Free advance copy of The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball
I hold in my hands one rare advance uncorrected reader’s copy of The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball. I’m going to give it away to a USSM reader today.
If you’d like it, autographed or not, leave a comment below and I’ll randomly select someone and send it to them. The one caveat: to prevent mass registrations, your account must have been registered before today. Long-time lurkers, apologies, but your day will come.
Also, a reminder – March 3rd, Peoria. Meet two major league GMs, Jonah Keri, me, and get a Cheater’s Guide bookmark or something similarly exciting. Check it out.
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Late-week news of little or no note
Well, sort of. Those of you who like me have not forsaken the Cult of Doyle after the team’s craven betrayal of Snelling will note that Austin Kearns’ new $17.5m deal with the Nationals. This means that Snelling’s going to have to beat the stuffing out of, at least, Ryan Church and a similar cast of scrubs in order to crack the starting Nationals lineup. He’s out of options, right? Maybe the Nationals end up waiving him at the end of spring training when one or more of Vidro/Guillen demonstrate they can’t play and… yeah, I’m dreaming.
Mike Matheny’s retiring for medical reasons.
Roger Clemens continues to generously fill column-inches.
Pirates signed Tony Armas Jr. to a 1-yr, $3.5m deal to avoid arb.
Brian Roberts signed with the Orioles for 1y, $4.2m
First review for Cheater’s Guide to Baseball
From the Feb 1 Library Journal:
Zumsteg, Derek. The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball. Houghton. Apr. 2007. 256p.
ISBN 0-618-55113-1 [ISBN 978-0-618-55113-2]. pap. $13.95.
It’s been said that an athlete who “ain’t cheatin’ ain’t tryin'” and that “rules are made to be broken.” Zumsteg (coauthor, Baseball Prospectus) has written a lively and challenging account of cheating as part of America’s pastime, whether it’s the habits of particular notables, such as Gaylord Perry and his spitball, or modern day pharmaceutical legerdemain. He also ponders such issues as whether it’s cheating to try to bunt to break up a no hitter. No, it ensures that the game evolves and progresses! This one’s a sure hit.
Pre-order now, folks. Your purchase supports me writing for USSM.
The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball
Only $11 – a bargain at twice the price.
First book event of any kind– Peoria, March 3rd, you can meet two major league GMs, Jonah Keri, me, and get a Cheater’s Guide bookmark or something similarly exciting. Check it out.
Monday also holds no interesting news
I mean really, ESPN’s running a headline with “Gonzalez, Hollins looking to aid Yomuri” and it’s Luis A. Gonzalez.
Or what, Clemens isn’t sure if or when he’ll come back next year? Can’t you just write “cross-apply last year’s articles on this topic?”
Spring training feed announcement
Come on out to sunny Peoria and meet two major league GMs March 3rd. Seattle Mariners GM Bill Bavasi and San Diego Padres GM Kevin Towers will talk and take questions from fans for a good 45 minutes, before seeing the two interleague rivals face off in a fierce spring training game at the Peoria Sports Complex. Afterwards, you can buy a signed copy of the newly updated, paperback version of Baseball Prospectus’ Baseball Between the Numbers
Cost is $21, which includes your ticket to the game and the money we have to pay TicketMaster to mail them to us so we can distribute them early.
RSVP by emailing to seattlefeed@yahoo.com. Please specify your full name and how many tickets you need. To ensure that we can secure/order a group of tickets all together, deadline to RSVP and pay for tickets will be Friday, Feb. 9. Once we’ve confirmed your RSVP by email, you can PayPal the funds, by no later than Friday, Feb. 9, to: derek@ussmariner.com
Tuesday news: no news for Tuesday
Booooooooooooooring.
Weekend news, recapped
Chase Utley gets a seven-year, $85m deal from the Phillies. Even if we don’t see salaries continue to grow at the current rate, that’s got a pretty good chance to end up an excellent deal for Philadelphia. As usual, the last years might not look so hot, but they may well get the full contract value in the first four/five seasons and the rest is gravy.
Rockies are reportedly close to signing Brian Lawrence
Reds close to signing Guardado to a minor league deal(mlb)
Vern Ruhle died.
Advance praise for Cheater’s Guide to Baseball
“Derek Zumsteg should be ashamed to have such comprehensive knowledge of the history of cheating in baseball. Pete Rose gave me two to one odds this book would become a classic.” — Allen Barra, bestselling author of The Last Coach: A Life of Paul “Bear” Bryant
Pre-order now, folks. Your purchase supports me writing for USSM.
The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball
Only $11 – a bargain at twice the price.
USSM Q&A Q collection thread
and not the Q from Star Trek.
I got a lot of positive comments and emails from the last Q&A we did two weeks ago, so I thought we might give this another shot. I don’t know if two weeks between these in the off-season is too frequent, but we’re tinkering, and if it sucks, hey, everyone gets the day’s subscription fees back.
So toss your question in the comments and I’ll run through answer them tomorrow.
2007 PECOTAs are out
PECOTA forecasts are out! Sort of. Not the cards, which are the coolest part and aren’t due for another month (on the PECOTA download page) or tomorrow (Nate’s post)
Short version: doesn’t like Ichiro, but never does, doesn’t like Lopez, Guillen, Betancourt, and Vidro’s projection is pretty ugly. But the rest of the infield, including Johjima, gets good reviews.
It’s subscriber-only, so I’m not going to just print the lines here, but it’s interesting stuff. Go check it out if you’re already handing BP money.