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Brothers in Arms: Koufax, Kershaw, and the Dodgers’ Extraordinary Pitching Tradition
The Los Angeles Dodgers are one of the most storied franchises in all of sports, with enduring legacies both on and off the diamond. Chief among the hallmarks of the organization is an unparalleled pitching dominance; Dodger blue and white brings to mind brilliance on the mound and the Cy Young Awards that followed. In Brothers in Arms: Koufax, Kershaw, and the Dodgers’ Extraordinary Pitching Tradition, acclaimed Dodgers writer Jon Weisman explores the organization's rich pitching history, from Koufax and Drysdale to Valenzuela and Hershiser, to the sublime Clayton Kershaw. Weisman delves deep into this lineage of excellence, interviewing both the legends that toed the rubber and the teammates, coaches, and personalities that witnessed their genius.
384 pages, Paperback
Published May 1, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
October 25, 2019
I have been reading this book in short spurts for months. As the baseball season is now about to end, it is time to provide a review.
I am not a Dodgers fan…certainly not of the Los Angeles variety. Yet, I was taken with this book and its focus on the pitchers that helped shape the team over more than a century.
Here are some of the Dodgers greats:
Sandy Koufax
Don Drysdale
Dazzy Vance
Clayton Kershaw
Carl Erskine
Burleigh Grimes
Claude Osteen
Fernando Valenzuela
Johnny Podres
Orel Hershhiser
Preacher Roe
Don Newcombe
Ron Perranoski
Rube Marquard
Bob Welch
Jerry Reuss
This book covers them and many more. There are a lot of quotations, but I gather that many are not (for obvious reasons) based on personal interaction. Here are a few to give you the flavor of the author’s style:
"For an organization that was beginning to flex its pitching might, Erskine offered some muscle ready for development. “You don’t hear much people talk about a four-seam curve,” he says. “But the Dodgers taught a four-seam curveball. It’s the same principle as the four-seam fastball. If you throw a fastball with four-seams and tight rotation and you’ve got velocity, you get movement…And when you rotate a curveball with velocity, you get a tight rotation and a sharp break. So when I learned to throw the Dodgers’ four-seam curveball, the scouts jumped out of their skin.” “Then Mr. Rickey showed me an off-speed pitch, a four-seamer—think of that. All four [of my] pitches were four-seam and had good tight rotation, so you didn’t see any seams. You know, a lot of times you can pick out the slider because you can see the spiral, but with a full rotation on a fastball, curveball, change, they all looked alike.”
"After allowing four runs in one inning of the World Series opener, Erskine brushed it off like a sprinkle of dirt from his trousers, returning 48 hours later in Game 3 to set a new World Series record with 14 strikeouts in a 3–2 victory. “That had to be my best day ever in baseball, to do it against a team like the Yankees,” Erskine says. “But then, 10 years to the day, I was in the stands at Yankee Stadium as a retired player and watched Koufax, a teammate, get 15. So he took my record, but that wasn’t so bad because he was my teammate. And then I was in the stands in ’68 in Detroit when [Bob] Gibson got 17. So I got a baseball signed by Sandy with his record and Gibson on the other side with his record and me on the backside with my record. And the odd part about that was that all three of those dates are October 2: ’53, ’63, and ’68.”"
"In their hot-footed pursuit of an elusive championship, the Dodgers acquired and developed elite talent, but burned through it almost as fast as they gathered it….(The Dodgers had little understand of pitchers arm injuries)… "“I could name you guys that should’ve been superstars: Rex Barney—he threw so hard, Joe DiMaggio said at the ’49 World Series, ‘He threw harder than [Bob] Feller.’ Karl Spooner—Campy said, ‘Of all the pitchers I ever caught, Spooner was the fastest.’ And I could give you a list of guys. Erv Palica. Jack Banta. All great prospects with super, super abilities, but they hurt their shoulders and they never made it, or at least never made it significantly.” Yet in that period the Dodgers faced the Yankees in the World Series five times in nine years.
