There's a danger in breaking something down to smaller and smaller levels. You could lose the beauty of the whole. Wrigley Field is a site to behold; a bolt helping hold down a box seat less so. In baseball, there's something to be said about the simplicity of the batter / pitcher confrontation. As Thomas Boswell remarked some time ago (very loosely paraphrasing here), in football, after a game, when a coach is asked what went wrong, the answer is too often, "We won't know for sure until we check the tape." In baseball, the answer is, "Ryan's curveball was breaking and our knees were buckling," or "We made some bad pitches and they hit the ball out of the park; see you tomorrow."

But it is possible to break down the game of baseball -- to see the physics, the strategy, and the preparation -- and retain the beauty of the whole, because the details themselves are inherently interesting. Charles Euchner does this in his fine book, The Last Nine Innings, a story of the details of baseball told through the lens of Game 7 of the 2001 World Series, an instant classic game in an instant classic series.

The book covers the speed and physics of the game, player training regimens (Steve Finley's is fascinating), in-game strategy (including taking early risks in a game, game calling by catchers, and manager v. manager strategy), different batting stances, the advances of sabermetrics, veteran virtue, specialization, dominating pitchers, the influx of foreign players, and that bane of preparation, chance. All the while, the book takes us from start to finish in a compelling re-telling of something worth re-telling, of one of the greatest games ever played, including many interviews of the players involved.

Chapter one's explanation of the speed of the game -- just how much happens in such a short period of time -- is particularly interesting and gets the book off to a good start. Writes Euchner: "Baseball is called a 'game of inches,' but it's really a game of milliseconds and millimeters." Euchner explains how a batter has just two-tenths of a second to decide whether to swing or not. Explaining matters like this, The Last Nine Innings not only gives one an appreciation of the game and the players who play it, but of the human mind and the body it inhabits.

Euchner does have a tendency to show a bit too much deference to those he interviews. An obvious example exists in chapter two, where Euchner quotes Tim McCarver without skepticism saying, "Baserunning determines who wins games more than anything else" (emphasis added). Assuredly, that is not true. Nevertheless, throughout the book, in addition to bringing out the importance of managing, scouting, and talent, Euchner shows a solid grasp of sabermetrics and the contributions advanced statistics have made to the game.

Chapter fourteen contains a caution tale for those that slide head first, a discussion stemming from Danny Bautista's getting thrown out trying to stretch a double into a triple, sliding head first into third base, in the sixth inning. Not only does a head first slide increase the chance of injury, but Euchner writes about a 2002 study that suggests the increased friction of a head first slide and the slight hesitation of most players as they get ready to dive -- the fear of hitting a hard surface face down -- makes the head first slide slightly slower than a feet first slide.

A few current Cubs serve as discussion points in the book. In chapter eight, in a discussion on Matt Williams, Euchner writes about Williams's former manager in San Francisco, Dusty Baker:

Baker tried to improve his players' hitting by forgetting about hitting. Baker brought a boom box to the cage and played the role of a disc jockey. When the Giants were facing a power pitcher like Curt Shilling, Baker would play hard, driving music like AC/DC. When the Giants faced a finesse pitcher like Greg Maddux, he would play soft stuff, like 1970s oldies. Baker would play the songs he wanted the players to blend into their subconscious and then send them in to hit. Baker's strategy in the cage was to coax the players into grooving and swaying with the music.

We may have found the reason that Baker never got rid of Sammy Sosa's boom box.

Chapter ten is about the science of pitching. The American Sports Medicine Institute (AMSI), created by Dr. James Andrews, uses sophisticated techniques to capture and analyze pitching motions. Euchner writes:

Over the years, AMSI has identified fifty pitchers with superior form to use as a baseline for assessing other pitchers. The ideal motion puts as little strain as possible on the body and gives the pitcher the power and accuracy he needs to pitch at elite levels. The elite group includes [Roger] Clemens, Barry Zito, Mark Prior, and Jack McDowell. What makes the ASMI scientists sure that these pitchers have such ideal mechanics? To start, they succeed at the highest levels of the game year after year. Second, they have not broken down physically.

(Emphasis added.) Well, scratch Prior off that list. Or, at least we know that ideal mechanics will not prevent injuries.

There is much more in the The Last Nine Innings. Euchner spoke to the best sources, and it shows.

There are a few portions of the book that could have used a finer tooth comb in the proofreading (e.g., writing 4th inning instead of 3rd (p. 89), repeating sentences (p. 99), and saying leftfield instead of rightfield (p. 102)). But don't let those small problems get in your way of reading this well researched and enjoyable read, certain to increase your knowledge of the game.