Lee Lowenfish's Books

Baseball's Endangered Species

Inside the Craft of Scouting by Those Who Lived It

By: Lee Lowenfish

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Baseball's Endangered Species

Inside the Craft of Scouting by Those Who Lived It

By: Lee Lowenfish

Scouting has been called pro baseball's personalized way of renewing itself from year to year and a pathway to the game's past. It takes a very special person to be a baseball scout: normal family life is out of the question because travel is a constant companion. Yet for those with the genuine calling for it, there could be no other life. Hearing the special thwack off the bat that indicates a raw prospect may be the real deal is the dream that keeps true scouts going. Scouts have the difficult task of not only discovering and signing new players but envisioning the trajectory of raw talent into the future. But the place of the traditional scout has become increasingly dire. In 2016 Major League Baseball eliminated the MLB Scouting Bureau that had been created in the 1970s to augment the regular scouting staffs of individual teams. On the eve of the 2017 playoffs that saw the Houston Astros crowned as World Series champions, the team dismissed ten professional scouts and by 2019 halved the number of all their scouts to less than twenty. More and more teams are replacing their experienced talent hunters with people versed in digital video and analytics but who have limited field knowledge of the game, driven by the Moneyball-inspired trend to favor analytics, data, and algorithms over instinct and observation. In Baseball's Endangered Species Lee Lowenfish explores in-depth how scouting has been affected by the surging use of metrics along with other changes in modern baseball business history: expansion of the Major Leagues in 1961 and 1962, the introduction of the amateur free agent draft in 1965, and the coming of Major League free agency after the 1976 season. With an approach that is part historical, biographical, and oral history, Baseball's Endangered Species is a comprehensive look at the scouting profession and the tradition of hands-on evaluation. At a time when baseball is drenched with statistics, many of them redundant or of questionable value, Lowenfish explores through the eyes and ears of scouts the vital question of "makeup": how a player copes with failure, baseball's essential, painful truth.

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Page Count

440

Publisher

U of Nebraska Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1496236289

ISBN 13

9781496236289

Branch Rickey

Baseball's Ferocious Gentleman

By: Lee Lowenfish

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Branch Rickey

Baseball's Ferocious Gentleman

By: Lee Lowenfish

He was not much of a player and not much more of a manager, but by the time Branch Rickey (1881-1965) finished with baseball, he had revolutionized the sport--not just once but three times. In this definitive biography of Rickey--the man sportswriters dubbed "The Brain," "The Mahatma," and, on occasion, "El Cheapo"--Lee Lowenfish tells the full and colorful story of a life that forever changed the face of America's game. As the mastermind behind the Saint Louis Cardinals from 1917 to 1942, Rickey created the farm system, which allowed small-market clubs to compete with the rich and powerful. Under his direction in the 1940s, the Brooklyn Dodgers became truly the first "America's team." By signing Jackie Robinson and other black players, he single-handedly thrust baseball into the forefront of the civil rights movement. Lowenfish evokes the peculiarly American complex of God, family, and baseball that informed Rickey's actions and his accomplishments. His book offers an intriguing, richly detailed portrait of a man whose life is itself a crucial chapter in the history of American business, sport, and society.

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605

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U of Nebraska Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1496213459

ISBN 13

9781496213457

Baseball's Endangered Species

Inside the Craft of Scouting by Those Who Lived It

By: Lee Lowenfish

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Baseball's Endangered Species

Inside the Craft of Scouting by Those Who Lived It

By: Lee Lowenfish

A comprehensive look at professional baseball scouting from post WWII to the present day"--

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Page Count

340

Publisher

U of Nebraska Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1496214811

ISBN 13

9781496214812

Leave While the Party’s Good

The Life and Legacy of Baseball Executive Harry Dalton

By: Lee C. Kluck

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Leave While the Party’s Good

