K: A History of Baseball in 10 Pitches

Detailing the history of baseball’s 10 most common pitches, Kepner chronicles the national pastime’s evolution from its 19th-century beginnings, when pitchers could throw “nearly 700” innings in a season, to today’s modern game that focuses on spin rates and sees most Tommy John elbow ligament surgeries performed on teenagers. Kepner focuses on pitching because “pitches are the DNA of baseball” and “the pitcher controls everything.” As the national baseball writer for the New York Times, he’s had the opportunity to talk about the slider with his childhood idol Steve Carlton, the fastball with Nolan Ryan, and the changeup with Pedro Martinez—all to uncover the mindset of players he says are “part boxer and part magician.” Using interviews and extensive research, Kepner not only discovers the origins and evolutions of these and other pitches, like the curveball (discovered in 1867, “when [W.A.] Cummings was the amateur ace of the Brooklyn Stars”), knuckleball, and spitball, but he also shines a microscope on how pitches captured championships or ended lives, as with the fastball that killed Cleveland Indians shortstop Ray Chapman in 1920. Kepner puts a new spin on baseball’s history that will have even the most avid fans entertained as they learn something new in each chapter. (Apr.)