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Summary: Baseball Like It Oughta Be
Review: Author Bob Costas weaves simplified arguments FOR the game of baseball that makes too much sense! Reading the book, I found myself nodding my head in agreement. Will baseball listen to his suggestions? Never! And it's too bad, because Costas makes some valid points on what is wrong with the game these days and how to amend it. Highly recommended for baseball fans everywhere.
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Summary: incredible insights on the overall game af baseball!
Review: I feel that Bob Costas wrote a very interesting book about the important issues in baseball. He did a great job writng the book with a lot of expression and he truly wrote it from a fan's perspective. Anyone can read the book, even if you are not a baseball expert. And if you are, it will truly go to your heart. I would reccomend it to anyone who loves baseball. Bob Costas is the best sports annoucer alive. This is one of my favorite books
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Summary: Fair Ball - Fair Case
Review: You know that feeling when something's not quite right but you just can't put your finger on it.... This books draws together what many of us have been feeling about the national pastime for a while. At last a coherent, well argued case for the future of baseball, not coloured by any vested interest or hidden agenda. Bob Costas is a professional broadcaster but he writes this book - as the subtitle says - from the point of view of the fan. The thoughts laid out in this book are wonderfully simple - they add up to a step by step layered argument. each point is made clearly and concisely. Costas anticipates where the counter arguments are coming from. After so long around the game he knows where the entrenched interests are buried. But the strength of this book is that it doesn't doesn't dwell on the negatives. It is a carefully thought through case for the future of the game. Of course it will all be far too sensible for the owners or Bud Selig to go for any of this, but it is important that issues like for example, Selig's plan for re-alignment do not go unchallenged. If this book speaks for you then you have the future of the game at heart.
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Summary: Costas pegs it
Review: Since the 1993-1994 timeframe, baseball has suffered from an alienating set of maladies. Costas diagnoses the problems accurately, reminds people that they are of recent vintage and not intractable, and offers reasonable solutions. Baseball, get a grip, because the fans are moving on.
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Summary: Great Ideas
Review: Great ,simplified reasoning. This book makes too much sense . True long time baseball fans will love this , however a newcomer to the game of baseball will have a hard time following it. This book really held my interest. Great reading, not too long of a book , but very imformative .
Rating: 
Summary: Fair Ball: A Fan's Case for Baseball
Review: An interesting book...if you like reading term papers. Costas makes a lot of good points that seemed to be well thought out but the book was a hard read. I nodded off a couple of times while reading it on a buisness trip.
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Summary: A Stat-Master's Case for Baseball
Review: Bob Costas is one of the most knowledgable figures in the sports media, and the key to his appeal has always been his ability to impart that often complex and obscure knowledge in a humorous, genial, anecdote-filled manner which makes hard facts and figures easy for the casual fan to digest.Sadly, this is not the case in Fair Ball. While the opening pages hold the promise that Costas's winning personality has translated to the page intact, subsequent chapters are bogged down with charts, numbers, and dry facts that only a stat-master would find entertaining. Yes, his arguments are compelling, convincing, and, as far as this casual sports fan can tell, most likely 100% accurate. But: they are not entertaining. Fair Ball is a quick read, both because it is short and because Costas's prose, though often dry, is still easy to get through, and you will come out of the book with a greater understanding of the business of baseball. But you will not come out of it with a greater love or admiration for baseball, and, as A Fan's Case for Baseball, this is where it falls short.
Rating:
Summary: Thoughtful
Review: I bought this book because last fall was the first time in 30 years I did not watch any of the World Series games. Costas' strength is that he ties the economic problems of baseball to the results: the fact that 2/3rds of the teams have no shot of competing with the way the business is structured. It's about competitive balance, because the product is the sport as a whole, not just the Yanks or the Braves. With revenue sharing, Stienbrenner and Turner have an economic stake in the attendance of an Expos-Pirates game or a kid in Puget Sound purchasing a Mariners jersey. Costas notes that these are smart businessmen, and revenue sharing will give them responsibilities beyond their own market. Costas is the kind of guy I'd like to have 13-14 drinks with and talk baseball until the bartender turns out the lights. He has solutions that are sensible...great idea to share local TV/radio revenues, the 3-0 playoff (which gets rids of that crappy Wild Card), and realignment (can't you just smell the radical disaster brewing in Selig's office as we speak). The only drawback to the book is the final chapter, where he throws in brief ideas about the DH, umpires and Pete Rose. His editors should have cut this as it weakens the rest of the book. Well worth buying as a gift for your favorite fan.
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Summary: Great Book, but useless unless it gets adopted
Review: Costas has the insight to clearly identify the problems withMajor League Baseball and the courage to propose solutions. I don'tagree with all of his observations, but I think that his revenue sharing plan is brilliant and should be adopted as soon as possible... I don't see the realignment issue as urgent, but it is worth addressing. Face it, as fans, we will never again be important to the professional sports leagues unless we stop going and stop watching. However, most seats are now presold to corporations who attend sporadically. Television will continue to ruin sports for the fan. Costas's plan gives us a chance. He should continue his crusade by using his position in network television as a bully pulpit to get his plans adopted. We can't leave it up to the owners and the players. The last time we did that, they cancelled the World Series. Unless the fans of America can unite and organize, Costas is our only hope.
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Summary: Costas Should Stick to Broadcasting
Review: Although he makes many good points, a majority of the book is spent listening to Bob Costas whine about all the things wrong with baseball. I don't think the wild card is a great idea either, but I don't need to read an entire chapter devoted to hearing that with no solution. A quick, interesting read if you can get through the whining.
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