Mind Game: How the Boston Red Sox Got Smart, Won a World Series, and Created a New Blueprint for Winning - Softcover

The Red Sox finally did it. By making decisions that other clubs would not have made and using talent that other clubs ignored or lacked the statistical understanding to perceive, the new, focused Red Sox management built a championship team that overcame 86 years of baseball history. And along the way, argue the writers of Mind Game, created a blueprint for winning baseball.

Savvy, insightful, statistically brilliant, and filled with the thudding sound of the sacred cows of received baseball wisdom biting the dust, Mind Game relives one of modern baseball’s greatest success stories while revolutionizing the fan’s understanding of how baseball games are really won and lost. Created by Steven Goldman and the writers and analysts at Baseball Prospectus—the preeminent annual on the inside game of baseball, with 91,000 copies in print, and Web site, www.baseballprospectus.com, that receives 5 million hits a month— Mind Game explains why the unenlightened Twins gave up on David Ortiz; what led the Sox to understand Johnny Damon’s true value and give him the ideal place in the batting order; how Boston actually gained by having Keith Foulke as a closer vs. Mariano Rivera; and what would likely have happened if the Boston–A-Rod trade went through. (Hint: even worse for the Yankees.) And as the suspense ratchets up before the historic seven-game AL playoff, readers will never look at baseball the same way again, learning that leadoff hitters don’t need to be fast and RBIs are not the rocksolid barometer of an offensive player’s contribution. And all that stealing and bunting? Forget it! Just wait for a three-run homer.

As for the curse of the Bambino? Hogwash! The real curse behind Boston’s 86-year drought was its decades of bigoted, inept ownership and management.

Steven Goldman is the creator of the long-running Pinstriped Bible column at www.yesnetwork.com and the You Could Look It Up column for BaseballProspectus.com, a contributor to the Baseball Prospectus annual book, and the author of the biography Forging Genius: the Making of Casey Stengel. His work has also been seen in Yankees Magazine, the New York Sun, and Web sites too numerous to mention. Steven lives in New Jersey with his wife, Stefanie, daughter, Sarah, and, by the time you read this, a boy to be named later.

Baseball Prospectus Team of Experts on Baseball Talent includes, among others, Gary Huckabay, the founder of Baseball Prospectus; Chris Kahrl, a sports editor who lives in Washington, D.C.; and Dave Pease, who roots for Ryan Klesko in San Diego. Together, the roster of Baseball Prospectus writers consult to 26 of the 30 major league baseball teams.