(Koufax and Drysdale) "Together, the pair of Hall of Famers struck out 4,882 batters, pitched 304 complete games, and spun 89 shutouts. At their new playground of Dodger Stadium, their ERA was 1.87. In the postseason, their ERA was 1.77."
Part of the author's thesis is that only in the more modern decades have the Dodgers been willing to listen to their ailing pitchers and provide them with substantial medical support. If you like facts, opinion, details, and trivia about players, in this case pitchers for the Dodgers, then you should like this book. As I said earlier, I am not a Dodgers fan, and I liked it just fine.
PS: In discussing both Koufax and Drysdale, there is a failure to note that, in the 1965 series between the Dodgers and the Twins, each of the seven games had a winning pitcher go the distance. That’s 7 complete games! Seven out of seven! If you are discussing pitching, you would think that would come up. 3.99*
I am not a Dodgers fan…certainly not of the Los Angeles variety. Yet, I was taken with this book and its focus on the pitchers that helped shape the team over more than a century.
Here are some of the Dodgers greats:
Sandy Koufax
Don Drysdale
Dazzy Vance
Clayton Kershaw
Carl Erskine
Burleigh Grimes
Claude Osteen
Fernando Valenzuela
Johnny Podres
Orel Hershhiser
Preacher Roe
Don Newcombe
Ron Perranoski
Rube Marquard
Bob Welch
Jerry Reuss
This book covers them and many more. There are a lot of quotations, but I gather that many are not (for obvious reasons) based on personal interaction. Here are a few to give you the flavor of the author’s style:
"For an organization that was beginning to flex its pitching might, Erskine offered some muscle ready for development. “You don’t hear much people talk about a four-seam curve,” he says. “But the Dodgers taught a four-seam curveball. It’s the same principle as the four-seam fastball. If you throw a fastball with four-seams and tight rotation and you’ve got velocity, you get movement…And when you rotate a curveball with velocity, you get a tight rotation and a sharp break. So when I learned to throw the Dodgers’ four-seam curveball, the scouts jumped out of their skin.” “Then Mr. Rickey showed me an off-speed pitch, a four-seamer—think of that. All four [of my] pitches were four-seam and had good tight rotation, so you didn’t see any seams. You know, a lot of times you can pick out the slider because you can see the spiral, but with a full rotation on a fastball, curveball, change, they all looked alike.”
"After allowing four runs in one inning of the World Series opener, Erskine brushed it off like a sprinkle of dirt from his trousers, returning 48 hours later in Game 3 to set a new World Series record with 14 strikeouts in a 3–2 victory. “That had to be my best day ever in baseball, to do it against a team like the Yankees,” Erskine says. “But then, 10 years to the day, I was in the stands at Yankee Stadium as a retired player and watched Koufax, a teammate, get 15. So he took my record, but that wasn’t so bad because he was my teammate. And then I was in the stands in ’68 in Detroit when [Bob] Gibson got 17. So I got a baseball signed by Sandy with his record and Gibson on the other side with his record and me on the backside with my record. And the odd part about that was that all three of those dates are October 2: ’53, ’63, and ’68.”"
"In their hot-footed pursuit of an elusive championship, the Dodgers acquired and developed elite talent, but burned through it almost as fast as they gathered it….(The Dodgers had little understand of pitchers arm injuries)… "“I could name you guys that should’ve been superstars: Rex Barney—he threw so hard, Joe DiMaggio said at the ’49 World Series, ‘He threw harder than [Bob] Feller.’ Karl Spooner—Campy said, ‘Of all the pitchers I ever caught, Spooner was the fastest.’ And I could give you a list of guys. Erv Palica. Jack Banta. All great prospects with super, super abilities, but they hurt their shoulders and they never made it, or at least never made it significantly.” Yet in that period the Dodgers faced the Yankees in the World Series five times in nine years.
