Getting in the Game: Inside Baseball's Winter Meetings Review

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(More customer reviews)Josh Lewin is the regular play-by-play broadcaster for the Texas Rangers. This past fall, he put out a book called "Getting in the Game: Inside Baseball's Winter Meetings". This is the story of both the outside and inside of some folks trying to break into baseball to follow a dream. It deals with how some kids (and not kids) try to get broadcasting, mascot jobs, or just about anything with a minor league team.
That sound boring? It's not. The book has a nice sense of humour about it, and there's some wonderfully funny stories about what goes on at these things (I loved the potato story a lot, as well as numerous others). Josh Lewin has a very entertaining way of broadcasting baseball games, and he seems to have tied up several stories regarding how to break in, how those who hire do the hiring, and the tribulations of some job seekers rushing all over themselves to get low paying or even no paying jobs, just to say they have a job in baseball.
If there's one criticism of the book, it's that I found it hard to follow sometimes where things were going. This isn't a fiction, so things aren't going to always be neatly in a row - but I got confused sometimes as to who was who in terms of the job seekers. But that's a minor quibble, it might just be me not paying attention well enough.
A nice bonus to me was some talk with Dave Raymond, the man who originated the Philly Phanatic character. As I'm from Philadelphia, and grew up with the Phanatic, it was nice to hear some stuff from Mr. Raymond. It's not like he's the main crux of the book (far from it), but it was nice to see him pop up here.
If you like to follow the inner workings of baseball, you're sure to love this book. If you're the kind of casual baseball fan who has trouble watching the game on TV, or when they're at the park gets more worked up going for beer and hot dogs, this might not be for you, then.

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Baseball's winter meetings have never before been captured from the inside-set against the backdrop of big league owners, executives, and players surrounded by money and beat writers-with everyone pushing to get a little attention, wealth, or talent. Rumors fly, journalists jabber, cameras flash as everyone tries to figure out what's going on inside the halls of the Opryland Hotel.Written by an insider who started on the outside, Getting in the Game takes the reader inside the scramble to get a job in the baseball industry by following the stories of three job seekers hoping to break into the game as announcers, front office staff, or anything they can get. Lewin also probes the motivations and perspectives of three baseball executives looking to hire new employees as they sort through the piles of résumés, tapes, and CDs to get down to their short lists of prospective candidates.Told in a real-time diary format, Lewin occasionally breaks from the action to explain some of the back stories everyone on the inside already knows: How did minor league baseball go from minor league to big business? What's going on in the various seminars? Lewin also interviews a few baseball lifers, pays a visit to the Winter Meetings Trade Show (where teams pick their tchotchkes for their summer giveaways), and tells you about the secret lives of mascots.

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