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Painting the Corners Again: Off-Center Baseball Fiction
By Bob Weintraub. 2018
Painting the Corners Again is Bob Weintraub’s second marvelous collection of baseball stories. It goes directly to the core of…
what America’s pastime does for us when we watch it being played on the field. Weintraub shows us that baseball has its heroes and its villains, and that they can reach into a person’s life and remain a part of us for the rest of our days. Told from varying perspectives, Painting the Corners Again offers the personal experiences of the baseball player, manager, general manager, coach, scout, owner, writer, broadcaster, and fan. Each story strives for its own sense of authenticity and is full of characters that we recognize and want to spend time with. In this collection, the author digs beyond the statistics and numbers that sometimes dominate our view of a sport and gets to the true humanity of baseball.Painting the Corners: A Collection of Off-Center Baseball Fiction
By Bob Weintraub. 2017
Bob Weintraub’s marvelous collection of baseball stories goes directly to the core of what the game does for us when…
we watch it being played on the field, and shows how its heroes and villains can reach into our lives and remain a part of us for the rest of our days. The stories are told from various perspectives, including those of the player, manager, general manager, coach, scout, owner, writer, broadcaster, and fan.In “Knuckleball,” a manager is beside himself when he can’t let his star knuckleball pitcher start the seventh game of the World Series because the only catcher he’s ever had in the big leagues suddenly goes down with an injury. The team from Alcatraz, in “The Way They Play Is Criminal,” has a bag full of dirty tricks waiting to spring on its San Quentin rivals, and it uses them all. A father on a college tour with his daughter happens upon the very same autographed baseball he saw a friend catch in Fenway Park’s bleachers thirty years earlier, and learns, in “The Autograph,” how a twist of fate has brought the friend together with the player who hit it. In these and other stories, now in paperback, Weintraub infuses baseball with humanity, originality, humor, and compassion, and raises the game to a new level of understanding and love.The Everything Kids' Baseball Book (Everything® Kids)
By Greg Jacobs. 2010
From the ballpark to the backyard and beyond, this book captures all the action, fun, and excitement of America's favorite…
pastime. You'll learn everything you ever wanted to know about:The history of baseballYour favorite American and National League teamsStats and recordsBallparks around the countryBaseball legends and current playersHow to play like a proFantasy baseball teamsWith more than 30 puzzles and activities, you'll be inspired to get out to the nearest baseball diamond to practice your skills with your friends.Baseball: A History of America's Game (Sport and Society #Vol. 2)
By Benjamin G Rader. 2018
In this fourth edition, Benjamin G. Rader updates the text with a portrait of baseball's new order. He charts an…
on-the-field game transformed by analytics, an influx of Latino and Asian players, and a generation of players groomed for brute power both on the mound and at the plate. He also analyzes the behind-the-scenes revolution that brought in billions of dollars from a synergy of marketing and branding prowess, visionary media development, and fan-friendly ballparks abuzz with nonstop entertainment. The result is an entertaining and comprehensive tour of a game that, whatever its changes, always reflects American society and culture.Convirtiendome en el Sr. Octubre
By Reggie Jackson. 2014
Los Yankees de Nueva York versus los Red Sox de Boston, septiembre 1977: ¿Le pides a Babe Ruth que toque…
la bola, o a Cookie Lavagetto, Willie McCovey o Phil Rizzuto? Pero yo estaba aprendiendo. Billy Martin me dijo que tocara la bola y me preparé para hacerlo. Pero Reggie Cleveland me lanzó una bola hacia adentro y no pude sacar el bate, así que tuve que tomarla como una bola. Miré a Dick Howser y el toque de bola quedó descartado. Cleveland me lanzó una bola rápida y cometí un foul. Miré de nuevo a Howser. Volvió a hacerme señas para tocar la bola. Díganme una cosa, ¿tiene sentido eso? Me preparé para tratar de tocar la bola de nuevo, pero Reggie Cleveland me lanzó otra bola hacia adentro. Era como si ellos estuvieran viendo las señas, lo cual era muy probable. Era como si supieran con antelación que iba a intentar tocar la bola. Personalmente, pensé que estaban cometiendo un error. Si fuera mi equipo y Reggie Jackson quería tocar la bola, yo le dejaría hacerlo. Pero la cuenta se puso a mi favor, el toque de bola quedó descartado y Cleveland me lanzó una bola deslizadora. Me lo pusieron muy fácil. El resto es historia.Les Expos du parc Jarry au Stade olympique: Du Parc Jarry Au Stade Olympique (Sport Ser.)
