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Friday, October 10, 2025

Review of "Winning Fixes Everything"

Just when I thought I couldn't learn anything new about the 2017 Houston Astros and the cheating scandal, along comes this book on my suggested reads.  So I try it, and like Mikey in the Life commercials, I liked it!  Here's my review. 


Title/Author:

“Winning Fixes Everything: How Baseball’s Brightest Minds Created Sports’ Biggest Mess” by Evan Drellich

Rating: 

5 of 5 stars (excellent)

Review:

Anyone with even a passing or casual knowledge of recent baseball history knows about the scandal involving the 2017 Houston Astros. Using television monitors and banging on trash cans, Houston batters were able to know what type of pitch was coming to them and used that advantage on their way to the championship.  However, there is much more about this scandal both before and after that World Series.  Evan Drellich, the reporter who first broke the story of the cheating by the Astros, has written an excellent book on the entire background of the club.

There isn’t a lot about the actual cheating by the Astros during the games in the book.  Instead, Drellich helps the reader understand why the Astros got to that point by examining the culture in both the locker room and the front office. It really started when owner Jim Crane hired Jeff Luhnow away from the St. Louis Cardinals as the general manager.  Luhnow also brought with him Sig Mejdal and together they built an extensive analytics department.  That was considered cutting edge at the time, despite the poor on-field record by the Astros.

Cutting also describes the economic principles of Luhnow as he brought in consultants from his former employer McKinsey.  The team operated on a shoestring budget but grew in analytics to the point of tanking 3 seasons to eventually win a championship.  It all worked, but as Drellich shows, it came at a huge cost.

What really struck me in this book was not so much the on-field records, play or even cheating by the Astros.  The entire culture around the team, while some of it was well-known, still was quite a shock to me while reading this. The most egregious of these was the treatment of women by Crane, Luhnow and assistant GM Brandon Taubman, who went so far to glorify the Astros signing a pitcher who had been charged with domestic violence.  Taubman did this in front of three female reporters, including one who wrote critical articles about the team signing that player. 

Drellich’s reporting and writing about this aspect of the team, as well as the fallout in future seasons for the Astros even as they continued to be a dominant force in the American League, is excellent.  He leaves nothing uncovered – even the controversy surrounding the penalties given to the Astros by baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred and the reasons why he acted as he did are well covered and explained.  This book is an excellent one on top of other good books on this team that have already been published.  What set this one above the others for me is the in-depth description of the entire culture inside the team, which was certainly NOT pretty.

Link: Winning Fixes Everything: How Baseball's Brightest Minds Created Sports' Biggest Mess: Drellich, Evan: 9780063049048: Amazon.com: Books


Monday, October 6, 2025

Review of "The American Game"

It took me longer than expected to finish this book on lacrosse, a sport in which I have become more interest the last few years and one in which it is hard to find books.  Therefore, my first review in October took longer, but I was glad I finished this book - here is my review of "The American Game." 


Title/Author:

“The American Game: History and Hope in the Country of Lacrosse” by S.L. Price

Rating: 

3 ½ of 5 stars (good)

Review:

The title of this book by S.L. Price, a long-time Sports Illustrated writer, is very appropriate for a book on the sport of lacrosse. While it is very well-known that Native Americans played the earliest known versions of the game, not much is known about their struggle to field their own team as a nation. That is just one of the topics Price covers about the sport in the book.

The Haudenosaunee (formerly Iroquois before taking back their original name) tried to enter Isreal for the 2018 world championships using their own passports instead of becoming part of the teams from the United States or Canada.  This caused several issues, but they eventually competed in the tournament.  The difficulties they faced is just one of several issues with the game that Price describes.

Other topics that are highlighted that trouble the sport is the lack of diversity, the lack of women in the sport, at least before Title IX was passed (it should be noted that Price does a really nice writeup of the recent state of women’s college lacrosse, including the fact that it is growing faster than the men’s game) and the “laxbro” attitude of the players who are mostly white, upper to upper middle class, and have a history of substance abuse. While it was very appropriate to include these topics, they were more of the focus of the book instead of the sport itself and for me, that was a disappointment. 

However, when Price did write about the game, whether the growth of the women’s game, the “medicine games” played by the indigenous players in its earliest days and is still done by them today or just recapping how some schools such as Johns Hopkins in Baltimore (men) or Northwestern University near Chicago (women) became powerhouses in the sport. While not at the level that a person who knows nothing about lacrosse would understand, Price’s text on actual game play and the positions are very good as well. 

My thoughts on this book, as one can probably tell, are very mixed. On the one hand, it has great information on the sport at various times in its history, albeit a little uneven as Price switches from one topic to another and back often.  Also as noted, the book did seem to concentrate on the hard issues of the sport instead of the beauty of the game.  Nonetheless, it is worth checking out if one wants to learn more about the sport of lacrosse.  

I wish to thank Atlantic Monthly Press for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are strictly my own.

Link: The American Game: History and Hope in the Country of Lacrosse - Kindle edition by Price, S. L.. Politics & Social Sciences Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.