Aces: The Last Season on the Mound with the Oakland A's Big Three: Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, and Barry Zito

by Mychael Urban

Book Overview

Written by a veteran Bay Area sportswriter with the full cooperation of all three pitchers, 'Aces' explores the art of pitching by taking readers inside the pitchers' very different minds during critical games & revealing what really goes on in the dugout, at the clubhouse, & off the field.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471763160
• ISBN13: 9780471763161
• Release Date: April 2006
• Publisher: Trade Paper Press
• Length: 306 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.2" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Some kind of monster....

This book is awesome. It goes deep into the minds of these "Big Three", as pitchers and people. Through early season bullpen woes, to the dogdays of summer, to their slim loss of the division lead in the end of the season. The pitchers minds are dissected, from Zito's quirkiness and tendency to get too deep into his thoughts, to Mulder's calmness, to Hudson's aggressive "bulldog" mentality. This book is for anyone who loves sports, espessialy baseball, and anyone who respects the A's dominant run through the early 2000's. It is masterfully written, and a beautiful recount of, not only the "big three" we have grown to love, but the 2005 season, and the A's playoff hopes. It shows the breakdown off a pitchers mind before his start, and the other 4 days in between, and how these supposed "super humans" are just people. Mychael Urban's quick wit, and smooth style of writing make this memoir much more than just the report on each game's happenings, and make it into something special to share and read.

Great insight into the minds of 3 very good pitchers

Aces is a great insight into the minds of three very good pitchers who have different personalities. Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder and Barry Zito are known as the Big Three, three fantastic young pitchers on the Oakland A's staff. This book, by a daily newspaper beat writer, covers the three pitchers through the season. Although its about the A's, and Billy Beane wrote the foreward, its not like the famous book by Michael Lewis, Moneyball, at all. There's little in it about Beane's approach to baseball, except how the Big 3 feel about the A's lack of spending money. They aren't happy about not bringing in free agent talent due to their limited funds. The book goes through the mental aspects of the game, how Mulder and Zito both dealt with failure at different points in the season. Mulder had a great start but faltered in the 2nd half of the season, while Zito had a bad start but pitched well in the latter part of the season. After reading this book, its hard not to root for these three pitchers, even though they pitch for three different teams now. Urban did a great job.

A true inside look

Urban's look inside the Big Three is well done and entertaining, even for the non-baseball junkie. If you're looking for more detailed insight on how a splitter is thrown, you may want to buy Tom Emmanski's videos, but if you want to know what's inside the heads of these guys while on the mound and in the dugout, as well as what it's truly like to be a big leaguer, look no further. He takes the reader through the flow of the season, but doesn't bog them down with the details of every game, all while explaining the emotions, relationships and interactions that happen on the team bus, in the clubhouse and at the watering holes where these guys hang out.

even a yankee fan enjoyed it

i've never been much of a fan of the a's--beyond having some of them on my fantasy teams--but i am interested in pitching, so i found myself tasting it via the search function. it got to the point that i was so engrossed, that i had to buy it. it's an interesting story that lets you better understand the the strategy of pitching, as well as lets you understand that characters of pitchers. i've recommended it to my friends, too.