By Denis Brodeur, Daniel Caza. 1996
The Fielding Bible
By John Dewan, Ben Jedlovec. 2012
The Fielding Bible—Volume III is a thorough compilation of the latest breakthroughs in defensive analytics from Baseball Info Solutions. With…
information previously exclusive to major league teams, Volume III is 100% new material that builds on the well received Volumes I and II. Included are comprehensive defensive evaluations, a study on the effectiveness of the "Ted Williams shift", the new Timer Plus/Minus system, and updated Defensive Runs Saved numbers that estimate the value of each fielder in Major League Baseball. The Fielding Bible—Volume III will include: Defensive Runs Saved— the most comprehensive defensive evaluations are back and better than ever, with significant enhancements to the eight-component system first introduced in Volume II. Timer Plus/Minus—the revolutionary Plus/Minus system, which measures each fielder’s ability to turn batted balls into outs, gets a facelift to incorporate the brand new battedball timer information, creating the most objective fielding evaluations ever. Good Play/Misplay Runs Saved—turns Bill James’ in-depth Good Fielding Plays and Defensive Misplays system into a new component of Defensive Runs Saved, adding previously-unrecorded aspects of defense like scooped throws and pitch blocks. Total Runs—adding Pitching Runs Created to offensive, defensive, and baserunning ratings to combine every aspect of the game into one tell-all number for every player The latest essay from Bill James on defense. Defensive scouting reports and player commentaries on every regular and semi-regular position player in baseball. New studies on crucial aspects of fielding, including defensive positioning, the "Ted Williams shift", bunts, double plays, outfielder arms and catcher defense.Wild Cards: A Novel about Faith and Baseball
By Ken Berris. 2015
A father's impossible quest to return to his family. A son's magical journey. A single mother's heroic efforts to protect…
her son. And fate's sleight of hand bringing together baseball's past legends and today's major league stars in a game for the ages.The Bill James Handbook 2019
By Bill James, Baseball Info Solutions. 2018
Bill James and Baseball Info Solutions team of analysts continue to pack in new content, including a fresh look at…
the continues rise and effectiveness of The Shift and a new breakdown of home runs and long flyouts. And, as always, the book forecasts fresh hitter and pitcher projections for those looking to get an early jump on the next season.Power ball: anatomy of a modern baseball game
By Rob Neyer. 2018
The former ESPN columnist and analytics pioneer dramatically recreates an action-packed 2017 game between the Oakland A's and eventual World…
Series Champion Houston Astros to reveal the myriad ways in which Major League Baseball has changed over the last few decades. 2018.Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game
By John Thorn. 2011
Think you know how the game of baseball began? Think again. Forget Abner Doubleday and Cooperstown. Forget Alexander Joy Cartwright…
and the New York Knickerbockers. Instead, meet Daniel Lucius Adams, William Rufus Wheaton, and Louis Fenn Wadsworth, each of whom has a stronger claim to baseball paternity than Doubleday or Cartwright. But did baseball even have a father--or did it just evolve from other bat-and-ball games? John Thorn, baseball's preeminent historian, examines the creation story of the game and finds it all to be a gigantic lie, not only the Doubleday legend, so long recognized with a wink and a nudge. From its earliest days baseball was a vehicle for gambling (much like cricket, a far more popular game in early America), a proxy form of class warfare, infused with racism as was the larger society, invigorated if ultimately corrupted by gamblers, hustlers, and shady entrepreneurs. Thorn traces the rise of the New York version of the game over other variations popular in Massachusetts and Philadelphia. He shows how the sport's increasing popularity in the early decades of the nineteenth century mirrored the migration of young men from farms and small towns to cities, especially New York. And he charts the rise of secret professionalism and the origin of the notorious "reserve clause," essential innovations for gamblers and capitalists. No matter how much you know about the history of baseball, you will find something new in every chapter. Thorn also introduces us to a host of early baseball stars who helped to drive the tremendous popularity and growth of the game in the post-Civil War era: Jim Creighton, perhaps the first true professional player; Candy Cummings, the pitcher who claimed to have invented the curveball; Albert Spalding, the ballplayer who would grow rich from the game and shape