(Koufax and Drysdale) "Together, the pair of Hall of Famers struck out 4,882 batters, pitched 304 complete games, and spun 89 shutouts. At their new playground of Dodger Stadium, their ERA was 1.87. In the postseason, their ERA was 1.77."
Part of the author's thesis is that only in the more modern decades have the Dodgers been willing to listen to their ailing pitchers and provide them with substantial medical support. If you like facts, opinion, details, and trivia about players, in this case pitchers for the Dodgers, then you should like this book. As I said earlier, I am not a Dodgers fan, and I liked it just fine.
PS: In discussing both Koufax and Drysdale, there is a failure to note that, in the 1965 series between the Dodgers and the Twins, each of the seven games had a winning pitcher go the distance. That’s 7 complete games! Seven out of seven! If you are discussing pitching, you would think that would come up. 3.99*
November 4, 2025
This is a very good exemplar of history as a series of thumbnail sketches, rather than history as a narrative. That's both a strength and a weakness.
The strength is that it gives the author a framework for just adding a few pages or paragraphs on a given pitcher without worrying about fitting it into an argument of some kind.
The weakness is that there's no argument, other than "wow, the Dodgers sure have had some amazing pitchers." What this means is that the book is ultimately just a series of chronologically organized sketches, some of which are (inevitably) more interesting than others. This isn't a terribly compelling presentation and makes the sketches seem kind of rote.
There could've been so much more. Is it clear that there is in fact a "pitching tradition" of the Dodgers, other than "have good pitchers"? What are the things that distinguish it from other teams? After all, every team knows that pitching is the backbone of championship clubs; specifically how and why have the Dodgers been different? Better scouting? Better instruction? Just plain better luck? For that matter, is it even clear that the Dodgers have actually had better pitching than other marquee franchises? (I'd imagine that some statistical legerdemain could've quantified the proposition to some extent.)
What do other teams think about the Dodgers' history of pitching prowess? Do they attribute it to luck, coaching, scouting, perhaps even the Dodger Stadium groundskeepers? Did Dodgers pitchers actually benefit from some groundskeeping funny business? On the one hand, teams long suspected that the Dodger Stadium mound was a bit higher than regulation; on the other hand, for many years the Dodger Stadium infield was notoriously tricky for infielders, owing to the addition of crushed brick to the infield dirt. The extra red looked glorious, but bad hops were more common.
This is another aspect of the story that goes unexamined: for thirty years Dodger Stadium was known as a "pitcher's park," with large swathes of foul territory and generous power alleys. The pitcher advantage of the park was eliminated several years ago when several rows of seats were added, though lazy writers & commentators (like ESPN's Buster Olney) continue to describe it as a pitcher's park. In reality, Dodger Stadium has been a fairly neutral park since the addition of the seats. Again, some statistical research could've been instructive: how did Dodgers pitchers perform on the road versus at home over the years? Was it a significant gap? Which teams have had the best pitching records on the road?
There are a couple of anecdotes that hint at the missed opportunities. There's a wonderful anecdote about Al Campanis trying to show the young Bob Welch how to throw a Sandy Koufax-style curve and a Johnny Podres-style changeup…despite the fact that Campanis had never been a pitcher and that his major-league career lasted all of 10 days. The really interesting part of that anecdote is the hint that there actually might have been some continuity in the way the Dodgers taught their young pitchers.
Surely the pitching coaches should've had their own chapter. While Weisman certainly credits the remarkable contributions of Red Adams and Rick Honeycutt, he doesn't tell us what made/makes them so good. Ron Perranoski is mentioned mostly in his role as a pitcher, and for some reason Dave Wallace isn't discussed at all.
Al Campanis once wrote a book entitled The Dodger Way to Play Baseball. I haven't read it in many years, but my recollection is that it spelled out specific things that the Dodgers did that made them somewhat different from other clubs. I was hoping that this book would amount to something like The Dodger Way to Pitch Baseball. It isn't, which is a lost opportunity. But it is very good at introducing you or reminding you about some of the extraordinary pitchers who've hurled that little white ball into the hearts of fans for decades.
