Baseball Maverick
How Sandy Alderson Revolutionized Baseball and Revived the Mets
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Narrated by:
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L. J. Ganser
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By:
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Steve Kettmann
About this listen
In 2010 the New York Mets were in trouble. One of baseball's most valuable franchises, they had recently suffered an embarrassing September collapse and two bitter losing seasons. Their GM had made costly mistakes. And their principle owners were embroiled in the largest financial scam in American history. To whom did they turn? Sandy Alderson, a former marine who served in Vietnam and graduated from Harvard Law.
In 1981 Alderson started in baseball with Oakland, where he led a revolution in the sport. The A's partnered with Apple, pioneered using statistical analysis, and became a powerhouse, winning the 1989 World Series. When new owners slashed payroll in the 1990s, Alderson's under-the-radar creativity and intelligent management were thrust into the spotlight.
Granted unprecedented access to a working GM over several seasons, best-selling author Steve Kettmann traces Alderson's history and his renewal of the Mets despite a limited budget, through big trades that brought back high-profile prospects, to the development of young aces including Matt Harvey, Zach Wheeler, and Jacob deGrom. Now the turnaround is almost complete. Baseball Maverick is a gripping, behind-the-scenes look at a Major League team and a fascinating exploration of what it means to be smart.
©2015 Steve Kettmann. Recorded by arrangement with Grove Atlantic, Inc. (P)2015 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Story
The World Series is the most enduring showcase in American team sports. It’s the place where legends are made, where celebration and devastation can hinge on a fly ball off a foul pole or a grounder beneath a first baseman’s glove. And there’s no one better to bring this rich history to life than New York Times national baseball columnist Tyler Kepner, whose bestselling book about pitching, K, was lauded as “Michelangelo explaining the brush strokes on the Sistine Chapel” by Newsday.
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Excellent!
- By DavidF on 09-09-24
By: Tyler Kepner
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Long Shot
- By: Mike Piazza, Lonnie Wheeler
- Narrated by: Holter Graham, Mike Piazza
- Length: 15 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Mike Piazza was selected by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 62nd round of the 1988 baseball draft as a "courtesy pick". The Dodgers never expected him to play for them - or anyone else. Mike had other ideas. Overcoming his detractors, he became the National League Rookie of the Year in 1993, broke the record for season batting average by a catcher, holds the record for career home runs at his position, and was selected as an All Star 12 times. Mike was groomed for baseball success by his ambitious, self-made father in Pennsylvania, a classic father-son American-dream story.
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I only thought i knew the Mike Piazza story
- By James on 03-24-13
By: Mike Piazza, and others
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1954: The Year Willie Mays and the First Generation of Black Superstars Changed Major League Baseball Forever
- By: Bill Madden
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Jackie Robinson heroically broke the color barrier in 1947. But how—and, in practice, when—did the integration of the sport actually occur? Bill Madden shows that baseball’s famous black experiment” did not truly succeed until the coming of age of Willie Mays and the emergence of some star players—Larry Doby, Hank Aaron, and Ernie Banks—in 1954. And as a relevant backdrop off the field, it was in May of that year that the US Supreme Court unanimously ruled, in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, that segregation be outlawed in America’s public schools.
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Acumen bugaboo
- By steve finkelstein on 04-25-21
By: Bill Madden
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As They See 'Em
- A Fan's Travels in the Land of Umpires
- By: Bruce Weber
- Narrated by: Charley Steiner
- Length: 13 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Millions of American baseball fans know, with absolute certainty, that umpires are simply overpaid galoots who are doing an easy job badly. Millions of American baseball fans are wrong. As They See 'Em is an insider's look at the largely unknown world of professional umpires, the small group of men (and the very occasional woman) who make sure America's favorite pastime is conducted in a manner that is clean, crisp, and true.
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Judging Umpires
- By Anonymous User on 11-28-09
By: Bruce Weber
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Where Nobody Knows Your Name
- Life In the Minor Leagues of Baseball
- By: John Feinstein
- Narrated by: John Feinstein
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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John Feinstein is one of the most influential sportswriters of the last three decades. In his masterful new audiobook, Where Nobody Knows Your Name, Feinstein delivers a fascinating account of the mysterious proving ground of America’s national pastime, pulling back the veil on the minor leagues of baseball.
