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Mind Game: How the Boston Red Sox Got Smart, Won a World Series, and Created a New Blueprint for Winning Paperback – September 19, 2005

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Think You Know Baseball?
Think Again.

The Red Sox finally won a World Series, in a triumph of unconventional wisdom. They rethought the batting order and committed to Johnny Damon as lead-off. Saw the talent in David Ortiz that other teams overlooked. Had the courage to trade one of the game’s top shortstops for the good of the team. They knocked over the sacred cows of RBIs, sacrifice bunts, the hit-and-run, and hewed to the new thinking about pitch count—allowing Pedro Martinez, arguably baseball’s best pitcher ever, to excel. Weaving statistics, narrative, personalities, and anecdote, Mind Game reveals exactly how this group of “idiots,” led by Theo Epstein and Terry Francona, was in fact the smartest team in the league, and revolutionizes the thinking fan’s understanding of how baseball games are really won and lost.
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  1. Print length
    320 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Workman Publishing Company
  4. Publication date
    September 19, 2005
  5. Dimensions
    6 x 1.08 x 8.98 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0761140182
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0761140184
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“This is the book about the 90% of the game that’s half mental. It’s the smartest analysis of a smart team yet written.”
— Allen Barra, The Wall Street Journal

From the Back Cover

Think You Know Baseball?
Think Again.

The Red Sox finally won a World Series, in a triumph of unconventional wisdom. They rethought the batting order and committed to Johnny Damon as lead-off. Saw the talent in David Ortiz that other teams overlooked. Had the courage to trade one of the game s top shortstops for the good of the team. They knocked over the sacred cows of RBIs, sacrifice bunts, the hit-and-run, and hewed to the new thinking about pitch count allowing Pedro Martinez, arguably baseball s best pitcher ever, to excel. Weaving statistics, narrative, personalities, and anecdote, MIND GAME reveals exactly how this group of idiots, led by Theo Epstein and Terry Francona, was in fact the smartest team in the league, and revolutionizes the thinking fan s understanding of how baseball games are really won and lost.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Workman Publishing Company (September 19, 2005)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0761140182
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0761140184
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.25 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.08 x 8.98 inches

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Michael F. Webb
    5.0 out of 5 stars The Revolution Starts Now
    Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2005
    Verified Purchase
    At a recent New Jersey SABR meeting, Tom Oliphant, political writer and author of "Praying for Gil Hodges", noted that part of baseball's appeal is the ability to argue, disputes that span the breadth of history, and that can be argued for hours, months, and generations. Should Fred Merkle have been called out in 1908? Did Ed Armbrister interfere with Carlton Fisk in 1975? Willie, Mickey, or the Duke? Does pitching or hitting win championships? Which is more important, statistics or scouting?

    Just like life, the above questions are more complicated than they may appear. Merkle and Fisk were both involved in controversial plays which will never be undone, and Mays, Mantle and Snider will always have adherents for their superiority which will never be reconciled. Of course, World Series have been won with either strong pitching or overwhelming hitting, and no smart team can entirely disregard either statistics or scouting. But the last question really involves a revolutionary change in the nature of contemporary fandom-the observer and fan claiming a seat at the table with the professional class.

    The work of Bill James, the Society for American Baseball Research and later, Baseball Prospectus, is, if such a diverse group can be generalized, the attempt by nonparticipants in professional baseball to understand, analyze, and predict baseball. Baseball wisdom has historically been passed down through the hierarchy-veteran players retire and take coaching jobs, passing on their lessons to the next generation. While Alan Schwarz' The Numbers Game outlined clearly the entire history of gathering, collecting, and learning from baseball statistics, the current wave of fan driven research and explosion of new statistics and publications is, arguably, unprecedented. For the first time, number crunchers are not just complaining from newspaper columns, but contributing from the executive suites and seeing their theories put to the test.

