Fair Ball
A Fan's Case for Baseball
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Narrated by:
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Bob Costas
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By:
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Bob Costas
About this listen
From his perspective as a journalist and a true fan, Bob Costas, NBC's award-winning broadcaster, shares his views on the forces that are diminishing the appeal of Major League Baseball and proposes realistic changes that can be made to protect and promote the game's best interests.
In this cogent - and provocative - book, Costas examines the growing financial disparities that have resulted in nearly two-thirds of the teams in Major League Baseball having virtually no chance of contending for the World Series. He argues that those who run baseball have missed the crucial difference between mere change and real progress. And he presents a withering critique of the positions of both the owners and players while providing insights on the wild-card system, the designated-hitter rule, and interleague play. Costas answers each problem he cites with an achievable strategy for restoring genuine competition and rescuing fans from the forces that have diluted the sheer joy of the game.
Balanced by Costas's unbridled appreciation for what he calls the "moments of authenticity" that can still make baseball inspiring, Fair Ball offers a vision of our national pastime as it can be, a game that retains its traditional appeal while initiating meaningful changes that will allow it to thrive into the next century.
©2000 Bob Costas (P)2000 Random House, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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The Real Madrid Way
- How Values Created the Most Successful Sports Team on the Planet
- By: Steven G. Mandis
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Real Madrid is the most successful sports team on the planet. The soccer club has more trophies than any other sports team, including 11 UEFA Champions League trophies. However, the story behind the triumph goes beyond the players and coaches. Generally unnoticed, a management team consisting mostly of outsiders took the team from near bankruptcy to the most valuable sports organization in the world. How did Real Madrid achieve such extraordinary success? Columbia Business School adjunct professor Steven G. Mandis investigates.
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awful
- By Jonathan Frye on 11-13-24
By: Steven G. Mandis
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You Herd Me!
- I'll Say It If Nobody Else Will
- By: Colin Cowherd
- Narrated by: Colin Cowherd
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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In this age of billion dollar athletic marketing campaigns, “feel good” philosophy with no connection to reality, and a Sports Media echo chamber that’s all too eager swallow whatever idiotic notion happens to be in vogue at the moment, it’s tough to find people who aren’t afraid to say what they’re really thinking.
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Great book, Repeats majority of themes from radio
- By Troy on 01-20-14
By: Colin Cowherd
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Players
- The Story of Sports and Money - and the Visionaries Who Fought to Create a Revolution
- By: Matthew Futterman
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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For fans of Michael Lewis, the astounding untold story of how professional sports transformed, in the span of a single generation, from a cottage industry into a massive global business. In the cash-soaked world of contemporary sports, where every season brings news of higher salaries, endorsement deals, and television contracts, it is mind-boggling to remember that as recently as the 1970s elite athletes earned so little money that many were forced to work second jobs in the off-season to make ends meet.
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Starts slow...
- By John on 08-09-16
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Homegrown
- How the Red Sox Built a Champion from the Ground Up
- By: Alex Speier
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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The 2018 season was a coronation for the Boston Red Sox. The best team in Major League Baseball - indeed, one of the best teams ever - the Sox won 108 regular season games and then romped through the postseason, going 11-3 against the three next-strongest teams baseball had to offer. As Alex Speier reveals, the Sox’ success wasn’t a fluke - nor was it guaranteed. It was the result of careful, patient planning and shrewd decision-making that allowed Boston to develop a golden generation of prospects - and then build upon that talented core to assemble a juggernaut.
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Great read if you like the Red Sox or baseball ops
- By Amazon Customer on 01-11-20
By: Alex Speier
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Fall from Grace
- The Truth and Tragedy of "Shoeless Joe" Jackson
- By: Tim Hornbaker
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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Considered by Ty Cobb as the "finest natural hitter in the history of the game," "Shoeless Joe" Jackson is ranked with the greatest players to ever step onto a baseball diamond. With a career .356 batting average - which is still ranked third all-time - the man from Pickens County, South Carolina, was on his way to becoming one of the greatest players in the sport's history. That is until the "Black Sox" scandal of 1919, which shook baseball to its core.
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Entertaining and Educational
- By Colorfinger on 06-14-19
By: Tim Hornbaker
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The League
- How Five Rivals Created the NFL and Launched a Sports Empire
- By: John Eisenberg
- Narrated by: Daniel Thomas May
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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The National Football League's current dominance has obscured how professional football got its start. In The League, John Eisenberg reveals that Art Rooney, George Halas, Tim Mara, George Preston Marshall, and Bert Bell took an immense risk by investing in the professional game. At that time, the sport barely registered on the national scene. The five owners succeeded only because at critical junctures in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, each sacrificed the short-term success of his team for the longer-term good of the League.
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what a great book. loved it completely.
- By Daniel Mosca on 11-08-18
By: John Eisenberg
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The Shift
- The Next Evolution in Baseball Thinking
- By: Russell A. Carleton, Jeff Passan - foreword
- Narrated by: Kyle Tait
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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With its three-hour-long contests, 162-game seasons, and countless measurable variables, baseball is a sport which lends itself to self-reflection and obsessive analysis. It's a thinking game. It's also a shifting game. Nowhere is this more evident than in the statistical revolution which has swept through the pastime in recent years, bringing metrics like WAR, OPS, and BABIP into front offices and living rooms alike.
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Baseball Players are Human? Who knew?
- By Casey on 06-20-19
By: Russell A. Carleton, and others
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The National Team (Updated and Expanded Edition)
- The Inside Story of the Women Who Dreamed Big, Defied the Odds, and Changed Soccer
- By: Caitlin Murray
- Narrated by: Andi Arndt
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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The US Women’s National Soccer Team has won three World Cups and four Olympic gold medals, set record TV ratings, drawn massive crowds, earned huge revenues for FIFA and US Soccer, and helped to redefine the place of women in sports. But despite their dominance, and their rosters of superstar players, they’ve endured striking inequality: low pay, poor playing conditions, and limited opportunities to play in professional leagues.
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Too much swearing
- By Rebecca Sheldon on 01-23-20
By: Caitlin Murray
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Power Ball
- Anatomy of a Modern Baseball Game
- By: Rob Neyer
- Narrated by: Rob Neyer
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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The former ESPN columnist and analytics pioneer dramatically recreates an action-packed 2017 game between the Oakland A’s and eventual World Series champion Houston Astros to reveal the myriad ways in which Major League Baseball has changed over the last few decades.
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Solid overview of Baseball in 2018
- By Tyler Burch on 11-21-18
By: Rob Neyer
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Done Deal
- By: Daniel Geey
- Narrated by: Simon Darwen
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Whether it is a manager being sacked, the signing of a new star player, television rights negotiations, player misconduct or multi-million-pound club takeovers, lawyers remain at the heart of all football business dealings. Written by leading Premier League lawyer Daniel Geey, who has dealt with all these incidents first hand, this highly accessible book explores the issues - from pitch to boardroom - that shape the modern game and how these impact leagues, clubs, players and fans.
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good book for understanding football finances
- By David A. Stadlin on 07-20-24
By: Daniel Geey
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NFL Century
- The One-Hundred-Year Rise of America's Greatest Sports League
- By: Joe Horrigan
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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The NFL has come a long way from its founding in Canton, Ohio, in 1920. In the 100 years since that fateful day, football has become America’s most popular and lucrative professional sport. The former scrappy upstart league that struggled to stay afloat has survived a host of challenges to produce American icons like Vince Lombardi, Joe Montana, and Tom Brady. It is an extraordinary and entertaining history that could be told only by Joe Horrigan, former executive director of the Pro Football Hall of Fame and perhaps the greatest living historian of the NFL.
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Good but very business heavy vs football milestones
- By Katie Durr on 07-29-24
By: Joe Horrigan
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Barca
- The Making of the Greatest Team in the World
- By: Graham Hunter
- Narrated by: Graham Hunter
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Barcelona is the greatest football team in the world, the greatest for a generation, and possibly the greatest of all time. This is the untold inside story of how the best and most loved football team in the world came to redefine how the game is played. We start with the 2011 Champions League final at Wembley, the game that ended the debate about whether Barcelona was the greatest team in the world and began a new one: are they the best ever?
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In-depth analysis of the greatest team ever
- By Michalis Petrou on 01-09-18
By: Graham Hunter
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The Captain Class
- The Hidden Force That Creates the World's Greatest Teams
- By: Sam Walker
- Narrated by: Keith Szarabajka
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Several years ago, Sam Walker set out to answer one of the most hotly debated questions in sports: What are the greatest teams of all time? He devised a formula, then applied it to thousands of teams from leagues all over the world, from the NBA to the English Premier League to Olympic field hockey. When he was done, he had a list of the 16 most dominant teams in history. At that point he became obsessed with another, more complicated question: What did these freak teams have in common?
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Dates and names
- By Hunter on 11-28-21
By: Sam Walker
What listeners say about Fair Ball
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Travis
- 04-25-05
Good arguments...
Costas makes good arguments in favor of a salary cap (and floor) and against the DH. The salary cap takes up most of the book. He spends a little time talking about "radical realignment" which thankfully never occurred. He also gives interesting (though outdated by now) numbers related to revenue sharing among the teams. Overall a good book if you're interested in the financial structure and operations of baseball.
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- Tom
- 02-09-12
The Good and the Not Good
Bob Kostas is good. Bob Kostas is smart. Bob Kostas knows baseball.
This is a look at what MLB could do to get better. The owners are not good, they are not smart, so there is little chance baseball will improve.
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- Steven
- 05-06-15
Prime Bob Costas
Would you consider the audio edition of Fair Ball to be better than the print version?
Yes
What did you like best about this story?
This book shows the best of what was a great broadcaster who had his finger on the pulse of the sport. I do not agree with all of what he talks about, but there is no lack of passion and reason to his arguments. Today, I feel Costas has a bitter voice when it comes to sports, almost as if he is above it all. This was a great time to get a picture of what he felt when he was really into baseball.
Which scene was your favorite?
I like how he logically made predictions to things that happen over a decade later. I also like how he sums it up when you know your team doesn't have much of a chance because of "unfair" non-competitive reasons.
If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?
Do not make a movie based on this.
Any additional comments?
If you are a fan of baseball this is an interesting look back at how the sport has changed, why it changed, and someone's solutions to make it better. He does a great job of narrating the book also.
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- Brigham
- 03-07-19
Fascinating...even 20-years later!
This is an interesting listen for anyone who loves baseball. Unless you're on the fence, then don't dive in. He makes a liat of scathing comments that could easily poison the water of any fair-weather baseball fan.
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- Young
- 01-19-23
Bob killed it
Thanks to the Baseball 2gether Podcast I read this book. It was thrilling to say the least because we’re dealing with the aftermath of the opposite of the simple solutions Bob talked about during the reading. Any true baseball fan would love this book.
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Overall
- Dan
- 09-15-07
Aimless, outdated
An impressionistic indictment of way that MLB is run--an easy target--that is by now very much out of date.
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