Beyond Batting Average

Beyond Batting Average Review

See more picture

Beyond Batting Average Feature

Over the past few decades, a multitude of advanced hitting, pitching, fielding and base running measures have been introduced to the baseball world. This comprehensive sabermetrics primer will introduce you to these new statistics with easy to understand explanations and examples. It will illustrate the evolution of statistics from simple traditional measures to the more complex metrics of today. You will learn how all the statistics are connected to winning and losing games, how to interpret them, and how to apply them to performance on the field. By the end of this book, you will be able to evaluate players and teams through statistics more thoroughly and accurately than you could before.

Check price now

Rerate Products

Customer Review

Making the Number: How to Use Sales Benchmarking to Drive Performance

Making the Number: How to Use Sales Benchmarking to Drive Performance Review

See more picture

Making the Number: How to Use Sales Benchmarking to Drive Performance Feature

The essential tool kit to achieve breakthrough sales performance improvements.

Numbers don’t lie: 40 percent of all salespeople miss their targets each year. How can sales managers ensure their teams are doing everything possible? The key lies in benchmarking, which is not new for finance or manufacturing but rarely gets applied to sales. Making the Number will teach executives to embrace data-driven decision making and rely less on gut instinct.

Comparing a sales force to those of relevant peers leads to many opportunities to improve performance. The authors take readers through their five-step methodology for sales benchmarking, showing how to select metrics; gather, compute, and compare internal and external data; and then actually use the data.

Making the Number includes case studies of sales benchmarking in action. For example, find out how Discover Financial Services plays David to the Goliaths of MasterCard and Visa.

Whether you’re a sales rep, a manager, or a CEO, this book will show you a better way to make your number.

Check price now

Rerate Products

Customer Review

The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement: The Battle for Control of the Law (Princeton Studies in American Politics: Historical, International, and Comparative Perspectives)

The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement: The Battle for Control of the Law (Princeton Studies in American Politics: Historical, International, and Comparative Perspectives) Review

See more picture

The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement: The Battle for Control of the Law (Princeton Studies in American Politics: Historical, International, and Comparative Perspectives) Feature

Starting in the 1970s, conservatives learned that electoral victory did not easily convert into a reversal of important liberal accomplishments, especially in the law. As a result, conservatives' mobilizing efforts increasingly turned to law schools, professional networks, public interest groups, and the judiciary--areas traditionally controlled by liberals. Drawing from internal documents, as well as interviews with key conservative figures, The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement examines this sometimes fitful, and still only partially successful, conservative challenge to liberal domination of the law and American legal institutions.

Unlike accounts that depict the conservatives as fiendishly skilled, The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement reveals the formidable challenges that conservatives faced in competing with legal liberalism. Steven Teles explores how conservative mobilization was shaped by the legal profession, the legacy of the liberal movement, and the difficulties in matching strategic opportunities with effective organizational responses. He explains how foundations and groups promoting conservative ideas built a network designed to dislodge legal liberalism from American elite institutions. And he portrays the reality, not of a grand strategy masterfully pursued, but of individuals and political entrepreneurs learning from trial and error.

Using previously unavailable materials from the Olin Foundation, Federalist Society, Center for Individual Rights, Institute for Justice, and Law and Economics Center, The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement provides an unprecedented look at the inner life of the conservative movement. Lawyers, historians, sociologists, political scientists, and activists seeking to learn from the conservative experience in the law will find it compelling reading.

Check price now

Rerate Products

Customer Review

Total White Sox: The Definitive Encyclopedia of the Chicago White Sox

Total White Sox: The Definitive Encyclopedia of the Chicago White Sox Review

See more picture

Total White Sox: The Definitive Encyclopedia of the Chicago White Sox Feature

The infamous scandal of the 1919 Black Sox. Eight-eight years of frustration or, at the very least, of baseball without a World Series championship. A sometimes-grim tug-of-war with their intra-city rivals for the loyalty of Chicago baseball fans. Shorts.

The history of the Chicago White Sox has been filled with controversy, adversity, heartache, and hope. The franchise has endured more trials and tribulations than any of its American League brethren, and, more so than any other major league club, those hard times are woven into the social fabric of the team s community of followers.