The strength is that it gives the author a framework for just adding a few pages or paragraphs on a given pitcher without worrying about fitting it into an argument of some kind.
The weakness is that there's no argument, other than "wow, the Dodgers sure have had some amazing pitchers." What this means is that the book is ultimately just a series of chronologically organized sketches, some of which are (inevitably) more interesting than others. This isn't a terribly compelling presentation and makes the sketches seem kind of rote.
There could've been so much more. Is it clear that there is in fact a "pitching tradition" of the Dodgers, other than "have good pitchers"? What are the things that distinguish it from other teams? After all, every team knows that pitching is the backbone of championship clubs; specifically how and why have the Dodgers been different? Better scouting? Better instruction? Just plain better luck? For that matter, is it even clear that the Dodgers have actually had better pitching than other marquee franchises? (I'd imagine that some statistical legerdemain could've quantified the proposition to some extent.)
What do other teams think about the Dodgers' history of pitching prowess? Do they attribute it to luck, coaching, scouting, perhaps even the Dodger Stadium groundskeepers? Did Dodgers pitchers actually benefit from some groundskeeping funny business? On the one hand, teams long suspected that the Dodger Stadium mound was a bit higher than regulation; on the other hand, for many years the Dodger Stadium infield was notoriously tricky for infielders, owing to the addition of crushed brick to the infield dirt. The extra red looked glorious, but bad hops were more common.
This is another aspect of the story that goes unexamined: for thirty years Dodger Stadium was known as a "pitcher's park," with large swathes of foul territory and generous power alleys. The pitcher advantage of the park was eliminated several years ago when several rows of seats were added, though lazy writers & commentators (like ESPN's Buster Olney) continue to describe it as a pitcher's park. In reality, Dodger Stadium has been a fairly neutral park since the addition of the seats. Again, some statistical research could've been instructive: how did Dodgers pitchers perform on the road versus at home over the years? Was it a significant gap? Which teams have had the best pitching records on the road?
There are a couple of anecdotes that hint at the missed opportunities. There's a wonderful anecdote about Al Campanis trying to show the young Bob Welch how to throw a Sandy Koufax-style curve and a Johnny Podres-style changeup…despite the fact that Campanis had never been a pitcher and that his major-league career lasted all of 10 days. The really interesting part of that anecdote is the hint that there actually might have been some continuity in the way the Dodgers taught their young pitchers.
Surely the pitching coaches should've had their own chapter. While Weisman certainly credits the remarkable contributions of Red Adams and Rick Honeycutt, he doesn't tell us what made/makes them so good. Ron Perranoski is mentioned mostly in his role as a pitcher, and for some reason Dave Wallace isn't discussed at all.
Al Campanis once wrote a book entitled The Dodger Way to Play Baseball. I haven't read it in many years, but my recollection is that it spelled out specific things that the Dodgers did that made them somewhat different from other clubs. I was hoping that this book would amount to something like The Dodger Way to Pitch Baseball. It isn't, which is a lost opportunity. But it is very good at introducing you or reminding you about some of the extraordinary pitchers who've hurled that little white ball into the hearts of fans for decades.
July 11, 2021
Covers a select group of Dodger hurlers, from the 1920's through 2017 seasons. Highly recommended to Dodger fans. The author employed sabermetrics extensively. Covers starters and relievers. Very thorough.
August 16, 2018
I will give the book a good rating. Being a baseball fan and a Dodger fan. the book tells the story of the Dodger franchise and its history of great pitching.
And they have some great ones like of course Koufax, Drysdale, Fernando, and Kershaw.
Some very good ones, like Jerry Reuss, Don Newcombe, Bob Welch, Tommy John, and Andy Messersmith. Some overlooked stars, like Don Sutton, Claude Osteen, Carl Erskine, Bob Welch, Preacher Roe, and Burt Hooten.
