Two books about baseball in Los Angeles — one about the season of the Dodgers World Series, the other about electricity at Shohei Ohtani — give Los Angeles fans plenty to think about.
It would be an exaggeration to say baseball is in a state of emergency, even though it has been experiencing an extended identity crisis for a while. With teams adopting a number of new methodologies on and off the field while popular interest in the sport wanes, there is reason to question how closely these two trends are connected. What does it take for teams to succeed today? Did efficiency outweigh the fun? However, on an individual level, there are still players whose sport and talent make such questions irrelevant.
Two new books that explore different elements of the modern game. Pedro Moura”How to beat a broken game“He focuses on one of baseball’s premier teams and many of the problems facing MLB, while Jeff Fletcher”show timeIt is a biography of the game’s most distinguished and perhaps brightest star, Shohei Ohtani.
Did the Los Angeles Dodgers really beat a broken game?
Mora’s book deals with the Los Angeles Dodgers and the path they took to winning the 2020 World Championship. Much of it happens behind the scenes, with a focus on the many Dodgers executives and employees working with the team to explore and develop players. However, these sections – while informative – might read as too accurate for all but the most invested readers. It also looks at how players can make use of the new information available to them. For example, we see Justin Turner adjust his swing on his way to becoming an All-Star and Clayton Kershaw finding ways to compensate for the apparent loss of speed while also working to combat the predictability of pitch selection.
What isn’t said in these sections is the advantage the Dodgers have in not just hiring these employees, but in having the financial capacity (and attendant willingness to spend) that allows LA to acquire and pay the players they desire. After all, by the time they traded for the Mookie Betts or signed Freedie Freeman, it wasn’t as if they were discovering unknown prospects or betting on their team’s development capabilities to improve flawed players. In fact, this may be one area that Maura may have explored most when writing about what plights baseball today – the gap between owners willing to spend money to invest in a winner versus those who won’t. How can the major leagues be great as a whole when so many teams seem uninterested in doing the work to get a consistently winning team on board?
The book picks up some speed in the latter half when he moves onto the field. There is a sense of moving forward in these chapters that is lacking in the more technical chapters that precede them. Here all the described planning and strategies pay off, with the Dodgers beating the Rays in their first championship in 32 years.
The Dodgers covering Mora didn’t get over the broken game – they didn’t beat the context in which they found themselves – but they simply took advantage of it. He asks towards the end, “Do any rule changes amount to more than a temporary fix until the high-powered teams tackle a new way to exploit them?” There may be potential changes that could make baseball more entertaining while still retaining the core elements that make it so likable, but for now, the genie is out of the proverbial bottle. No one can forget what has been learned, nor can teams forget the statistical and developmental leaps that have taken place in the past two decades. Until the game is revitalized through rule changes and strategic adjustments, it will be a question of who can best exploit the existing rules. And for now, the Dodgers figured out how to do it like everyone else.
For Dodgers fans, as well as serious baseball fans interested in the direction the game is headed today, Mora’s book would be a welcome addition to their library. It offers well-reported insights into the Dodgers organization and what has made it perhaps the MLB model franchise over the past several years. However, casual fans may feel overwhelmed by the amount of information and its focus on behind-the-scenes details. Also, with the book lacking push from chapter to chapter, it lacks the poignant narrative that appeals to those simply looking for a good story.
It’s Sho-Time: A timely celebration of Shohei Ohtani as trade rumors swirl
A few miles east of Dodger Stadium, Shohei Ohtani was, for many fans, an antidote (or at least a welcome reprieve from) much to the disappointment of many baseball fans. Ohtani, simply by being a member of the Angels rotation while playing daily as a hitter, became one of the most amazing and unique players in baseball history. This is to say nothing of how good he is at both, being one of the best shooters, as well as one of the best hitters in baseball. In “Sho-Time,” longtime baseball writer Jeff Fletcher provides a biography of Otani, covering his rise as a player, his early success in MLB, his post-injury struggles, and eventual victory in 2021 when he won the AL MVP.
Ohtani himself is a blank canvas throughout Fletcher’s book. Readers never feel good about his character outside of his accomplishments on the baseball field. Accordingly, the book focuses less on Otani’s inner life than on biographical details and his field achievements. This can be tolerated mostly given how awesome and unique these feats are, but it is nonetheless disappointing.
For this reason, “Sho-Time” shines as Fletcher expands the range, surpassing Ohtani to those who preceded him – and may follow him -. There’s a capsule history of players throwing and hitting hits in the past, with the section on Black League superstars like “Bullet” Joe Rogan, Leon Day, Martin Dihigo, and Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe particularly welcome. Also, near the end of the book, there’s An interesting explanation for why there are so few players on both the court and batting in the major tournaments and why Otani may be the beginning of the trend.
This means that while “Sho-Time” does a good job of contextualizing Ohtani’s accomplishments, he himself remains somewhat of a mystery — all we can attest to are the accomplishments and work that went into them. And perhaps the most fascinating “Sho-Time” sections were the looks Ohtani had between his 2018 Rookie of the Year campaign and the 2021 MVP season — injuries, surgeries, and training that tapped into his potential. What, besides good health, enabled him to have an amazing season after two largely disappointing campaigns? Fletcher, in some of the book’s most interesting sections, provides the answer to this question.
While serious baseball fans are likely to enjoy Mora’s book, Fletcher appears to be targeting more casual fans who are generally oh-so-aware and want to know more. Although he covered Angels as a successful reporter, there aren’t many discoveries here, but “Sho-Time” is breezy enough to make it an engaging enough read for those who want to learn more about baseball’s most memorable player. in ages.
While neither book is likely to become a new classic, both Mora and Fletcher have made incomplete, though often enticing, books for baseball fans looking for something to read between their favorite team’s games.
[ad_2]