Those long-suffering fans were finally rewarded for their unconditional devotion in October 2005 when the Sox swept past the Houston Astros for their first world championship since 1917. It was their first trip to the World Series since 1959, and it helped to ease the pain, if not erase the memories, of the biggest scandal in the history of baseball.

Total White Sox: The Definitive Encyclopedia of the Chicago White Sox delves into that rich history and explores both the good and the bad, the highs and the lows. From the franchise s inception more than a century ago to recent highlights including Mark Buehrle s perfect game in 2009, Total White Sox is the ultimate wealth of information for Sox fans, baseball historians, and trivia buffs alike.

This illustrated volume includes more than 200 player profiles, from Tommie Agee to Richie Zisk; season-by-season narratives spanning 11 decades of White Sox baseball; a battery of statistics and records; and a treasure trove of memorable moments, anecdotes, and fun facts. Total White Sox is a must-have for anyone who considers him- or herself a die-hard Sox fan, as well as for anyone who loves the game of baseball enough to appreciate this franchise s unique place in the history of our national pastime.

Check price now

Rerate Products

Customer Review

The Dickson Baseball Dictionary (Third Edition)

The Dickson Baseball Dictionary (Third Edition) Review

See more picture

The Dickson Baseball Dictionary (Third Edition) Feature

The expanded and now-definitive work on the language of baseball—“That rarest of sports books, a valuable reference work that provides absorbing and enlightening reading.” (Sports Illustrated)

Hailed as “a staggering piece of scholarship” (Wall Street Journal) The Dickson Baseball Dictionary is the most complete resource on the lexicon of baseball in the English language. More than twenty-five years in the making, with the help of more than 400 baseball and lexical experts, this masterful third edition, expanded by more than 30 percent, with over 10,000 terms and 18,000 definitions, provides the comprehensive history and meanings of words and phrases from around the world of baseball.

Drawing on dozens of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century periodicals, as well as contemporary sources, Paul Dickson’s brilliant, illuminating definitions trace the earliest appearances of our most treasured baseball expressions (“tearin’ up the pea patch,” “can o’ corn,” “catbird seat,” etc.). Termed “baseball’s Webster,” Dickson has spent nearly a decade painstakingly revising and writing new definitions, for words both well-known and obscure, including those introduced by Latin-American ballplayers, and statistical expressions relating to fantasy baseball and the SABR/Moneyball era. More than 200 photos throughout the book—many rare and previously unpublished—illuminate various historical and contemporary terms.

Because of its deep and broad coverage, its authoritativeness and its rich and colorful descriptions, The Dickson Baseball Dictionary will prove indispensable to baseball fans and word lovers alike. 263 illustrations

Check price now

Rerate Products

Customer Review

Common Sense School Reform

Common Sense School Reform Review

See more picture

Common Sense School Reform Feature

Forget everything you think you know about school reform. Cutting through the cant, sentiment, and obfuscation characterizing the current school reform debate, Frederick M. Hess lacerates the conventional "status quo" reform efforts and exposes the naivete underlying reform strategies that rest on solutions like class size reduction, small schools, and enhanced professional development. He explains that real improvement requires a bracing regime of common sense reforms that create a culture of competence by rewarding excellence, punishing failure, and giving educators the freedom and flexibility to do their work. He documents the scope of the challenges we face and then provides concrete recommendations for addressing them through reforms to promote accountability, competition, a 21st-century workforce, effective school leadership, and sensible reinvention. Engagingly written and drawing on real world experiences and examples, Common Sense School Reform will generate debate and help set the agenda for the future.

Check price now

Rerate Products

Customer Review

Sportscasters/Sportscasting: Principles and Practices

Sportscasters/Sportscasting: Principles and Practices Review

See more picture

Sportscasters/Sportscasting: Principles and Practices Feature

A comprehensive introduction to the workings of the business, Sportscasters/Sportscasting: Principles and Practices explains all of the information essential to anyone looking to begin a career in sports media. This unique volume explores topics in print and broadcast media, sports psychology, technology issues, politics and legalities, ethics, and even the role of sports and sportscasting in society. Other topics discussed include the historical development and economics of sports and sportscasting, sports spectators, sports controversies, sociological perspectives, and sports journalism.

