Nine Innings

Brewers-Orioles, 6/10/82: "An astounding piece of sports journalism . . . the best book about the best game there is." —St. Louis Post-Dispatch

A timeless baseball classic, Nine Innings dissects a single baseball game played in June 1982—inning by inning, play by play. Daniel Okrent, New York Times–bestselling author and lifelong fan, chose as his subject a Milwaukee Brewers-Baltimore Orioles matchup, though it could have been any game, because, as Okrent reveals, the essence of baseball, no matter where or when it's played, has been and will always be the same.


In this particular moment of baseball history you will discover myriad aspects of the sport that are crucial to its nature but so often invisible to the fans—the hidden language of catchers' signals, the physiology of pitching, the balance sheet of a club owner, the gait of a player stepping up to the plate. With the purity of heart and unwavering attention to detail that characterize our national pastime, Okrent goes straight to the core of the world's greatest game. You'll never watch baseball the same way again.


"Informative and amusing . . . we get a little bit of everything and a lot of entertainment." —TheNew York Times

"Develop[s] a momentum that puts us on the edge of our seats . . . This is one of the best books ever on our national game." —Ken Burns