Grays Anatomy of baseball. The games preeminent broadcast analyst, along with sportswriter Danny Peary, identifies, isolates, and then fuses the ganglia of this remarkably complicated activity. They show how this simple playground game has nuances and imagery extending far beyond that of any other sport.

Business Week

This is perhaps the best book Ive ever encountered to understand how a pitcher decides what to throw; what goes through a hitters mind as he steps into the batters box with the game on the line; how an infielder positions himself; or how a speedy runner uses his savvy to know when not to steal a base. Readers will be nodding their heads and saying, Ahhh. So thats how (and why) they do that.

Bookpage

Full of the sort of inside stuff active players are obliged to lie about. I started McCarvers book because I was sure he would teach me something. I finished it as Casey Stengel.

The Cincinnati Enquirer

For anyone who wants to know whats really going on down there on the field, this is an indispensable tool.

The San Diego Union-Tribune

Read any chapter and youll never watch baseball again in quite the same way.

The Arizona Republic

Offers a fascinatingly quick-paced, easy-to-read explanation of what goes on during a game.

Library Journal

Moves along much in the manner of a McCarver broadcastvoluble, detailed, and fact-filled.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

McCarver is a marvel at discussing strategy.

Newark Star-Ledger

Baseball is the most nuanced of our sports, and Tim McCarver is the most cerebral of its announcers. Dont let the brain surgeons stuff scare you, though. While McCarver does get into the game-within-a-game-within-a-game, the writing is clear. The book can serve as a primer for youngsters learning how to play the game.

The Philadelphia Inquirer

McCarver takes you as painlessly and entertainingly through the games intricacies on the printed page as he has done for so long on the air as a highly respected TV analyst. He goes inside the game while making it understandable to outsiders, and its a treat to hear him on the players and the game he knows so well.

Newsday

I will recommend this book to many people. I will keep this book on my shelves and will refer to it, in the next ten years, hundreds of times. I will recommend it to young people who need to know all kinds of detailed stuff to write about baseball or broadcast it.

The New York Times Book Review

A steady stream of baseball thoughts from an articulate sportscaster who cant get enough baseball theory.

USA Today

McCarver and Peary answer virtually every strategic question about how the sport is played.

Baseball Weekly

Also by Tim McCarver

Oh, Baby, I Love It!

Also by Danny Peary

Cult Baseball Players
We Played the Game: 65 Players Remember Baseballs Greatest Era, 19471964
Super Bowl: The Game of Their Lives

Copyright 1998 by Tim McCarver and Danny Peary

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Villard Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Villard Books is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.

This work was originally published in hardcover by Villard Books, a division of Random House, Inc., in 1998.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McCarver, Tim.
Tim McCarvers baseball for brain surgeons and other fans: understanding and interpreting the game so you can watch it like a pro / Tim McCarver with Danny Peary.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-83177-4
1. Baseball fans. 2. BaseballDefense. 3. BaseballOffense.
I. Peary, Danny. II. Title.
GV867.3.M37 1998
796.357dc21 97-49301

www.villard.com

v3.1

For the teachers who spent countless hours with me, especially George Kissell, Eddie Stanky, and Joe Schultz. They taught me how to play the game, how to think it, and, ultimately, how to talk it.

And also to teachers everywhere.

Danny Peary and I would like to express our gratitude to the people whose inestimable support made this long-planned book come to fruition. Foremost, we thank our longtime agents and close friends, Robert L. Rosen and Chris Tomasino, for bringing us together for the first of several collaborations back in 1986 and for reuniting us for this project more than ten years later. We are equally indebted to our new friend, our stalwart editor, Ian Jackman, the rare person with a British accent who can speak fluently about baseball.

We thank Jonathan Diamond, Gary Rosen, Maria Hettinga, Craig Foster, Maury Gostfrand, Gail V. Lockhart, Barbara Hadzicosmas, Laura Schiffman, and everyone else at RLR Associates, Ltd., for their behind-the-scenes work and hospitality during our many all-day writing sessions.

At Villard, we are grateful to Adam Rothberg, Amy Edelman, Beth Thomas, Brian McLendon, Bob Bull, Melissa Milsten, Dan Rembert, the late Jeff Smith, James Lambert, Carole Lowenstein, and Joanne Barracca. In particular, we acknowledge former Villard publisher David Rosenthal, who signed up our book, and his successor, Brian DeFiore.

Special thanks to my broadcast partners, Joe Buck and Bob Brenly at FOX and Ralph Kiner and Gary Thorne at WWOR-TV.

At FOX, wed also like to acknowledge David Hill, the president of FOX Sports; Ed Goren, the executive producer of FOX Sports; senior coordinating producer of baseball John Filippelli; director Bill Webb; Vince Wladika, the senior vice-president of media relations; Lou DErmilio, the vice-president of media relations; publicist Dan Bell; associate director Cathie Hunt; and broadcast associate Barry Landis.

At WWOR, we also gratefully acknowledge director-producer Jeff Mitchell, executive producer Rick Miner, statistician Arthur Friedman, assistant director-producer Steve Oelbaum, high-home cameraman Jack Williams, stage manager Vinny Sinopoli, and production assistant Amy Faas for graciously answering numerous questions about the technical aspects of a baseball broadcast. In addition, we thank John Calabrese, Matthew K. Ryan, Artie Gress, Larry Mandt, Greg Curry, Ed Berman, Jeff Rubin, Keith Desantis, Vinny Scaffidi, Gene Genovese, Curt Singer, Howard Spaulding, Jean Martin, and Ron Aruda.

At Shea Stadium, we received welcome assistance from everybodys pal, Jay Horwitz, the New York Mets director of media relations, and his able assistants, Stella Fiore, Shannon Dalton, and Chris Leible. Thanks to Bob Murphy. And to Murph and Joe at the Diamond Club entrance and Boss at the clubhouse door.