And a entire slew of pitchers who were merely good. The Dodgers have been a dominant team for most of my life and the one constant thread has been good to great pitching.
And they have some great ones like of course Koufax, Drysdale, Fernando, and Kershaw.
Some very good ones, like Jerry Reuss, Don Newcombe, Bob Welch, Tommy John, and Andy Messersmith. Some overlooked stars, like Don Sutton, Claude Osteen, Carl Erskine, Bob Welch, Preacher Roe, and Burt Hooten.
And a entire slew of pitchers who were merely good. The Dodgers have been a dominant team for most of my life and the one constant thread has been good to great pitching.
March 9, 2020
Every year around spring training season, I gravitate towards baseball books. Perhaps it's because baseball hasn't had a huge presence in a few months, but I go down a rabbit hole of immersing myself with its history. I like anything about the Brooklyn Dodgers and Jackie Robinson in particular, but this was the first time I took it upon myself to read anything about pitchers exclusively. That was an education, and it was definitely rewarding. Starting out with some background, Weisman explains what led to the Dodger tradition of recruiting rookie pitchers and developing their talents within the organization. Then we go through the years, learning about the greatest pitchers in Dodgers history. I found the profiles on Don Newcombe and Sandy Koufax the most fascinating, though I learned a great deal about others I was less familiar with, such as Don Sutton and Preacher Roe. My greatest disappointment, though I can see why this was the case, was that the chapters on the later pitchers, specifically those from the late 80's to today, were much less comprehensive. I figure that there is much more information available from the lives of earlier pitchers, which they likely divulged in retrospect through interviews and autobiographies. I'll admit, there was jucier stuff on those guys. But I was also looking forward to learning more about the players I remember making an impact when I was younger: Hideo Nomo, Kevin Brown, Eric Gagne. Though informative, and somewhat enlightening, these chapters felt like they glossed over some of the personal touches that made the earlier ones more enjoyable. Then we get to Clayton Kershaw. Towards the end of the book there was an anticipation to where we all knew it was leading. It definitely culminated to a dramatic finish. I too felt excited to get there. However, as much as I enjoyed the final chapter, it felt lacking. There was hardly any information about Kershaw's pre-Dodgers beginnings, other than that he was a good athlete with promise, and the author didn't seem to go very deep into the inner workings of the pitcher's process, thoughts and feelings about his time in the organization. Published in 2018, the book ends with the result of the 2017 World Series against the Astros. There's certainly a great deal more that could be said since then, but I thought there would have been plenty more to mention about Kershaw's 10-year or so stint on the team besides all of his awards and stats. Other than those couple of things that made the book less than perfect for me, this really was a great read that I'd recommend to any baseball fan out there.
May 8, 2019
Since the very inception of Dodgers baseball (whether in Brooklyn or Los Angeles), much of their success has been built from some great moundsmen. From Don Newcombe to Sandy Koufax, or Fernando Valenzuela to Clayton Kershaw, the Dodgers have had a long line of top-flight starting pitchers. In "Brothers in Arms", author Jon Weisman takes a look at these many different eras of Dodger pitching.
Basically, the book is structured in chronological order. First are the hurlers of the Deadball Era, then come the guys from the many NL pennants of the 50s and 60s, with large sections devoted to Koufax & Don Drysdale. After that, Fernandomania and Don Sutton get some ink, as well as "hired hands" like Kevin Brown & Zack Greinke. After a chapter about relievers, the book concludes with a large section on current LA ace Clayton Kershaw.
"Brothers in Arms" walks the very fine line between being a narrative and a reference guide. To tend to prefer the former over the latter, but was impressed by Weisman's ability to function as a curator of both. There are a lot of names, dates, numbers, and informative sentences. Some of that inevitably gets glossed over unless one is conducting scholarly research with the data. On the other hand, though, Weisman weaves in just enough of a narrative (the franchise-long pitching dominance) that it doesn't necessarily feel like reading encyclopedic entries, either.