    The man said to be the guru of baseball statistical research is Bill James, the former night watchman who turned a typewritten journal mailed to a few isolated souls into a shelf full of books and articles. James was hired by the Red Sox in November 2002, and Mind Game is the story of the Red Sox' 2004 World Series Championship and the role that James and the new thinking in baseball played in the season. After a brief accounting of the Red Sox' history, Mind Game takes the reader through the 2004 season in bite size nuggets, describing a game or series of games in each chapter, combined with "Extra Innings" segments that illuminate other points not directly relevant to the season narrative. The combined effect is a fun, rollicking ride through the year with BP's cheeky humor combined with sober, revealing analysis.

    The new wave of baseball thought has its naysayers, as some establishment figures have made it abundantly clear to any and all that they are "anti-Moneyball" people, referring to Michael Lewis' popular book about Billy Beane's Oakland Athletics teams that practice new principles of baseball performance analysis. These figures have often either not read the book or misunderstood it entirely, and Mind Game may not change their mind. But for any fair minded fan who may still be skeptical of the new wave of baseball knowledge, Mind Game is a convincing, well written, passionate description of a season for the ages.

    Michael Webb
    12 people found this helpful
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  • RK
    4.0 out of 5 stars All-Star Analysis, Replacement-Level Writing
    Reviewed in the United States on October 7, 2005
    Verified Purchase
    I eagerly anticipated this book, and was only slightly let down when it finally shipped.

    On the positive side, it condenses into one volume all of the decisions that went into the making of a championship team. It's especially insightful because Baseball Prospectus has a similar understanding of the game as Sox' GM Theo Epstein. I also appreciated the fact that it's not a pure "stathead" book, and delves into things such as why it's sometimes sensible to overpay a player such as Jason Varitek, why (at the time) it made sense to sign Matt Clement in place of Pedro, and why team chemistry matters (it doesn't always help, but it rarely hurts.)

    On the down side, it could have used a lot more proofreading and copy editing; there was at least one paragraph that I had to re-read three times before I could figure out who "him" was (Frank Crosetti). Maybe we need a new stat, "Typos Above Replcement Writer," or "Grammatic Efficiency Ratio."

    Perhaps most annoyingly, it's full of glib political references that will alienate about 50% of readers. At the very least, they're distracting, sending the reader off into thoughts of, "Is that a dig at somebody? Is he right?" when you want to be thinking about baseball. These sorts of things are fine in a daily column, but they're inevitably comtemporaneous, and may be hopelessly obscure before the Sox win again. The book would have been much better had the author restrained himself. I don't understand why sportswriters do this, especially since Baseball Prospectus holds itself to much higher standards of accuracy than most political analysts.

    But, if you want to read the real story behind the 2004 Red Sox, if you want to understand the thinking behind the most talented and progressive management in the game today, then this is the book.
    40 people found this helpful
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  • Avid Reader
    3.0 out of 5 stars Simultaneously Smart and Sophomoric
    Reviewed in the United States on February 13, 2006
    Verified Purchase
    I love reading about baseball, and I'm a huge fan of sabermetric analysis. Plus, I hate the Yankees. So I was prepared to love "Mind Game." But it's a distinct disappointment. It's sloppily written and terribly redundant, as would be expected from a book with so many contributors. But worse than that, the venom with which the Yankees are treated has colored some contributors' opinions so badly that their comments and analysis are wrong. In summation, the book provides the deep statistical analysis and interesting historical perspective I've come to expect from Baseball Prospectus, but it's not nearly as good as I expected.
    10 people found this helpful
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  • Write Guy
    1.0 out of 5 stars A Ridiculous Premise
    Reviewed in the United States on November 22, 2005
    In 2004, the Boston Red Sox finished four games behind the New York Yankees at the conclusion of a 162-game regular season. In the playoffs, after losing three games to the Yankees, the Red Sox -- using the momentum from the fourth game victory, if one believes in such things -- got red hot for seven games. That's it -- an eight-game hot streak. Period. Then, it was over. Boston still couldn't beat the Yankees in the 2005 regular season, and got swept out of the '05 playoffs. Anyone who attempts to draw any great conclusions from the above scenario ... who makes the Red Sox "plan" a model because of an eight-game hot streak, has absolutely no concept of baseball. That renders this book useless.
    8 people found this helpful
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