This is a powerful and exhaustive report from the pitchers who made hurling an art. Kepner calls on his deep background in sportswriting to talk with hundreds of players about the 10 essential pitches. With all of the changes in baseball's pitching strategies and practices, reading K is essential to knowing what's at the heart of the success of a staff. It's a dictionary and thesaurus of the language that makes those 108 stitches spin their way into the hearts of fans of all ages.

Kepner attempts to categorize the history and significance of the most prominent weapons in the arsenal of pitchers, both of today and yesteryear. He demonstrates a deep knowledge of the game, leaving no stone unturned and no great uninterviewed. For fans of pitching, specifically, this is a must-read, on par with Neyer and James, Angell, and Feinstein's fine work on the topic.

Baseball is a team game made up of individual battles, a series of one-on-one confrontations where one man throws a ball and the other attempts to hit it. Yes, the action evolves after that, but at its heart, baseball is about pitcher versus hitter.

The man at the plate has a weapon – his bat – and protection in the form of gloves, a helmet, perhaps some armor in the form of an arm guard or shin guard. The man on the mound has none of that. But he is not unarmed – he has the ball. And the ball can be a formidable weapon indeed.

That weapon is the focus of Tyler Kepner’s new book “K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches.” In it, the New York Times baseball writer digs deep into the myriad ways that players have tried to put the ball over the plate over the course of the game’s long history. It’s an exploration of one-half of that ever-present central conceit of hurler against striker.

Each of the 10 pitches – slider, fastball, curveball, knuckleball, splitter, screwball, sinker, changeup, spitball and cutter – is examined at length, with Kepler speaking to a number of pitchers and coaches (including close to two dozen Hall of Famers) while also drawing from the game’s considerable and thorough lore. He contextualizes each offering, sharing not just a pitch’s origins, but its evolution.

It’s curious that Kepner started with the slider; one would think that the fastball would come first. Even the catcher’s sign for it is one finger. But Kepner’s case is a simple and perfectly valid one – the slider was the best pitch of his childhood hero, Steve Carlton. And Carlton’s has a very good case to be the best ever. That personal connection makes for a wonderful introduction.

Next up – the fastball. The heater. The cheese. The pitch that most impresses in terms of raw, unflinching power. It’s a discussion of how the fastball is a distillation of the one-on-one nature of the pitcher’s journey. Guys like Nolan Ryan, Bob Feller, Walter Johnson – each was THE legendary arm of his generation. All blessed with the ability to rear back and let fly faster than anyone. There’s no weapon more effective than a well-placed fastball.

The curveball follows, looping its way into the narrative. This is another chapter where Kepner delights in the technical, talking with an assortment of folks about what it means to throw a good curveball. Whether it’s a slow 12-6 breaker or something a little tighter, there are few pitches more delightful to watch than a well-snapped curve – a karate chop with a ball, as the chapter’s subtitle states.

What follows is one of those few “more delightful than a curveball” pitches – the knuckleball. The knuckler was, is and always shall be the black sheep of the pitching world. More art than science, it’s a pitch that precious few have mastered. Its practitioners, a motley collection of shaggy-dog baseball weirdoes who have chosen to hitch their wagons to a spinless, stuttering star. This one is fun.

And so it goes throughout the book. Roger Craig and Bruce Sutter, the Johnny Appleseeds of the split-fingered fastball. The lost art of the screwball. Mariano Rivera’s omnipresent and devastating cutter. The messy mayhem that comes with spitballs and other ball-doctoring. The once-mighty sinker’s slow fade in the age of swing angle elevation. The gentle majesty and subtle trickery of the changeup. It’s all here.

“K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches” delivers exactly what its title promises. It is a fascinating deconstruction of the nature of pitching by those men who did it best. It is a cross-section of the game’s history, showing us the ebb and flow of the craft and how pitches have come into and fallen out of favor over the years.

Kepner’s passion for the game permeates the narrative he has constructed. The book offers intricate detail mixed with stories of the game – he blends the tangible notions of grips and spin rates and throwing motions with the ethereal myths of baseball’s bygone legends. It’s a combination that serves to elevate each element, a rich and engaging reading experience for any true fan.

An immaculate inning is when a pitcher strikes out the side on nine pitches. Kepner gives us 10 – perhaps a curveball bounced or a cutter at the hands was fouled off or a knuckler wandered away – but what we get is certainly immaculate. One swing and a miss is merely a strike, but 10 swings and misses equal one fascinating “K.”

If you enjoyed The Arm by Jeff Passan, you'll love this book! A low scoring baseball game may be considered boring to some, but not to those baseball fans that appreciate a pitcher's duel. This book covers the most popular pitches in the game, reveling in their nastiness and those who throw them best. This is a must-read for every hardcore baseball fan!

It would seem that Tyler Kepner has been doing some work on the side for the past several years, and I'm not talking about trying to perfect his curve ball.

The New York Times national baseball writer has done a variety of stories in that time on many different subjects. But it seems that when he had the opportunity to talk to a pitcher about the various types of pitches, he jumped on it .Multiply that by a few hundred interviews, and you have the makings of a book. Then throw in plenty of research on the subject, and some time to put it together, and you have that book.

It is called "K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches." It probably sounds by that earlier description as if Kepner knew what he was doing, and reading the actual book will back up that claim.

You probably didn't realize there were 10 different pitches out there. After all, most pitchers use three at most. Let's count them off, in order of their appearance in the book. There's the slider, fastball, curveball, knuckleball, splitter, screwball, sinker, changeup, spitball and cutter.

