It’s All About the Players

Hall of Fame baseball writer Peter Gammons dives deep into his encounters over the last six decades with the best in the sport, revealing a trove of behind-the-scenes stories about the fascinating and inspiring individuals at the heart of our national pastime.

Peter Gammons is the preeminent baseball writer of his generation. Born and raised in New England, Gammons was mentored by the revered basketball coach Dean Smith at the University of North Carolina. Smith told him that being a good listener was not only the key to journalism but to life—and Gammons has long taken that to heart. His early calling card was his Sunday notes column in the Boston Globe, which combined baseball and pop culture to deliver a weekly joyride through the sport. His story from Game 6 of the 1975 World Series is still considered the greatest game story ever written on deadline, and led to his hiring by Sports Illustrated in 1976. He moved to ESPN in 1990, becoming the first sportswriter the network ever put on TV.

Nearly every significant figure in the game has shared stories with Gammons. It’s All About the Players reveals what Gammons has learned from those greats about baseball and life. He details the emergence of Latin and Asian players in Major League Baseball and the symbiotic relationships between manager and general managers, catchers and pitchers, and second basemen and shortstops. He recalls his chance childhood meeting with Roger Maris as he was falling in love with baseball. He speaks to the marriage between rock n’ roll and baseball, and, yes, tells the story of how Ted Williams claimed he could smell the wood burning on his bat after smoking line drives to the outfield.

Now Gammons has put it all down on the page for baseball fans to treasure.

• "Baseball, more than any other, is a game of storytellers, and Peter Gammons is our Mark Twain, Aesop, and Stephen King rolled into one. Open this book to any page and you'll read a story that will make your heart soar. The title of this book is wonderful, but it's not all about the players. It's also about the special writers—none more special than Peter—who make those players come to life.”
  Joe Posnanski, author of Why We Love Baseball
• “Has anyone done more to elevate the appreciation of baseball than Peter Gammons? Chronicling the game with indefatigable insight and humor—to me, nothing was better than a full page of Gammons’ Sunday notes—he reinvented how the game was covered. It’s About the Players is a master’s joyful tribute to the essential characters of the sport he forever changed.”
  Jason Gay, Sports Columnist, The Wall Street Journal
• "Baseball might be all about the players, but it is also all about the gifted writers who tell their stories, and no one has a richer lifetime of baseball stories than the legendary Peter Gammons. This book is a treasure trove.” 
  David Maraniss, author of Clemente: The Grace and Passion of Baseball's Last Hero
• "What has long separated Peter Gammons’s work, as the greatest baseball writer, is his lifetime habit of looking for the good in people. This is reflected in all of the extraordinary stories he tells in It’s All About The Players, his homage to the sport he has covered better than anyone.” 
  Buster Olney, author of The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty
• “I have spent my professional life inside baseball’s decision-making rooms, where evaluations, strategy, data, and innovation rule the day. But none of it works unless you understand the people involved. Peter has taught me that lesson over sixty years in this game. It has always been about the players. And there’s never been anybody better at telling their stories than Peter Gammons.”
  Theo Epstein, from the Foreword
• “There’s only one Peter Gammons, the greatest baseball writer who ever lived. There are so many amazing stories in his head that he needed to write this book just to share them. But because it’s Peter, he took that storytelling to the next level that only he knew existed. No writer I’ve ever been around could see into the eyes and souls for the players the way Peter always has.” 
  Jayson Stark, from the Afterword