Sportscasters/Sportscasting: Principles and Practices is filled with knowledge essential to the craft of sportscasting, including numerous appendices containing acronyms and biographic information about over 200 sportscasters, and a complete Instructor’s Manual with exercises to help guide students toward mastery of the topic.  Please visit http://LKFullerSport.com for more information and to download the Instructor's Manual.

Check price now

Rerate Products

Customer Review

The Cambridge Companion to Baseball

The Cambridge Companion to Baseball Review

See more picture

The Cambridge Companion to Baseball Feature

Baseball is much more than a game. As the American national pastime, it has reflected the political and cultural concerns of US society for over 200 years, and generates passions and loyalties unique in American society. This Companion examines baseball in culture, baseball as culture, and the game's global identity. Contributors contrast baseball's massive, big-business present with its romanticized origins and its evolution against the backdrop of American and world history. The chapters cover topics such as baseball in the movies, baseball and mass media, and baseball in Japan and Latin America. Between the chapters are vivid profiles of iconic characters including Babe Ruth, Ichiro and Walter O'Malley. Crucial moments in baseball history are revisited, ranging from the 1919 Black Sox gambling scandal to recent controversies over steroid use. A unique book for fans and scholars alike, this Companion explains the enduring importance of baseball in America and beyond.

Read Leonard Cassuto's article 'Baseball and the Business of American Innocence' in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Check price now

Rerate Products

Customer Review

Battleground: Sports [2 volumes] (Battleground Series)

Battleground: Sports [2 volumes] (Battleground Series) Review

See more picture

Battleground: Sports [2 volumes] (Battleground Series) Feature

Mega-events like the Olympics, the World Cup of soccer, the World Series of baseball, cycling's Tour de France, and the Super Bowl draw our attention to the deep cultural significance of sport and its role in fostering social bonds. Yet when it comes to sport, there is no shortage of debate: stereotypes regarding sexuality, race, gender, and children have been hotly contested by critics for over 40 years. Even today, sport is one of the very few socially accepted sites of violence, intense competition and controlled forms of social disorder. Battleground: Sports presents the 100 most contentious public and private controversies of the sports world. Highlighted throughout are debates surrounding ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and social identity, sports fan behavior, as well as the role of governments and corporations.

Engaging and accessible to a wide variety of readers, this fascinating reference illustrates how sports controversies reflect the historically enduring and changing nature of our broader cultures, and the social battles we engage on a day-to-day basis surrounding the struggles for equality, debates about social violence, the ethics of competition, the politics of civic life, the creation of global communities, and the State's role in protecting citizens. Entries contain an array of thoughtful perspectives on historic and current controversies, and allow readers to formulate their own conclusions.

Enhanced with a timeline, a thorough guide of print and electronic resources for high school and undergraduate student research, this one-stop reference goes beyond the newspaper headlines to provide readers with a guide map for understanding what sport controversies teach us about our culture and ourselves.

Check price now

Rerate Products

Customer Review

On Nuclear Terrorism

On Nuclear Terrorism Review

See more picture

On Nuclear Terrorism Feature

Nuclear terrorism is such a disturbing prospect that we shy away from its details. Yet as a consequence, we fail to understand how best to defeat it. Michael Levi takes us inside nuclear terrorism and behind the decisions a terrorist leader would be faced with in pursuing a nuclear plot. Along the way, Levi identifies the many obstacles, large and small, that such a terrorist scheme might encounter, allowing him to discover a host of ways that any plan might be foiled.

Surveying the broad universe of plots and defenses, this accessible account shows how a wide-ranging defense that integrates the tools of weapon and materials security, law enforcement, intelligence, border controls, diplomacy, and the military can multiply, intensify, and compound the possibility that nuclear terrorists will fail. Levi draws from our long experience with terrorism and cautions us not to focus solely on the most harrowing yet most improbable threats. Nuclear terrorism shares much in common with other terrorist threats--and as a result, he argues, defeating it is impossible unless we put our entire counterterrorism and homeland security house in order.

As long as we live in a nuclear age, no defense can completely eliminate nuclear terrorism. But this book reminds us that the right strategy can minimize the risks and shows us how to do it.

(20080101)

Check price now

Rerate Products

Customer Review