All of these pitches didn't appear on the scene at once, of course. Certainly the game started with the fastball, and then someone in the 1800s threw a pitch that curved to fool the batter. (It's tough to resist a book that includes references to Candy Cummings from that era, a man who may not have invented the curveball but who certainly helped perfect it by all accounts). Then came the variations. Pitchers threw a slightly slower fastball with a bit of break to create the slider. A really slow fastball became the change-of-pace, or changeup. The splitter is wedged between two fingers, and drops suddenly as it nears the plate. The cutter is a fastball with a different grip, so that the ball makes a sudden horizontal turn.

No one masters all of these pitches. What's more, if you aren't really good at throwing them on the major league level, some baseballs will be deposited in the bleachers rather quickly.

We hear stories and voices of the best pitchers of their generations here. Pedro Martinez, Madison Bumgarner, Mariano Rivera, Gaylord Perry, Greg Maddux, Roy Halladay, Tug McGraw, Charlie Hough, Trevor Hoffman and Bruce Sutter all come up in the text. It is interesting just how many pitchers learned a new pitch at some point in their careers, and suddenly they were much more effective. Rivera might be the best example of that; he was fooling around in a game of catch when an altered grip changed the flight pattern of the baseball drastically. Before long, he had a cutter that was essentially unhittable for almost 20 years. It made him the first unanimous choice for the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Admittedly, this is a book for people who are good-sized fans of learning how the game of baseball is actually played. It's very specific and detailed in that area, and a few people no doubt are going to be overwhelmed by all of this information. Still, the subject is handled as well as it can be.

There's little doubt that "K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches" is going to pick up some awards at the end of the year, and it's a worthwhile read as another season gets started. And if you have a current or former pitcher on your gift list, by all means pick this up for him.

this wonderful book is a perfect example of what all great writing about baseball should be -- talking baseball. That's what baseball people and serious fans call it. It explains that wonderful combination of memories, stories about players and games, and quotes that makes for a mix that is thrilling to hear or in this case, to read.

Kepner is a life-long student of baseball, as a professional baseball writer he's in a unique position to talk to players (past and present), coaches, scouts, umpires, and managers about ten types of pitches that have defined the game since the late 1800's. Some of these pitches aren't thrown much any more (screwball), some are illegal (spitball), and some are fairly new (cutter), but the stories about them are great. Not only did I find the chapters thrilling, for the first time ever I got insight into how a pitcher pitches, something that has eluded me.

I loved this book so much I wish it could have gone on an on.

New York Times national baseball writer Tyler Kepner delivers a treat for the start of baseball season with his new book, K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches.

Kepner's book is a tale of baseball history from the pitcher's mound, using an assortment of the pitcher's familiar weapons as his themes for each chapter. As the subtitle implies, there are ten pitches examined- slider, fastball, curveball, change up, sinker, screwball, split-fingered fastball, cutter, knuckleball, and even the spitball.

Each chapter provides the history of the pitch, its development, and how it has wandered in and out of vogue over the course of the game's history. He provides basic instructions on how to successfully throw each pitch, outlines why the pitches are effective or can become troublesome, and spends time outlining some of the most prominent and effective practitioners of each pitch.

Kepner has a deep and wide list of contacts in the game, and he exploits this asset to great effect in the book. Barely a page goes by that the narrative isn't enhanced by direct quotes from names throughout the last fifty years of baseball history. Kepner even manages to get the ultra-media shy Steve Carlton to open up on the record about his famous slider.

The chapter- a- pitch structure keeps things organized and moving, and Kepner's prose and storytelling are top notch. Overall, K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches will be a welcome addition to the library of any baseball fan. Highly recommended.

Thanks to NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

In order to be a successful pitcher in Major League Baseball, it is highly recommended that a pitcher has more than one type of pitch he uses to consistently get batters out. Through the history of the game, ten pitches have been used most frequently and a discussion on each one of them is the basis of this excellent book by Tyler Kepner.

Pitches that are popular in today’s game, such as the fastball, cutter and slider, as well as pitches that are now phased out or given a new name, such as a screwball or splitter, are all discussed. Everything about a particular pitch is discussed. Kepner’s thorough research is on display each time he writes about pitchers in the early history of the game who threw the pitch being discussed without it being called the current name. Interviews with pitchers who threw the pitch with much success, such as Sandy Koufax and Bert Blyleven on the curveball chapter, add valuable insight into the specific pitch as well.

However, what really made this book a joy to read was the smooth and easy flow this book takes. The writing is outstanding in that it keeps that balance that a non-fan who wants to learn about pitching can do so without feeling overwhelmed, yet it is technical enough so that hard-core fans are not bored or disappointed because it is too simple for their tastes. Humor is spread throughout the book, both from pitchers being interviewed and the author himself. The information is also thorough since pitches that are no longer used or legal (such as the spitball), there isn’t an era, pitch or pitcher that isn’t covered.

No matter what level of fan a reader is or what is his or her favorite era of the game, this book is one that should be added to the collection of baseball books. If pitching is supposedly 90% of the game, then every baseball fan needs to read this to be informed of that 90%.

I wish to thank Doubleday Books for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I like reading books about baseball, but there really isn't too much about the game itself that end up being new or interesting. However, this book took something I already know something about and expanded on it in a way that was new and exciting. Each chapter is about a different type of pitch that can be done in the game of baseball. Throughout each chapter, the author talks to some of the pitchers who excelled at and were known for that pitch as well as some of the hitters who faced them. This was really interesting and the different types of pitches and what you can do with them is not something I usually think or read about, so I liked that this book gave me some more insight. The author also did his homework and it was really great to see how many pitchers and hitters he was able to include in each chapter.

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review. I was not otherwise compensated. This book is scheduled to be released on April 2, 2019 from Doubleday Books.

I am a huge baseball fan! I enjoyed the history and anecdotes included in this book. It is well researched and written.
I highly recommend this book to any baseball fan (or non-baseball fan).