its creation myth; Hall of Fame brothers George and Harry Wright; Cap Anson, the first man to record three thousand hits and a virulent racist; and many others. Add bluff, bluster, and bravado, and toss in an illicit romance, an unknown son, a lost ball club, an epidemic scare, and you have a baseball detective story like none ever written. Thorn shows how a small religious cult became instrumental in the commission that was established to determine the origins of the game and why the selection of Abner Doubleday as baseball's father was as strangely logical as it was patently absurd. Entertaining from the first page to the last, Baseball in the Garden of Eden is a tale of good and evil, and the snake proves the most interesting character. It is full of heroes, scoundrels, and dupes; it contains more scandal by far than the 1919 Black Sox World Series fix. More than a history of the game, Baseball in the Garden of Eden tells the story of nineteenth-century America, a land of opportunity and limitation, of glory and greed--all present in the wondrous alloy that is our nation and its pastime.The Captain: The Journey of Derek Jeter
By Ian O'Connor. 2011
Every spring, Little Leaguers across the country mimic his stance and squabble over the right to wear his number, 2,…
the next number to be retired by the world's most famous ball team. Derek Jeter is their hero. He walks in the footsteps of Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, and Mantle, and someday his shadow will loom just as large. Yet he has never been the best player in baseball. In fact, he hasn't always been the best player on his team. But his intangible grace and Jordanesque ability to play big in the biggest of postseason moments make him the face of the modern Yankee dynasty, and of America's game. In The Captain, best-selling author Ian O'Connor draws on extensive reporting and unique access to Jeter that has spanned some fifteen years to reveal how a biracial kid from Michigan became New York's most beloved sports figure and the enduring symbol of the steroid-free athlete. O'Connor takes us behind the scenes of a legendary baseball life and career, from Jeter's early struggles in the minor leagues, when homesickness and errors in the field threatened a stillborn career, to his heady days as a Yankee superstar and prince of the city who squired some of the world's most beautiful women, to his tense battles with former best friend A-Rod. We also witness Jeter struggling to come to terms with his declining skills and the declining favor of the only organization he ever wanted to play for, leading to a contentious contract negotiation with the Yankees that left people wondering if Jeter might end his career in a uniform without pinstripes. Derek Jeter's march toward the Hall of Fame has been dignified and certain, but behind that leadership and hero's grace there are hidden struggles and complexities that have never been explored, until now. As Jeter closes in on 3,000 hits, a number no Yankee has ever touched, The Captain offers an incisive, exhilarating, and revealing new look at one of the game's greatest players in the gloaming of his career.The Eighth Wonder of the World: The Life of Houston's Iconic Astrodome
By Mickey Herskowitz, Kenneth Womack, Robert C. Trumpbour. 2016
When it opened in 1965, the Houston Astrodome, nicknamed the Eighth Wonder of the World, captured the attention of an…
entire nation, bringing pride to the city and enhancing its reputation nationwide. It was a Texas-sized vision of the future, an unthinkable feat of engineering with premium luxury suites, theater-style seating, and the first animated scoreboard. Yet there were memorable problems such as outfielders’ inability to see fly balls and failed attempts to grow natural grass—which ultimately led to the development of Astroturf. The Astrodome nonetheless changed the way people viewed sports, putting casual fans at the forefront of a user-experience approach that soon became the standard in all American sports. The Eighth Wonder of the World tears back the facade and details the Astrodome’s role in transforming Houston as a city while also chronicling the building’s pivotal fifty years in existence and the ongoing debate about its preservation.The Devil's Snake Curve: A Fan's Notes from Left Field
By Josh Ostergaard. 2014
The Devil's Snake Curve offers an alternative American history, in which colonialism, jingoism, capitalism, and faith are represented by baseball.…
