Subway is a Liar

Making my way through Molly Knight's excellent new book, The Best Team Money Can Buy. So far, loving the background on the Dodgers ace, Clayton Kershaw, and the detail she provides on his pregame routine.

Around 2 p.m. he would arrive at the field and make himself a turkey sandwich with cheese, pickles and mustard, and grab a side of potato chips.

Directly in conflict with the Subway ad we see seemingly every half inning.

Subway must really be pushing jalapenos and vinegar.

Seriously though, the book is a great read so far.

Remember When with Ed Randall & Rico Petrocelli

One of the true joys of running errands on a Saturday morning is catching Remember When with Ed Randall and Rico Petrocelli on SiriusXM.  Errands took a bit longer than usual this week, so I got to catch his interviews with Filip Bondy and Dick Flavin.

Filip was promoting his recent book 'The Pine Tar Game' and detailed some great Brett stories from over the years. It's a fascinating moment in time from baseball history.

Flavin was excellent as always while promoting his new book 'Red Sox Rhymes: Verses and Curses'. Teammates was always one of my favorites and his stories about Ted Williams are always great. He read a few passages from the book and it looks like one that Red Sox fans will enjoy.

Stuff to Look Forward to - Amazon Digging

Titles that are being released at the start of next season are already starting to appear on Amazon for pre-sales.

Here's some of the highlights of things to see in 2016.

The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of Baseball's Most Valuable Commodity by Jeff Passan

The Big Win: The Story of the Business Revolution in Sports by Matthew Futterman

Finley Ball: How Two Baseball Outsiders Turned the Oakland A's into a Dynasty and Changed the Game Forever by Nancy Finley

The Selling of the Babe by Glenn Stout

The Cardinals Way: How One Team Embraced Tradition and Moneyball at the Same Time by Howard Megdal

There will be more, undoubtedly, and I'll do my best to find them early. Remember, Amazon does the pre-sale guarantees, so the price you see now will likely go down as you get close to release.

Please post in the comments if you find an upcoming title you're excited about!

REVIEW - Baseball Maverick by Steve Kettmann #mets #mlb

This book has been sitting on the nightstand for quite a while (through no fault of the book itself) and I've been making my way through it over the period of a couple of months. I'm pretty sure that had I finished the book a couple of weeks ago before the recent string of Mets successes, I'd be much more skeptical of the Alderson love.  But, given that I finished it in the midst of some positive Mets feelings, I've come out of it with a deeper appreciation for the job that Sandy has done rebuilding the farm system and changing the culture around the team.

This title flew under the radar when it first came out.  Despite knowing of Alderson's past front office roles, I was wondering why someone thought that his life and career justified such a deep dive. Say what you want about a bad contracts for Chris Young Michael Cuddyer and more, Alderson is clearly a very intelligent and thoughtful executive. The deeper dive into his A's days was definitely a highlight - seeing how a lawyer with the right connections could parlay those connections into such a dynamic career was fascinating.

What I enjoyed the most (and what Mets fans surely will, too) is the insight into his day to day workings with the team and it's players. There are some entertaining one-offs of Sandy expressing frustrations with players (Throw a goddamned fastball, Gonzalez Germen) and potential players (dinner with Jay-Z and wondering what to do with Stephen Drew ('Is this guy worth $11 million more than Ruben Tejada?'))

The insights into the evolution of pitchers Matt Harvey, Jacob DeGrom and Noah Syndergaard are especially timely and certainly worth reading.

Kettmann has taken a subject that many would have thought might not justify 334 pages and delivered some great anecdotes that thinking baseball fans will find insightful. Now would be a good of a time as any to pick this one up, provided that the Mets can keep the good times rolling. If they fall flat again, you may find yourself extra confused about the misfortune of the Mets. I guess we'll continue to blame the Wilpons.

Baseball Maverick by Steve Kettmann

Coming up next: TBD

Maybe The Best Team Money Can Buy by Molly Knight

Maybe Uppity by Bill White

Maybe Throwback by Jason Kendall