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Living on the Cusp of a Dream
- By Anonymous User on 04-09-14
By: John Feinstein
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Three Nights in August
- Strategy, Heartbreak, and Joy Inside the Mind of a Manager
- By: Buzz Bissinger
- Narrated by: Jeffrey Nordling
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Given unprecedented access to La Russa and his team, best-selling journalist Bissinger captures baseball's strategic and emotional essence. We watch from the dugout as La Russa's Cardinals take on their archrivals, the Chicago Cubs, in a thrilling three-game series.
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Book with good premise follows through
- By Anonymous User on 11-18-05
By: Buzz Bissinger
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The Year of the Pitcher
- Bob Gibson, Denny McLain, and the End of Baseball’s Golden Age
- By: Sridhar Pappu
- Narrated by: Leon Nixon
- Length: 12 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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The Year of the Pitcher is the story of the remarkable 1968 baseball season, which culminated in one of the greatest World Series contests ever, with the Detroit Tigers coming back from a 3-1 deficit to beat the Cardinals in Game Seven of the World Series. In 1968, two remarkable pitchers would dominate the game as well as the broadsheets. One was black, the other white. Bob Gibson, together with the St. Louis Cardinals, embodied an entire generation's hope for integration at a heated moment in American history. Denny McLain, his adversary, was a crass self-promoter.
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Misleading Title
- By Anonymous User on 01-25-19
By: Sridhar Pappu
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108 Stitches
- Loose Threads, Ripping Yarns, and the Darndest Characters from My Time in the Game
- By: Ron Darling, Daniel Paisner - contributor
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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This is New York Times bestselling author and Emmy-nominated broadcaster Ron Darling's 108 baseball anecdotes that connect America’s game to the men who played it. Darling has played with or reported on just about everybody who has put on a uniform since 1983, and they in turn have played with or reported on just about everybody who put on a uniform in a previous generation. Like the 108 stitches on a baseball, Darling's experiences are interwoven with every athlete who has ever played, every coach or manager, and every fan.
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Meh
- By Anonymous User on 04-13-19
By: Ron Darling, and others
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Ahead of the Curve
- Inside the Baseball Revolution
- By: Brian Kenny
- Narrated by: Brian Kenny
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Most people who resist logical thought in baseball preach "tradition" and "respecting the game". But many of baseball's traditions go back to the 19th century, when the pitcher's job was to provide the batter with a ball he could hit and fielders played without gloves. Instead of fearing change, Brian Kenny wants fans to think critically, reject outmoded groupthink, and embrace the changes that have come with the "sabermetric era".
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Wonderful detail on baseballs past and future
- By Anonymous User on 07-27-16
By: Brian Kenny
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Game Six
- Cincinnati, Boston, and the 1975 World Series: The Triumph of America's Pastime
- By: Mark Frost
- Narrated by: Andrew Garman
- Length: 13 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Best-selling author Mark Frost takes listeners back to the 1975 World Series in this thrilling account of the greatest baseball game ever played. The Reds and Red Sox endured three soggy days of inactivity to reach game six. But all that downtime could not prepare them for what happened when the skies finally cleared.
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For the love of Baseball
- By Al on 03-23-10
By: Mark Frost
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Dollar Sign on the Muscle
- The World of Baseball Scouting
- By: Kevin Kerrane
- Narrated by: Patrick Kerrane
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Humorous case histories and profiles of great baseball scouts accompany a discussion of the trade secrets of baseball scouts, the economics of scouting, player development, and the history of the profession. In a new epilogue Kevin Kerrane explores the world of baseball scouting in the late 1990s.
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Good for diehards, but dated and riddled w errors
- By Anonymous User on 03-02-17
By: Kevin Kerrane
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The Chicago Cubs
- Story of a Curse
- By: Rich Cohen
- Narrated by: Adam Grupper
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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For Rich Cohen and millions of other fans, the Chicago Cubs have always been more than a team: they've been the protagonists of a King Arthur epic, in search of the Holy Grail that is winning the World Series. A chronicle of the last few miraculous seasons as experienced through the prism of Cubs history, The Chicago Cubs tracks the famous curse, which was placed on the team in 1945 by the infamous owner of the Billy Goat Tavern, who was ejected from Wrigley Field when he tried to bring his goat into the grandstand for the fifth game of the World Series.
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just listen and it all happens again
- By Z. Kuhn on 10-28-17
By: Rich Cohen