Personal and political, it twines Japanese internment camps with the Yankees; Walmart with the Kansas City Royals; and facial hair patterns with militarism, Guantanamo, and the modern security state. An essay, a miscellany, and a passionate unsettling of Josh Ostergaard's relationship with our national pastime, it allows for both the clover of a childhood outfield and the persistence of the game's service to those in power. America and baseball are both hard to love or leave in this, by turns coruscating and heartfelt, debut.Josh Ostergaard holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Minnesota and an MA in cultural anthropology. He has been an urban anthropologist at the Field Museum and now works at Graywolf Press.Blue Monday: The Expos, the Dodgers, and the Home Run That Changed Everything
By Larry Parrish, Danny Gallagher. 2018
Blue Monday: one of the most unforgettable days in Canadian baseball history. Danny Gallagher leads readers up to that infamous…
day in October 1981 when Rick Monday of the Los Angeles Dodgers hit a home run off of Montreal Expos pitcher Steve Rogers in the ninth inning, giving the Dodgers a berth in the World Series. Readers will be taken back to 1976 when a five-year plan for winning the National League championship was set in place by the Expos with the hiring of experienced manager Dick Williams. Gallagher examines old narratives about Blue Monday and talks to all the key players involved in the game, unearthing secrets and stories never before told.Able to Play: Overcoming Physical Challenges (Good Sports)
By Glenn Stout. 2012
Able to Play shares the inspiring stories of four baseball players. Mordecai "Three Finger"Brown, Ron Santo, Jim Abbott, and Curtis…
Pride faced physical challenges other players didn't have. With determination and guts, they didn't just overcome; they excelled. This book is a game-changing celebration of overcoming odds."After one hundred years, each time you walk up the ramp from beneath the stands and out toward that sea…
of sunlit grass, Fenway Park remains the most special kind of place there is, a place that can still change your life."In anticipation of the one hundredth anniversary of America's most beloved ballpark, the untold story of how Fenway Park came to be and its remarkable first season. 1912 was a leap year, the year the Titanic sank, and it was also the year baseball's original shrine, the one and only Fenway Park, was born. While the paint was still drying, the infield grass still coming in, the Red Sox embarked on an unlikely season that culminated in a World Series battle against the Giants that stands as one of the greatest ever played.Fenway 1912 tells the incredible story of Fenway, from the unorthodox blueprint that underlies the park's notorious quirks, to the long winter when locals poured concrete and erected history, to the notorious fixers who then ruled the game, to the ragtag team who delivered a world championship, Fenway's first.For all that has been written in tribute to the great Fenway Park, no one has ever really told the behind-the-scenes true story of its tumultuous yet glorious first year. Drawing on extensive new research, the esteemed baseball historian Glenn Stout delivers an extraordinary tale of innovation, desperation, and perspiration - capturing Fenway as never before.The Only Rule Is It Has to Work: Our Wild Experiment Building a New Kind of Baseball Team
By Ben Lindbergh, Sam Miller. 2016
What would happen if two statistics-minded outsiders were allowed to run a professional baseball team?It's the ultimate in fantasy baseball:…
You get to pick the roster, set the lineup, and decide on strategies -- with real players, in a real ballpark, in a real playoff race. That's what baseball analysts Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller got to do when an independent minor-league team in California, the Sonoma Stompers, offered them the chance to run its baseball operations according to the most advanced statistics. Their story in The Only Rule is it Has to Work is unlike any other baseball tale you've ever read.We tag along as Lindbergh and Miller apply their number-crunching insights to all aspects of assembling and running a team, following one cardinal rule for judging each innovation they try: it has to work. We meet colorful figures like general manager Theo Fightmaster and boundary-breakers like the first openly gay player in professional baseball. Even José Canseco makes a cameo appearance.Will their knowledge of numbers help Lindbergh and Miller bring the Stompers a championship, or will they fall on their faces? Will the team have a competitive advantage or is the sport's folk wisdom true after all? Will the players attract the attention of big-league scouts, or are they on a fast track to oblivion?It's a wild ride, by turns provocative and absurd, as Lindbergh and Miller tell a story that will speak to numbers geeks and traditionalists alike. And they prove that you don't need a bat or a glove to make a genuine contribution to the game.Baseball Fantography: A Celebration in Snapshots and Stories from the Fans (No Ser.)
