Sports Media Report
Jane Leavy has established herself as the preeminent baseball biographer with best sellers about the lives of legends Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle and Sandy Koufax. Now she takes the role of Commissioner of the game she loves and provides insights about how she believes America’s Pastime can become even greater.
Leavy’s latest book, Make Me Commissioner: I Know What’s Wrong with Baseball and How to Fix It, leans into her decades of covering the game and her well-informed views on what needs to change to ensure that baseball’s enduring legacy continues and thrives. You can find the full press release below. Publication date is September 9th.
Some fans struggle with how much the game has changed. Jane makes the case that while many of these changes have been good for the game, some have gone too far, while others have not gone far enough. Her deep dives into analytics, player injuries and fan engagement are presented with humor, insight and passion. From dozens of past and current MLB legends and insiders, to the Cape Cod Baseball League, the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference and the Savannah Bananas, Jane gathered and shares old-school wisdom, new school intelligence, and against-all-odds reasons to hold out hope for the future of the game she’s loved since childhood.
SOME HIGHLIGHT QUOTES:
Dusty Baker on baseball’s new rules: “Shee-it, it ain’t all fixed.”
Joe Torre on analytics: “They’re trying to make an imperfect game, perfect. I resent that.”
Morgan Sword, MLB executive vice president: “People don’t come to see velo. They come to see a story.”
J.P. Crawford, shortstop Seattle Mariners: “They’ve taken the beauty of the game away from baseball.”
Roger Angell, late baseball writer for the New Yorker: “I hate modern baseball.”
Buck Showalter, four-time manager of the year: “It’s just boring faster.”
