Zack Hample - Watching Baseball Smarter: A Professional Fans Guide for Beginners, Semi-experts, and Deeply Serious Geeks

In Watching Baseball Smarter [Hample] hits his own homer, because he has the knack of simple explanation and a sense of what will interest a casual fan. There is a flow to it, and plenty of humor and anecdotes to support the points Hample makes. It is well-organized and covers everything.

The Seattle Times

Aimed at neophytes and know-it-alls alike, this baseball geekfest tells you which positions are never played by lefties, why it's easier to hit when bases are loaded, which rules are the weirdest, and other arcana.

Maxim

Fantastic snappy, quick-witted and succinct. Hample plays the chipper and confident instructor who really wants you to learn baseball's nitty-gritty. He lays out his lessons well in language that is plain and frequently quite funny. His enthusiasm for baseball is apparent, as is his mastery. Explore this amusing and terrifically instructive book.

Mothertown

The perfect guide for anyone who has ever wondered about why players might paint their nails or pee on their hands, the history behind the seventh inning stretch, the difference between a split-finger fastball and a fork-ball, and what the heck the first base coach does with a stop watch.

Smoke

In this book, [Hample] breaks down every nuance of the game, from small ball to the big hit to pitching and the strategies that bind them together.

Yankees Magazine

The book is a quick read that is written on many levels; casual fans will appreciate the simple explanations of every thing that actually goes on during a game, and die-hards will enjoy the nuanced details of those explanations along with plenty of obscure tidbits.

SI.com

The guide is peppered with trivia and history and fin ishes with a 40-page glossary of baseball lingo including the phrase golden sombrero,' which means to strike out four times in one game, and can of corn,' an easy fly ball to catch. An enjoyable book.

Santa Cruz Sentinel

Watching Baseball Smarter will definitely improve your baseball I.Q. Neophytes and old pros alike will find plenty here they didn't know.

Kevin Baker, author of Sometimes You See It Coming

Hample gets the nod for teacher of the year' with this simple but informative volume. Few explain the game better.

Bookreporter.com

Zack Hample hits one out of the park with the bases loaded with his latest book, Watching Baseball Smarter. It's everything you wanted to know about baseball but didn't know who to ask. I enjoyed every inning of it. In fact, after finishing Zack's book, I had this wonderful craving for a bag of roasted peanuts and a juicy hot dog with mustard.

Penny Marshall, Director and Producer of A League of Their Own

Zack Hample, arguably one of the more serious geeks, is obsessed with the National Pastime. A former college third baseman and four-time student at Bucky Dent's Baseball School, Hample has worked as both a baseball instructor and a spokesman. He is best known for having collected an obscene number of baseballs3,277 and countingat forty-two major league stadiums, including Barry Bonds's 724th career home run. His first book, How to Snag Major League Baseballs, was published in 1999, landing him coverage in Sports Illustrated, People, Playboy, The New York Times, The Canadian National Post, FHM, Parade magazine, Time for Kids, and on NPR, CNN, FOX Sports, The Rosie O'Donnell Show, and the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric. Hample, a New York City native, runs a business called Watch with Zack and takes people to baseball games all over the country. He also has a popular blog, The Baseball Collector, about his favorite hobby. He has other interests, of course; they just aren't evident during baseball season.

www.zackhample.com

ALSO BY ZACK HAMPLE

How to Snag Major League Baseballs

To my father's father, Benny Hamplethe one grandparent
I never met and the biggest baseball fan of all.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 3. HITTING

Appeal

CHAPTER 8. STATISTICS

The Magic Number

PREFACE

Baseball is like church. Many attend, but few understand.

Wes Westrum, former major league catcher

This is not the only book about watching and understanding baseball, but it is the only one that explains, among other things, why players are always grabbing their crotches (see Chapter 9, Grab This). I know why they do because I've done it myself. I did it from Little League to college, and in between I did it at countless baseball camps and clinics from Florida to Canada.

I don't mean to brag. It's not like I ever got to do it on national television, and anyway, it's nothing to be proud of. But then again, it's nothing to be ashamed of either. It's just part of the game, and that's why you'll find it here. That's why you'll find sections about steroids, statistics, salaries, surgeries, stadiums, superstitions, and spitting. These things are also part of the game. Are they peripheral? No doubt. But in order to appreciate baseballto be a true fan or at least fool the die-hardsyou need to know about them.

Most fans know that the batter is awarded first base when he gets hit by a pitch. But most fans don't know exactly how much it hurts. They don't know the story of the only guy who was killed by a pitch, they can't tell you the first team to wear helmets, and they have no idea when the single earflap became a required addition. Yeah, this stuff is dorky but it's part of the fun. Instead of reading a brief explanation of the infield fly rule and stopping there, why not learn a few obscure facts about it? That way, when some baseball snob tries to test your knowledge by throwing it in your face, you'll have a little ammunition to throw back.

Why, yes, as a matter of fact I have heard of the infield fly rule, and do you know what year it was instituted?

If you hang around baseball fans, someone will challenge you. Believe me. I know how fans think because I am one. I've memorized the stats on way too many of my 100,000 cards, I've waited in the rain for some of my 1,500 autographs, and I've strategically planned my trips to the bathroom at all of the 42 major league stadiums I've visited. (Don't wait for the third outeveryone else will be there too.)

Watching baseball in person is certainly exciting, but it's not the best way to learn the game. Unless you're lucky enough to be there with an expert, there's no one to explain the context, the characters, the lingo, the lore, the history, the strategy, the behind-the-scenes stuff, and, most importantly, the nuanceand if you're not lucky enough to have box seats, you won't be close enough to see it anyway.

I prefer watching baseball on TV. I like that it's free and that the view is always good, even from the bathroom if the set is positioned just right. I also like the different camera angles and slow-motion instant replaysyou won't see many of those on the JumboTron, especially on close calls that go against the home team, because stadium management would rather prevent a riot than entertain the crowdbut most of all, I like to listen to the announcers.