I like reading books about baseball, but there really isn’t too much about the game itself that end up being new or interesting. However, this book took something I already know something about and expanded on it in a way that was new and exciting. Each chapter is about a different type of pitch that can be done in the game of baseball. Throughout each chapter, the author talks to some of the pitchers who excelled at and were known for that pitch as well as some of the hitters who faced them. This was really interesting and the different types of pitches and what you can do with them is not something I usually think or read about, so I liked that this book gave me some more insight. The author also did his homework and it was really great to see how many pitchers and hitters he was able to include in each chapter.
I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review. I was not otherwise compensated. This book is scheduled to be released on April 2, 2019 from Doubleday Books.
About the Book
From the New York Times baseball columnist, an enchanting, enthralling history of the national pastime as told through the craft of pitching, based on years of archival research and interviews with more than three hundred people from Hall of Famers to the stars of today
The baseball is an amazing plaything. We can grip it and hold it so many different ways, and even the slightest calibration can turn an ordinary pitch into a weapon to thwart the greatest hitters in the world. Each pitch has its own history, evolving through the decades as the masters pass it down to the next generation. From the earliest days of the game, when Candy Cummings dreamed up the curveball while flinging clamshells on a Brooklyn beach, pitchers have never stopped innovating.
In K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches, Tyler Kepner traces the colorful stories and fascinating folklore behind the ten major pitches. Each chapter highlights a different pitch, from the blazing fastball to the fluttering knuckleball to the slippery spitball. Infusing every page with infectious passion for the game, Kepner brings readers inside the minds of combatants sixty feet, six inches apart.
Filled with priceless insights from many of the best pitchers in baseball history–from Bob Gibson, Steve Carlton, and Nolan Ryan to Greg Maddux, Mariano Rivera, and Clayton Kershaw–K will be the definitive book on pitching and join such works as The Glory of Their Times and Moneyball as a classic of the genre.