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As someone who has seen baseball in films and on tv for ages, and even been to a few games, well, there's a lot of basic stuff that I picked up just by sight. But when you talk with someone in the know, it's easy to get lost. That's where I was before this book. I'd collected the cards and seen the stats, but had no idea how good or bad any of it was or what they meant.

This book answered a LOT of those questions, and included formulas on how they figure them out.

The first chunk of the book is about game mechanics and how to improve your own play and make sure you do it right and safely. But the 2nd half is largely about the history, the rules and changes, stats configurations, how ball teams work, and much more. There's a lot of anecdotal asides from the author and his time in the league to elaborate some points, and it gives some needed context. I feel there's much in here if you wanted to be part of the conversation or at least get the gist of it. Worth reviewing... SO much lingo.

Let's face it... I'm sure there are dozens of authors who have simplified and translated the text of Marcus Aurelius, or done a thorough analysis of his work to interpret it just the right way. This version has a bunch of older, more classical English with the "thou" usage and all. I had to really clear my head and be in quiet places to finish reading this short work. Some of the extra parts of the book were essentially mini-bios of Marcus Aurelius ... or more accurately, the influences on him and the times he was part of.

There's a lot of wisdom in this book, some repetition and all... but as long as you remember it's basically some journaling that was meant only for the man himself to reflect on, and not something he meant to send to a publisher of his day, then it gets easier to see how these things go. It's a lot of little snippets and some deeper musings next to each other. I did find a lot to highlight and some ideas to keep in mind or come back to later.

I'll probably get another, more modern English translation the next time I tackle this (but I always keep the original I read so I can see how much I got right or how far off my interpretation was). Keeping for further study, but not a "for the hell of it" read.