Errors and Fouls: Inside Baseball's Ninety-Nine Most Popular Myths

Hardcover: 296 pages
Publisher: Potomac Books Inc. (May 2013)

In Errors and Fouls: Inside Baseball's Ninety-Nine Most Popular Myths, Peter Handrinos has compiled 99 popular baseball myths and using articles, books, and other research, he attempts to dispel such myths as just that:  myths.

Handrinos looks at all aspects of baseball, including whether football has overtaken baseball as America's pastime.  It hasn't.  Handrinos does a good job at debunking that one.  To those that argue ratings, just look at how many networks are offered these days and when football games are on compared to baseball games.  Baseball games have to battle with the closing weeks of the primetime television season in April and May, not to mention when it resumes in September and October.  Baseball has more fans walk through the gates than football does.  Most football games air on Sundays in the afternoon with nothing really trying to take away attention.

The book looks at whether steroids act as performance enhancers.  This is one that is big in the news right now given the Biogenesis scandal.  Handrinos looks to Jose Canseco, Ken Caminiti, and Jason Giambi for this one.  Not to mention several pages alone on Barry Bonds.

Handrinos looks at modern game tactics, playoff formats, and baseball economics.  Except in the case of Jeffrey Loria and his Miami Marlins, he examines whether cities have been ripped off with the building of new stadiums.  Baseball economics includes revenue sharing, competitive balance, and free agency, etc.

In writing about 99 myths, Handrinos uses contrarian analysis and witty writing in order to make his point come across.

I can go on and on talking about such myths and whether they are true or not but then I'd be writing a book longer than his!