Baseball's Endangered Species - by Lee Lowenfish (Hardcover)

About the Book

Baseball's Endangered Species is a comprehensive look at professional baseball scouting from the postwar era to the present day.

Book Synopsis

Named a Best Baseball Book of 2023 by Sports Collectors Digest

Scouting has been called pro baseball's personalized way of renewing itself from year to year and a pathway to the game's past. It takes a very special person to be a baseball scout: normal family life is out of the question because travel is a constant companion. Yet for those with the genuine calling for it, there could be no other life. Hearing the special thwack off the bat that indicates a raw prospect may be the real deal is the dream that keeps true scouts going. Scouts have the difficult task of not only discovering and signing new players but envisioning the trajectory of raw talent into the future. But the place of the traditional scout has become increasingly dire.

In 2016 Major League Baseball eliminated the MLB Scouting Bureau that had been created in the 1970s to augment the regular scouting staffs of individual teams. On the eve of the 2017 playoffs that saw the Houston Astros crowned as World Series champions, the team dismissed ten professional scouts and by 2019 halved the number of all their scouts to less than twenty. More and more teams are replacing their experienced talent hunters with people versed in digital video and analytics but who have limited field knowledge of the game, driven by the Moneyball-inspired trend to favor analytics, data, and algorithms over instinct and observation.

In Baseball's Endangered Species Lee Lowenfish explores in-depth how scouting has been affected by the surging use of metrics along with other changes in modern baseball business history: expansion of the Major Leagues in 1961 and 1962, the introduction of the amateur free agent draft in 1965, and the coming of Major League free agency after the 1976 season. With an approach that is part historical, biographical, and oral history, Baseball's Endangered Species is a comprehensive look at the scouting profession and the tradition of hands-on evaluation. At a time when baseball is drenched with statistics, many of them redundant or of questionable value, Lowenfish explores through the eyes and ears of scouts the vital question of "makeup" how a player copes with failure, baseball's essential, painful truth.

Review Quotes

"If you've ever had the hankering to spend some time chewing the cud with the old-timers who traveled the highways and byways of America and beyond to find the ballplayers you've watched on television since you were a kid, here's the book for you."--Mitchell Nathanson, NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture

"Baseball's Endangered Species is a book I can heartily recommend to all serious students of the game. The major contributions scouts have made to the game have been neglected for far too long. Lee Lowenfish has done his part to correct this glaring oversight."--Gary Livacari, baseballhistorycomesalive.com-- (12/11/2023 12:00:00 AM)

"Three cheers for SABR member Lowenfish. Even before opening this book, just by the volume's cover I knew it would be a comprehensive and enjoyable study of scouts."--SABR Southern New England Newsletter

"This book is filed with great stories, great history, and so much more. Everyone who reads this book will learn things about the game that they never knew before."--Paul Semendinger, Start Spreading the News blog-- (5/19/2023 12:00:00 AM)

"From the Ferocious Gentleman, Branch Rickey, the greatest scout in baseball history, to the Four Corners Scout and his three oil changes every calendar year, who better than Lee Lowenfish to write about those who have always been at the heart of our game, unfailingly dedicated yet mostly unseen. Thanks to his passion for baseball and understanding of its history, Lee happily tells their stories."--Joe Maddon, former Major League Baseball manager

"Shining through this book is a pure love of baseball--not only in the scouts' devotion to finding talent but in the author's ardent research and affectionate writing. The gift that Lee Lowenfish gives to his readers is really an act of homage to the game itself."--Kevin Kerrane, author of Dollar Sign on the Muscle: The World of Baseball Scouting

"Lee Lowenfish has always been thorough and insightful in his writing, and his latest book is no exception. There may not be any scouts in the Hall of Fame--but being included in this book is an accolade for them as individuals and for their profession."--Marty Appel, Yankees historian and author of Munson: The Life and Death of a Yankee Captain

"A most informative and entertaining book. . . . Lowenfish tells the [stories of greater- and lesser-known scouts] with equal appreciation of what they mean to the game. His ability to detail the personal side of the scouts and the players they pursue--and why they pursue them--is a pleasure to read. It is a master class by a master author."--Lyle Spatz, coauthor of 1921: The Yankees, the Giants, and the Battle for Baseball Supremacy in New York

"Scouts are like the blues musicians of baseball, whose stories reveal the heart of the game. Lee Lowenfish has dug deeply to bring these tales back to life."--Dusty Baker, manager of the Houston Astros

"Serious fans and students of the game will appreciate this account of the history and current fortunes of the art of scouting baseball talent. Well told by a deeply knowledgeable writer in a conversational style reminiscent of the late Roger Angell."--Jean Hastings Ardell, coauthor of Making My Pitch: A Woman's Baseball Odyssey

About the Author

Lee Lowenfish is a freelance writer and cultural historian. He is the author of Branch Rickey: Baseball's Ferocious Gentleman (Bison Books, 2009) and The Imperfect Diamond: A History of Baseball's Labor Wars (Bison Books, 2010). He lives in New York City.