Baseball is a very complicated sport. Every facet of the game from tagging up to stealing bases to intentional walks, has a recurring focal point—the duel between pitcher and batter—that lies at the heart of the game. This book like no other work on the market or any single website, explains the game from scratch, while also educating the reader as to the game's important place in American history and culture. The section explaining stolen bases, for example, is highlighted by Jackie Robinson's famous steal of home in the 1955 World Series, which sparks a discussion of baseball's segregated past. The section explaining the difference between a called strike and a swinging strike refers at length to the classic 19th century poem "Casey at the Bat" while a Seinfeld episode illustrates the difference between a hit and an error. The last section of the work puts the sport in context by introducing the reader to Major League baseball in a unique way: by walking the reader through one calendar year in the Majors, from the Hall of Fame voting in January to spring training all the way to the owner's Winter Meetings in December.