K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches
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4.2 • 37 Ratings
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From The New York Times baseball columnist, an enchanting, enthralling history of the national pastime as told through the craft of pitching, based on years of archival research and interviews with more than three hundred people from Hall of Famers to the stars of today.
The baseball is an amazing plaything. We can grip it and hold it so many different ways, and even the slightest calibration can turn an ordinary pitch into a weapon to thwart the greatest hitters in the world. Each pitch has its own history, evolving through the decades as the masters pass it down to the next generation. From the earliest days of the game, when Candy Cummings dreamed up the curveball while flinging clamshells on a Brooklyn beach, pitchers have never stopped innovating.
In K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches, Tyler Kepner traces the colorful stories and fascinating folklore behind the ten major pitches. Each chapter highlights a different pitch, from the blazing fastball to the fluttering knuckleball to the slippery spitball. Infusing every page with infectious passion for the game, Kepner brings readers inside the minds of combatants sixty feet, six inches apart.
Filled with priceless insights from many of the best pitchers in baseball history--from Bob Gibson, Steve Carlton, and Nolan Ryan to Greg Maddux, Mariano Rivera, and Clayton Kershaw--K will be the definitive book on pitching and join such works as The Glory of Their Times and Moneyball as a classic of the genre.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Chronicling an entire sport just by detailing 10 ways to throw a baseball seems like a challenge, but New York Times columnist Tyler Kepner brings fresh and fascinating new perspectives to America’s pastime. Kepner’s deep dives into the origins of the knuckleball and curveball show off his exceptional historical knowledge. But it’s his affectionate portraits of the men behind the pitches—from early players who laid the game’s foundations to driven technicians like his childhood idol Steve Carlton—that really made us understand the pitcher’s mind, and how their talents can define a game.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Detailing the history of baseball's 10 most common pitches, Kepner chronicles the national pastime's evolution from its 19th-century beginnings, when pitchers could throw "nearly 700" innings in a season, to today's modern game that focuses on spin rates and sees most Tommy John elbow ligament surgeries performed on teenagers. Kepner focuses on pitching because "pitches are the DNA of baseball" and "the pitcher controls everything." As the national baseball writer for the New York Times, he's had the opportunity to talk about the slider with his childhood idol Steve Carlton, the fastball with Nolan Ryan, and the changeup with Pedro Martinez all to uncover the mindset of players he says are "part boxer and part magician." Using interviews and extensive research, Kepner not only discovers the origins and evolutions of these and other pitches, like the curveball (discovered in 1867, "when Cummings was the amateur ace of the Brooklyn Stars"), knuckleball, and spitball, but he also shines a microscope on how pitches captured championships or ended lives, as with the fastball that killed Cleveland Indians shortstop Ray Chapman in 1920. Kepner puts a new spin on baseball's history that will have even the most avid fans entertained as they learn something new in each chapter.
