Archive for FanGraphs Book Club

FanGraphs Book Club – The Shift

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November 19, 2018

Russell Carleton’s book earned wide praise within the industry, including from Sam Miller, Keith Law and Travis Sawchik.

Hi everyone! Welcome to the third live chat of the FanGraphs Book Club! We’ll get started talking Russell Carleton’s book, The Shift, at 9 pm ET, and Russell will join us at 9:30. That’ll give us all 30 minutes to talk about the book amongst ourselves, and line up some really great questions for him. So, I would say, don’t put questions in for Russell now, let’s save those until he logs on to the chat.

I hope you all are as excited as I am to talk baseball books! As a reminder, if you want to join our Facebook Group you can do so here.

Chat Transcript:

9:01
Paul Swydan: Hi everybody!
9:01
Paul Swydan: Doing some polls. How is everybody doing tonight?
9:02
Paul Swydan:

I finished ___% of the book.
0-19 (0% | 0 votes)
 
20-39 (12.5% | 1 vote)
 
40-59 (12.5% | 1 vote)
 
60-79 (0% | 0 votes)
 
80-99 (25.0% | 2 votes)
 
100!!! (50.0% | 4 votes)
 
What’s a book? (0% | 0 votes)
 
Total Votes: 8
9:03
Paul Swydan:

How will you be spending Thanksgiving?
Eating and drinking too much. (40.0% | 2 votes)
 
Avoiding family members. (0% | 0 votes)
 
Reading baseball books. (0% | 0 votes)
 
All of the above? (60.0% | 3 votes)
 
Total Votes: 5
9:05
Paul Swydan: So, OK, we’re talking about Russell’s book tonight. This is the first of the three books we’ve done for the Book Club that I didn’t review for THT. But I loved this book. My favorite part was how Russell weaved in personal stories.
9:06
Paul Swydan: I thought it kept the book grounded. It also had the trademark touches, sharp wit about what people get wrong about the book without being acidic or bitter.

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FanGraphs Book Club – Up, Up & Away

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September 17, 2018

Jonah Keri’s history of his boyhood team was a national bestseller.

Hi everyone! Welcome to the second live chat of the FanGraphs Book Club! We’ll get started at 9 pm ET, and Jonah will join us at 9:30. That’ll give us all 30 minutes to talk about the book amongst ourselves, and line up some really great questions for him. So, I would say, don’t put questions in for Jonah now, let’s save those until he logs on to the chat.

I hope you all are as excited as I am to talk baseball books! As a reminder, if you want to join our Facebook Group you can do so here.

Chat transcript:

9:02
Paul Swydan: Hi everybody!
9:02
Andrea’s Fault: What’s the best beer to go with this chat–and I hope it’s not just Labatt’s or Molson.
9:03
Paul Swydan: How about a Molson 5X? You know Canadian beer is like moonshine.
9:04
Paul Swydan: So, I’m excited to chat about this book! I remember getting an early copy of this book to review it for The Hardball Times. It was pretty thrilling.
9:05
Paul Swydan: “The Extra 2%” was a good book, but I sort of knew the broad strokes, having been in the sabermetric world for most of the success part of the story. But the Expos? I didn’t know much about the Expos before they wanted to acquire Casey Fossum for Pedro Martinez.
9:07
Gabe: This book is so good it’s in the curriculum for a class I’m taking on baseball in Canadian culture.

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FanGraphs Book Club – The Only Rule Is It Has To Work

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July 23, 2018

This fabulous collaborative effort from Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller was a New York Times bestseller.

Hi everyone! Welcome to the inaugural live chat of the FanGraphs Book Club! We’ll get started at 9 pm, and Ben and Sam will join us at 9:30. That’ll give us all 30 minutes to talk about the book amongst ourselves, and line up some really great questions for them. So, I would say, don’t put questions in for them now, let’s save those until they log on to the chat.

I hope you all are as excited as I am to talk baseball books! As a reminder, if you want to join our Facebook Group you can do so here.

Post chat addition:
I’ve already put a poll for next month. Find that poll here.
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Introducing the FanGraphs Book Club

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June 11, 2018

It’s been a long time. I shouldn’t have left you without a strong book to read to.

Hi, everybody. Opening up this tab really put a smile on my face today. To be honest, I was a bit surprised my login still worked. I would have figured Appelman would have quietly flixed that glitch. He didn’t though, so here I am!

Back in January, when I stepped away from the site, I expressed my desire to form the FanGraphs Book Club. Many of you seemed highly receptive to that idea. In the spirit of saving you a click, here’s what I said:

I should also note that I’m not leaving completely, hence the “For Now” in the title. I titled it as such because David Appelman has graciously agreed to let me start the FanGraphs Book Club. We won’t begin right away — I need to get the store open first — but hopefully around the start of the regular season, I will be back, with the goal of hosting a chat once every four-to-six weeks, on a particular baseball book that we’ll choose together. The idea is that we’ll pick a new baseball book ahead of time, and that book will be available for purchase through my store — in person and online — at a discounted rate. Hopefully, we can have a lot of fun with it, the same way we always have had in the FanGraphs After Dark chats.

OK, so the “around the start of the regular season” part didn’t quite work out. Turns out there’s a lot of work involved with running a bookstore — who knew!?!?! — but I’m ready now. I think. Let’s just pretend I am, OK? Deal? Deal.

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