The best baseball book I've read in years. -- Sam Walker - An
exhilarating story of innovation. -- Ben Reiter - Swing Kings feels
like a spiritual successor to Moneyball. -- Baseball Prospectus
From the Wall Street Journal's national baseball writer, the
captivating story of the home run boom, following a group of
players who rose from obscurity to stardom and the rogue swing
coaches who helped them usher the game into a new age. We are in a
historic era for the home run. The 2019 season saw the most homers
ever, obliterating a record set just two years before. It is a
shift that has transformed the way the game is played, contributing
to more strikeouts, longer games, and what feels like the logical
conclusion of the analytics era. In Swing Kings, Wall Street
Journal national baseball writer Jared Diamond reveals that the
secret behind this unprecedented shift isn't steroids or the
stitching of the baseballs, it's the most elemental explanation of
all: the swing. In this lively narrative romp, he tracks a group of
baseball's biggest stars--including Aaron Judge, J.D. Martinez, and
Justin Turner--who remade their swings under the tutelage of a band
of renegade coaches, and remade the game in the process. These
coaches, many of them baseball washouts who have reinvented
themselves as swing gurus, for years were one of the game's
best-kept secrets. Among their ranks are a swimming pool
contractor, the owner of a billiards hall, and an ex-hippie whose
swing insights draw from surfing and the technique of Japanese
samurai. Now, as Diamond artfully charts, this motley cast has
moved from the baseball margins to its center of power. They are
changing the way hitting is taught to players of all ages, and
major league clubs are scrambling for their services, hiring them
in record numbers as coaches and consultants. And Diamond himself,
whose baseball career ended in high school, enlists the tutelage of
each swing coach he profiles, with an aim toward starring in the
annual Boston-New York media game at Yankee Stadium. Swing Kings is
both a rollicking history of baseball's recent past and a deeply
reported, character-driven account of a battle between opponents as
old as time: old and new, change and stasis, the establishment and
those who break from it. Jared Diamond has written a masterful
chronicle of America's pastime at the crossroads.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
