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07-27-2003, 09:32 PM
Posted By: <b>Billy Martin, Jr.</b><p>I just finished a book called "Why is the Foul Pole Fair? Or, Answers to the Baseball Questions Your Dad Hoped You Wouldn't Ask" by Vince Staten (ISBN:0-7432-3384-0) and highly recommend it. <BR><BR>Here's something from the jacket of the book:<BR><BR>"In Why Is the Foul Poll Fair?, Staten details the origins of everything baseball, including for example, the average lifespan of the major-league ball (seven pitches; fewer if Mike Piazza is at the plate), the exacting standards of infield maintenance (chronicling the declaration of the "end of bad hops in our lifetime"), and the succint, efficient nomenclature of big-league bats (Rod Carew used a C271 Louisville Slugger, so named because he was the 271st player whose name began with a C to commission his own bat model. Simple, right?)."<BR><BR>In addition to talking about the statistics and history of the game this book gives a great deal of backround and antecdotes about many of the vintage players who's names show up frequently on this forum. The premise is based on a father and son going to a game, and the discusssions that come out of that.<BR><BR>I just wanted to share this book with the board members in case many of you hadn't heard of it before. It was a good relaxing read of 285 pages all about baseball, and one that again I would recommend to anyone truly interested in the sport.