The Life and Legacy of Baseball Executive Harry Dalton

By: Lee C. Kluck

Harry Dalton was a front office executive in Major League Baseball for more than forty years, serving as general manager for the Baltimore Orioles (1966–71), the California Angels (1972–77), and the Milwaukee Brewers (1978–91). He was the principal architect of the Orioles’ dynasty and of the only American League Championship the Brewers ever won. In this definitive biography of Dalton (1928–2005), Lee C. Kluck tells the full and colorful story of a man many consider the first modern baseball executive. In 1965 the Orioles hired Dalton to be the chief team builder and to oversee baseball operations. This was a turning point in the history of baseball, creating a new kind of executive that other teams soon began to model. In Leave While the Party’s Good Kluck details Dalton’s pre-baseball life, showing that from an early age he developed traits that would shape the rest of his life in baseball. Dalton’s early career in Baltimore, building up the organization’s farm system, would inform his later days in higher management and help turn the Orioles into a dynasty. Dalton’s move to California coincided with the arrival of free agency, forcing him to evolve his team-building approach. Following his departure from the California Angels after trading for the pieces that would make them winners in 1978, Dalton hired on with the Milwaukee Brewers’ owner Bud Selig and made the Brewers a winning team for most of the next decade, including another pennant in 1982. Dalton won with big payrolls and small ones. He won before and after free agency. He built winning teams from nothing. Leave While the Party’s Good details all this and gives insight into how his legacy continues to influence baseball today.

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Page Count

399

Publisher

U of Nebraska Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1496240014

ISBN 13

9781496240019

The Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson

The Baseball Legend's Battle for Civil Rights during World War II

By: Michael Lee Lanning

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The Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson

The Baseball Legend's Battle for Civil Rights during World War II

By: Michael Lee Lanning

Eleven years before Rosa Parks resisted going to the back of the bus, a young black second lieutenant, hungry to fight Nazis in Europe, refused to move to the back of a U.S. Army bus in Texas and found himself court-martialed. The defiant soldier was Jack Roosevelt Robinson, already in 1944 a celebrated athlete in track and football and in a few years the man who would break Major League Baseball’s color barrier. This was the pivotal moment in Jackie Robinson’s pre-MLB career. Had he been found guilty, he would not have been the man who broke baseball’s color barrier. Had the incident never happened, he would’ve gone overseas with the Black Panther tank battalion—and who knows what after that. Having survived this crucible of unjust prosecution as an American soldier, Robinson—already a talented multisport athlete—became the ideal player to integrate baseball. This is a dramatic story, deeply engaging and enraging. It’s a Jackie Robinson story and a baseball story, but it is also an army story as well as an American story.

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Page Count

297

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

0811768627

ISBN 13

9780811768627

Branch Rickey

Baseball's Ferocious Gentleman

By: Lee Lowenfish

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Branch Rickey

Baseball's Ferocious Gentleman

By: Lee Lowenfish

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Page Count

605

Publisher

U of Nebraska Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1496213459

ISBN 13

9781496213457

The Professional Baseball Trainers' Fitness Book

By: Lee Lowenfish,Professional Baseball Athletic Trainers' Society

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The Professional Baseball Trainers' Fitness Book

By: Lee Lowenfish,Professional Baseball Athletic Trainers' Society

Demonstrates flexibility exercises, stretches, and strength training routines, discusses nutrition, and gives advice on fitness for Little Leaguers

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Page Count

224

Publisher

Grand Central Pub

Published Date

ISBN 10

0446387517

ISBN 13

9780446387514

Book's by Lee Lowenfish

Baseball's Endangered Species

Baseball's Endangered Species

Branch Rickey

Branch Rickey

Baseball's Endangered Species

Baseball's Endangered Species

Leave While the Party’s Good

Leave While the Party’s Good

The Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson

The Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson

Branch Rickey

Branch Rickey

The Professional Baseball Trainers' Fitness Book

The Professional Baseball Trainers' Fitness Book

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