Baseball May Kill You

If you’re thinking about a trip to the ball park, you’d better have some good insurance. In their new book, Death at the Ballpark: A Comprehensive Study of Game-Related Fatalities, Robert Gorman and David Weeks chronicle 850 baseball-related deaths, listing them in reference-like fashion. You’d likely be shocked at just how many have been killed by balls to the heart, errant throws, lightning strikes, and other freak occurrences.

The authors say they’re trying to “raise awareness,” but they don’t offer any suggestions or even seem particularly outraged, says reviewer Jon Mooallem of Slate. If anything the book’s stories are often “weirdly moving,” given how many players get the out with their final breath. “We’ve managed to die on the diamond in so many crazy ways,” Mooalem says, “because it’s one of the places we’ve done the most living.” (More book reviews stories.)