Overall, "Brothers in Arms" is a solid book for all Dodger fans and any baseball fan who enjoys reading about topics related to pitching. Besides a few interviews, the book contains little information that couldn't be curated from, say, BaseballReference.com, and Weisman offers little to no editorial opinions. At the same time, though, the stories of each player are engaging enough that it keeps the pages turning and the progression through history moving.
Basically, the book is structured in chronological order. First are the hurlers of the Deadball Era, then come the guys from the many NL pennants of the 50s and 60s, with large sections devoted to Koufax & Don Drysdale. After that, Fernandomania and Don Sutton get some ink, as well as "hired hands" like Kevin Brown & Zack Greinke. After a chapter about relievers, the book concludes with a large section on current LA ace Clayton Kershaw.
"Brothers in Arms" walks the very fine line between being a narrative and a reference guide. To tend to prefer the former over the latter, but was impressed by Weisman's ability to function as a curator of both. There are a lot of names, dates, numbers, and informative sentences. Some of that inevitably gets glossed over unless one is conducting scholarly research with the data. On the other hand, though, Weisman weaves in just enough of a narrative (the franchise-long pitching dominance) that it doesn't necessarily feel like reading encyclopedic entries, either.
Overall, "Brothers in Arms" is a solid book for all Dodger fans and any baseball fan who enjoys reading about topics related to pitching. Besides a few interviews, the book contains little information that couldn't be curated from, say, BaseballReference.com, and Weisman offers little to no editorial opinions. At the same time, though, the stories of each player are engaging enough that it keeps the pages turning and the progression through history moving.
April 27, 2021
While not a Dodgers fan, I appreciate the history of the game and there is no baseball franchise that has a more storied lineage than the Dodgers. The author does a spectacular job of tracing the franchises origins in Brooklyn, then telling the entire 100+ year history of the team on the rich stable of pitching aces. The two catalyst in this , Koufax and Kershaw--fittingly a pair of Ks--served as both the foundation and connection bridging the pitching tradition the Dodgers have forge for decades. I do hope the author eventually writes an epilouge/additional chapter describing LA winning its first World Series in 32 years this past autumn. It is obvious the author is a Didgers' fan, but he does an admirable job of staying objective and not going into fan boy mode. A few times I his passion for the team seeped through--which I liked. They say you write about what you want to read. I think this was obvious the case here.
June 23, 2021
This book is a nice idea but I really think it should’ve been paired down to the real, true blue, tried and true Dodger greats..of course there are a lot but do you really need to be adding space on guys like Chan Ho Park, Ismael Valdez, Bill Singer, Andy Messersmith….There ARE a lot of greats that have worn the Dodger blue but couldn’t you weave a better book together by doing it from say the guys on the ’55 team…Koufax, Drysdale, Sutton, Welch, Reuss, Fernando, Hersh, Nomo, Greinke, Kershaw…even then are too many. And why, for f**$*%$*&$&%*#)#*$ sake, is there a section on relievers??! Really. Tom “need a new ball” Niedenfuer? I think Jack Clark’s bomb just reached Diamond Bar. Jay Howell???? Good book. Good idea. Just needed to be much shorter with much fewer pitchers to tie the past (Koufax) to the present (Kershaw) with the greatness in between (Drysdale, Sutton, Fernando, Hersh, maybe 1 or 2 others). Also way heavy on statistics (ERA plus, WAR, etc.).
January 4, 2022
A joy to listen to: Dodgers pitching has truly had a storied history of unbelievable starters and pioneering reliving roles that makes this an amazingly entertaining baseball history from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. While I was of course more familiar with the Los Angeles days of Dodgers pitching (particularly the '60s Koufax-Drysdale days and the 1990s and 2010s with Nomo and Kershaw), it was enjoyable to see how the Brooklyn days were also flush with talented pitchers. Ditto to 1970s and '80s stars that I was generally unaware of, or at least not fully aware of. Plenty of nostalgia for the die-hard Dodgers fan and plenty of curiosities for the baseline baseball fan. A great chronological history, well-organized to keep it interesting start to finish.
