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Month into baseball season good time for some good reads

The Chicago Cubs take their traveling road show east this weekend when they play the Boston Red Sox in a three-game series at Fenway Park.

This might be the interleague matchup of the season for many reasons: The Cubs are the defending world champions. Many are predicting the Red Sox to bounce back and meet the Cubs in the 2017 World Series.

And, of course, a Cubs trip to Boston is a homecoming for Cubs president Theo Epstein, general manager Jed Hoyer and scouting-and-player-development chief Jason McLeod.

The Cubs and Red Sox are joined in so many ways, including the approaches to winning championships. Those championships were authored largely by Epstein.

Speaking of authors, spring is the best time for baseball books, and we'll peruse two of them here, both of which should be of interest to Cubs fans.

If you're going to read any book about "the plan" Epstein and his crew undertook to make the Cubs champions in 2016, it should be "The Cubs Way," by Tom Verducci, the baseball writer from Sports Illustrated.

Verducci was given unprecedented access - the type of access any beat writer would love to have - as he chronicled the Cubs' way to a championship.

The book's chapters go back and forth between each of the seven games of last year's World Series and stories of "the plan" itself.

There is a color photo of manager Joe Maddon's lineup card from Game 7 with Maddon's various and quirky notations, including on that reads "DNBAFF." That one is definitely NSFW nor is it suitable for this newspaper, so you'll have to read the book.

Verducci is a gifted storyteller, and the unbridled access allowed him to flesh out the secret way Epstein and Co. scouted first baseman Anthony Rizzo for the Red Sox - they tried to throw off rival scouts by not watching Rizzo from the third-base side, which is where scouts can get a better look at a left-handed hitter.

As much as Epstein has earned his reputation as a GM and president who made use of advanced metrics, the theme running through "The Cubs Way" is that Epstein and Hoyer actively sought "character" people in addition to productive players on the field.

"Epstein wanted (scouting) reports that went on for pages, like the Russian novels his father had him read as a boy," one passage reads. "Epstein had to have this information. It wasn't hard, measurable data. But it was information nevertheless, and if Epstein was going to build a team around high-character, high-impact, position players, he wanted as much of it as possible."

Fear not, stat heads, if you love your numbers, "Smart Baseball" by Keith Law is for you.

Law, a senior writer for ESPN Insider, has been at the media forefront of baseball's statistical revolution.

The strength of this book is that it fits all the arguments and counterarguments of the new and old ways of thinking about baseball into one volume.

There is no doubt which side Law is on, and his stridency can be off-putting, as he repeatedly attacks old-school GMs and members of the media for being stuck on the notions that pitcher wins, batting average and RBI are illustrative stats.

Law also forcefully asserts that there is no such thing as a "clutch hitter." Clutch hitting, yes, but no clutch hitters. You'll want to dig into that chapter.

Law is right in many of his assertions, but in fairness to my brothers and sisters in the Baseball Writers Association of America, most of us have come around to the concepts of WAR, OBP, wOBA, OPS-plus and WHIP when it comes to filling out ballots for postseason awards and the Hall of Fame.

Not fully, but old ways die hard, but they are dying. And when you're a crusader like Law, you have to keep shouting from the mountaintop.

Here is where I wholeheartedly agree with Law as someone who has tried to weave sabermetrics into my stories without losing the casual reader: Understanding the newer stats of today makes it more fun and rewarding to follow baseball, not less.

Photo courtesy Harper CollinsSmart Baseball: The Story behind the Old Stats That Are Ruining the Game, the New Ones That Are Running It, and the Right Way to Think about Baseball, by Keith Law

Scouting report

Cubs vs. Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park

TV: Comcast SportsNet Friday; ABC 7 Saturday; ESPN Sunday

Radio: WSCR 670-AM

Pitching matchups: The Cubs' Jake Arrieta (3-0) vs. Drew Pomeranz (1-1) Friday at 6:10 p.m.; John Lackey (1-3) vs. Steven Wright (1-2) Saturday at 3:05 p.m.; Kyle Hendricks (2-1) vs. Eduardo Rodriguez (1-1) Sunday at 7:08 p.m.

At a glance: This is a matchup between two preseason favorites for postseason play and a possible World Series meeting. The Cubs last played at Fenway in 2014, sweeping the Red Sox in three. Arrieta flirted with a no-hitter in his start at Boston; he wound up pitching 7⅔ innings of 1-hit ball. The Cubs will miss former White Sox ace Chris Sale, who pitched Thursday night against the Yankees. Andrew Benintendi entered Thursday with a line of .347/.419/.440 for the Red Sox. Dustin Pedroia has been battling knee and ankle soreness. For the Cubs, Anthony Rizzo leads the team with 5 homers and 15 RBI. He has a line of .277/.400/.518. The Cubs were second in the NL in on-base percentage and fourth in runs entering Thursday's action. Kyle Schwarber is expected to be the DH for these interleague games.

Next: Philadelphia Phillies at Wrigley Field, Monday-Thursday

- Bruce Miles

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