Shakespeare References in Mind Game

Mind Game: How The Boston Red Sox Got Smart, Won A World Series, And Created A New Blueprint For Winning contains a few Shakespeare references. The first comes on the first page of the acknowledgments. Editor Steven Goldman writes, "Not only did Jonah Keri contribute three chapters, despite having just finished his own grueling work as co-editor of Baseball Prospectus 2005, but he acted as Horatio to my Hamlet (or maybe that's Jester to my Lear), offering assistance, guidance, sagacity, and even some tough love at key moments" (p. vii). Then on the first page of the first chapter there is another Shakespeare reference: "The White Sox have not only waited longer, but carry a burden of a tragedy worthy of Shakespeare, that of the manipulated, manipulating Black Sox of 1919" (p. 1). There is also a reference to The Tempest: "Since 2000, however, there has been a sea change in pitchers' workloads" (p. 86). The phrase "sea change" comes from Ariel's song, in which he sings, "Nothing of him that doth fade/But doth suffer a sea change." The final reference is to Falstaff's famous line from The First Part Of King Henry The Fourth: "On a rational basis, though, with millions and millions of dollars at stake, another eighty-six games to run in the schedule, and the Yankees nearly certain of a return to the postseason, a little discretion can buy a lot of later valor" (p. 156). Falstaff says, "The better part of valor is discretion, in the which better part I have saved my life."

This book was published in 2005.