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The Only Rule Is It Has to Work  By  cover art

The Only Rule Is It Has to Work

By: Ben Lindbergh, Sam Miller
Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne, John Pruden
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Publisher's summary

It's the ultimate in fantasy baseball: You get to pick the roster, set the lineup, and decide on strategies - with real players, in a real ballpark, in a real playoff race. That's what baseball analysts Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller got to do when an independent minor-league team in California, the Sonoma Stompers, offered them the chance to run its baseball operations according to the most advanced statistics.

We tag along as Lindbergh and Miller apply their number-crunching insights to all aspects of assembling and running a team, following one cardinal rule for judging each innovation they try: It has to work. We meet colorful figures like general manager Theo Fightmaster and boundary-breakers like the first openly gay player in professional baseball. Even José Canseco makes a cameo appearance.

Will their knowledge of numbers help Lindbergh and Miller bring the Stompers a championship, or will they fall on their faces? Will the team have a competitive advantage or is the sport's folk wisdom true after all? Will the players attract the attention of big-league scouts, or are they on a fast track to oblivion?

©2016 Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller (P)2016 Tantor

Critic reviews

"[F]un, breezy, and moving read." (Jonah Keri, author of Up, Up, and Away)

Featured Article: The Best Baseball Audiobooks of All Time


Ask any baseball fan and they'll tell you: some of their favorite sounds can only be heard at the ballpark—the smooth, satisfying pop of a catcher’s glove as a pitch hits its mark; the crack of a bat as it tears into a fastball, explosive and hopeful, drawing the crowd to their feet. Our list, a roundup of outstanding baseball audiobooks, offers a glimmer of that same ballpark magic with just a few of the greatest stories from our national pastime.

What listeners say about The Only Rule Is It Has to Work

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Narrarators have never watched baseball. Ever!

Any additional comments?

This is a great story about two statheads running a minor league ball club. There's only one small problem.

The two narrators and the audio engineers HAVE NEVER WATCHED A BASEBALL GAME IN THEIR LIVES.

On one occasion, they pronounced Vin Scully as Vin SCOLLY. On another, they pronounced Whitey Herzog as WHITNEY Herzog. They're both in the Hall of Fame.It's a great book and a good performance, but the occasional pronunciation snafus take away from the experience.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

I love baseball, but not a fan of this story

What disappointed you about The Only Rule Is It Has to Work?

Based on the introduction of the book I was really looking forward to the story. As someone who loves the game and enjoys other films and books such as Moneyball, I really found this book a let down.

The first couple chapters really pulled me in, but I found the the majority of the book was the struggle of not being able to implement any unique or "fun" changes. I quickly became bored mid-way through the book, especially with a number of tangential chapters written to describe particular player relationships.

For someone looking for a book on a unique way to see the game, and creatively trying to outsmart other teams in fresh ways, I wouldn't recommend spending the time to read through this one.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Great story, ruined by narration.

Narrator A sounds like a computer, or an AI simulation of a person, or someone who learned to speak English phonetically and does not understand the meaning of the words. Narrator B is a cartoon narrator reject.

Wonderful book; I wish I'd read it. The narration destroyed the joy inherent in this wonderful tale, detailing the fate of baseball dreams.

In the end, I listened to the whole thing. The story is fascinating. But I really wish the authors had just read it themselves...they're daily podcasters, after all.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A must-listen for fans of Effectively Wild

While it's a little disorienting to hear not-Ben and not-Sam reading their words, the narrators are quality and the story is great.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

fun story for any analyst

I don't know baseball well at all, I'm more of a basketball guy. However this book is really fun from an analysts perspective.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

My favorite baseball book ever.

From some of the great story tellers in media comes the story of what happens with the rubber theory of stats and optimal decisions meets the hard road of the actual landscape of baseball. Couldn't put it down.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

80 Grade Writing, 50 Grade Reading

“Whitney” Herzog
Vida (Vee-duh) Blue
Bruce Sutter (Suh-tur)
FB and CH

JuCo Johnny Forever

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Great story, perfect for baseball nerds

Really enjoyed this book as a fan of the game, baseball stat nerd/junkie, and fantasy aficianado. The audiobook performance was also quite good even with the dialogue.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great Book, Bad Performance

This is a very interesting book, I was on the edge of my seat and had to force myself not to look up the final record of the team before finishing the book. (Kinda like reading the last page first!) However, the experience was ruined a bit by the narrators who didn't bother to look up the pronunciation of various names and places. Still, recommended for anyone interested in minor league baseball or sabermetrics.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Not many nuts and bolts of Sabremetrics

Any additional comments?

I thought the book was mildly interesting, and as a very casual Sabremetrician, I really thought there'd be more of the nuts and bolts of that.

They more alluded to it than explained the different things they did - they went through the hassle of getting all the equipment they needed for games and then only in the most general terms did they explain how they used the data.

They were quite candid in the summary of the limitations and the failures they had during the season, and where, frankly, a manager's "gut" fared just as well or better than their data based ideas.

A fun book but if you're a hard core baseball quant, you won't find anything really new here.

If you're interested in a human interest story with baseball as the environment, it's pretty good.

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