By Bob Costas, Andy Strasberg. 2012
A treasury of candid photos and behind-the-scenes trivia covering decades of baseball history. Baseball Fantography is a celebration of baseball…
through the eyes of fans, via photos they’ve taken of players, ballparks, and related subjects over the past nine decades, along with essays, sidebars, and quotes. The project originated when the author discovered an old 1960s snapshot of himself as a teenager with his idol, Roger Maris, at Yankee Stadium. Realizing that he couldn’t be the only one with these hidden photographic gems, he began collecting baseball photos taken by fans. The book contains: More than 250 never-before-published images of such players as Roberto Clemente, Mickey Mantle, Derek Jeter, and Josh HamiltonChapters on subjects like ballparks, spring training, broadcasters, dugouts, and baseball cardsContributions from baseball aficionados and notables like Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith, a 35-year veteran Topps baseball photographer, and a former president of the Baseball Hall of FameA foreword by Bob CostasThe Chicago Cubs: Story of a Curse
By Rich Cohen. 2017
A captivating blend of reportage and memoir exploring the history of the Chicago CubsWhen Rich Cohen was eight years old,…
his father took him to see a Cubs game. On the way out of the park, his father asked him to make a promise. “Promise me you will never be a Cubs fan. The Cubs do not win,” he explained, “and because of that, a Cubs fan will have a diminished life determined by low expectations. That team will screw up your life.” As a result, Cohen became not just a Cubs fan but one of the biggest Cubs fans in the world. In this book, he captures the story of the team, its players and crazy days. Billy Sunday and Ernie Banks, Three Finger Brown and Ryne Sandberg, Bill Buckner, the Bartman Ball, Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo—the early dominance followed by a 107 year trek across the wilderness. It’s all here—not just what happened, but what it felt like and what it meant. He searches for the cause of the famous curse. Was it the billy goat, kicked out of Wrigley Field in Game 5 of the 1945 World Series, or does it go back further, to the very origins of the franchise? Driven mad with futility, he went on the road with the team in search of answers, interviewed great players present and past, researched in libraries but also in the bleachers, double-fisted, a frosty malt in each hand, demanding answers. He came to see the curse as a burden but also as a blessing. Cubs fans are unique, emissaries from a higher realm, warning of hubris and vanity. The blue cap with the red C said, “My Kingdom is not of this world.” He interviewed the architects of the 2016 Cubs, the team that broke the curse. Here’s what he asked: How the hell did you do it? He was at (almost) every game of the 2016 playoff run—a run that culminated in (maybe) the single greatest baseball game ever played. He was excited but also terrified. Losing is easy. What would it mean to win? Wearing a Yankees hat meant corporate excellence. Wearing a Mets hat meant miracles. But wearing a Cubs hat meant loving the game on its most humdrum afternoon—September 13, 1979, say, 14 games out of first place, Larry Bittner driving in Ivan DeJesus. Would we lose that? Would being a Cubs become ordinary? A mix of memoir, reporting, history and baseball theology, this book, forty years in the making, has never been written because it never could be—only with the 2016 World Series can the true arc of the story finally be understood.