Sinister First Baseman

by Eric Walker

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0890873356
• ISBN13: 9780890873359
• Release Date: April 1982
• Publisher: Celestial Arts
• Length: 170 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The Best Baseball Writing I've Ever Read

The inspiration that Walker's simple statistical analysis provided Sandy Alderson, one of baseball's most talented front-office personalities, is a clear testament to how advanced his thoughts on the game really were. Despite the notoriety of Michael Lewis' book, Moneyball, it was books like Walker's that actually caused people like Billy Beane, Paul DePodesta, Theo Epstein, etc. to take a second look at the way that baseball teams go about their business. Honestly, this book would be worth reading if its only virtue was its creative look at the relative (un)importance of defense and the thinking behind the construction of a modern baseball lineup. What never seems to get mentioned, however, is how well this book is written. Walker brings an almost lyric joy to baseball writing that I've never seen before and thoroughly enjoyed. If you are the type of person who enjoys great sportswriting, you owe it to yourself to track this book down, even though it's out of print and hard to find. His statitistical pieces are great and genuinely thought-provoking, but I humbly submit that the greatest attribute of this book is Walker's writing style. He writes about baseball in a way that captures every fan's deepest emotions about the game, even those emotions they didn't realize they had until they read Walker's work. His piece on the unbridled optimism surrounding every team during spring training might be the best 2000 or so words ever writtten about baseball. In my humble, poorly-read opinion. For the fan jaded by steroid controversies, Congressional hearings, and overpaid superstars, Walker's book not only offers remarkable insight into the workings of baseball, but promises to rekindle the simple joys that made you a fan in the first place.

This is the holy grail

The story, as told by Alan Schwartz in "The Numbers Game" (which you should own) goes like this: Sandy Alderson in the front office of the Oakland A's, would listen to Eric Walker's commentaries on public radio in the Bay Area while driving to/from work. One day, he happens upon Walker's paperback, "The Sinister Firstbaseman" in a San Francisco book store and after reading it, begins to ruminate upon Walker's counter-intuitive observations about baseball. Alderson begins developing these ideas with the A's and these are enthusiastically embraced by his accolite (sp?), Billy Beane. Years later, Beane's "law of averages" driven management style is embraced by a new generation of baseball men from inside the A's, such as Paul DePodesta, and outside, such as Theo Epstein. The world outside the industry is only somewhat aware of this sea-change until "Moneyball" is released. As "The Numbers Game" makes clear, there is no one particular moment when general managers suddenly saw the wisdom in viewing baseball the way a casino views a pair of dice (die?), it has been an evolutionary process almost as old as professional baseball itself. However, one clear, modern "ah-ha" moment occurred when Alderson picked up this book. (Schwartz's book makes numerous references to the creation of Strat-O-Matic baseball, a box game employing ballplayers' statistics and the roll of dice (die?). Schwartz discovered that as many as 50% of the "new generation" general managers and assistant G.M.s had played that game as teenagers). Why is the firstbaseman "sinister?" Well, the Latin root for "left" is also the root for "sinister . . ."