Watching Baseball

Book excerpt: The Boston Globe’s number-one bestseller is back, revised and updated for the 2008 season and presented in a new trim size. Jerry Remy’s name and face are already known to millions of fans. During baseball season 400,000 or more households tune in to listen to his broadcast of Red Sox games. But many learned to love him years ago when he was traded to the Sox, earning a trip to the 1978 All-Star Game in his first year with the team. Remy hit .278, scored eighty-seven runs, and stole thirty bases that season. Injured in 1984, Remy never played another game. In 1988 he began his work as an announcer, working color commentary for Red Sox broadcasts on NESN, a basic cable channel available throughout New England and by satellite across the country. In Watching Baseball Remy explains America’s favorite sport by going inside the minds of coaches and players to reveal the game within the game. He takes readers around the diamond, pointing out the positioning of infielders, what’s really going on during batting practice, how catchers and pitchers call a game, the difference between high cheese and a knuckler, and much more.