num_pages: 224
description: Longlisted for the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports WritingThe lively and fascinating story of baseballs 150-year hunt for the perfect pitchIn August 2012 Felix Hernandez of the Seattle Mariners pitched a perfect game against the Tampa Bay Rays in what Terry McDermott calls one of the greatest exhibitions of off-speed pitches ever put on. For McDermott a lifelong fan and student of baseball the extraordinary events of that afternoon inspired this incisive meditation on the art of pitching.Within the framework of Hernandezs historic achievement Off Speed provides a vibrant narrative of the history and evolution of pitching combining baseball's rich tradition of folklore with the wealth of new metrics from a growing legion of statisticians who are transforming the way we think about the game. Off Speed is also the personal story of a fans steadfast devotion first kindled in McDermott by his father at the local diamond in small-town Iowa and now carried forward with the same passion by his own daughters.Approaching his subject with the love every fan brings to the park and the expertise of a probing journalist McDermott explores with irrepressible curiosity the science and the romance of baseball.
language: English
title: Off Speed: Baseball, Pitching, and the Art of Deception
publisher: Pantheon