May 24, 2018
This book is for fans of the Dodgers and/or fans of baseball history. I am a fan of both, but I'm not as educated in the breadth of historical figures as I'd like to be, so this was the book for me. I liked how Weisman grouped his subjects and traced the lineage of goods and greats from the earliest Brooklyn days to our modern treasures. His writing is direct, occasionally whimsical, and always sincere. It's still a little painful to read about 2017 (and the other near-misses of recent years), but it made me appreciate more how lucky we are as LAD fans.
September 21, 2023
not just for Dodger fans
This book takes you through the history of Dodgers pitching, from Brooklyn to LA. The book goes into detailed chapters of the best Dodger pitchers, but also gives short snippets on many others. For most pitchers, the chapter details the players career arc, focusing on their time in Dodger blue. Weisman, who thanks to hearing him on podcasts is the reason I bought the book, uses stats to support his theories, but does not overburden the reader with numbers. Weisman does a good job mixing in story telling with stats, making this a truly enjoyable read.
This book takes you through the history of Dodgers pitching, from Brooklyn to LA. The book goes into detailed chapters of the best Dodger pitchers, but also gives short snippets on many others. For most pitchers, the chapter details the players career arc, focusing on their time in Dodger blue. Weisman, who thanks to hearing him on podcasts is the reason I bought the book, uses stats to support his theories, but does not overburden the reader with numbers. Weisman does a good job mixing in story telling with stats, making this a truly enjoyable read.
July 13, 2018
Fantastic Detail
I am a Dodger fan--have been for the last 70 years. I knew much of the detail in the book, but I also learned a lot.
When I pitched to my father he called me "Little Newk." It broke my heart when I read of "Big Newks" problems.
Will Clayton best Sandy? Only time will tell.
I am a Dodger fan--have been for the last 70 years. I knew much of the detail in the book, but I also learned a lot.
When I pitched to my father he called me "Little Newk." It broke my heart when I read of "Big Newks" problems.
Will Clayton best Sandy? Only time will tell.
July 2, 2018
I've been reading Jon Wesiman's Dodger writing for years, and this book was outstanding. I loved the stories and the analysis and it was an awesome lens through which to read about Dodger history.
As a big Dodgers fan, this book is indispensable.
As a big Dodgers fan, this book is indispensable.
February 15, 2019
You should argue that the Dodgers, from Brooklyn to LA, have the best pitching tradition of any franchise in MLB history. And this book is a great view of every significant pitcher, from the early days of baseball to 2018. If you're a baseball fan, this is a must-read.
August 8, 2019
Must read for a Dodger fan
This book Chronicling the history of the Dodgers with a sharp focus on pitching. Excellent job of showing strengths and weaknesses, as well as medical and personal issues the players battled with. Get it today
This book Chronicling the history of the Dodgers with a sharp focus on pitching. Excellent job of showing strengths and weaknesses, as well as medical and personal issues the players battled with. Get it today
May 24, 2020
I am a huge fan of Sandy Koufax so when I stumbled upon this title I had to read it. My main complaint about it was the endless use of statistics and its attempt to include too many pitchers; it just made for a book that for me was too flat.
August 5, 2018
Definitely feel more connected to my favorite franchise more than ever. A must read
October 27, 2018
Fun read about the Dodgers’ history, focused on its pitchers over the years. Lots of interesting tidbits, about both the famous and overlooked players throughout the years.
August 19, 2020
Short, unconnected bios. 25 interviews conducted for the book and Kershaw wasn’t one of them. Probably worth it if you’re a huge Dodgers fan. I’m not.
April 9, 2022
Good listen on Audible. Vignettes of Dodger pitchers; some amazing performers and interesting stories.
Read
February 26, 2019A must read for any Dodger fan and those who are interested in baseball history. Recommended.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews