The Last Nine Innings: Inside the Real Game Fans Never See

Provides a pitch-by-pitch account of the 2001 World Series finale, giving a description of all that is involved in playing each position, what players and umpires are thinking during play, and how the game has changed dramatically.

Ted Williams, who made baseball look easy, once remarked that it is actually the hardest game to play. Euchner shows just how difficult and complex this "kids' game" is, marshalling an impressive array of interviews with players, coaches, managers, umpires, former players, statisticians and broadcasters to describe the inner workings of the national pastime and the changing ways insiders and outsiders approach the game. He presents all of this via game seven of the 2001 World Series, an emotional contest played against the backdrop of 9/11 in which the Arizona Diamondbacks defeated the New York Yankees. Each play of this game provides a jumping-off point for a discussion of some aspect of 21st-century baseball: the thought processes that guide a pitcher as he decides what to throw, the split-second calculations that fielders make to track batted balls, or the thinking of the managers as the contest unfolds. Unfortunately, Euchner's approach makes the book read like a series of digressions, and the drama of the World Series game dissipates amid the author's extended ruminations and interviews (it takes three pages for the first pitch to reach the plate). Nevertheless, readers will come away from this book with a good overview of the trends driving the game today and renewed appreciation for just how tough a game baseball is.
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