The City by the Sea boasts an ambitious baseball history dating back to the early days of America's favorite pastime. In 1897, the Newport Colts became the first professional baseball team to ever tie in a playoff series. By the 1900s, baseball was being played daily on open fields and diamonds throughout Newport. The city has sported six major ball fields, including Cardines Field, host to the oldest continuously running amateur baseball team in the country. Discover the humble beginnings of players like Newport native Frank Corridon, who allegedly invented the now outlawed spitball, and the legacy of the great Trojans baseball club. Team up with baseball historian Rick Harris and walk through the history of Newport baseball from amateur games to the major leagues and all the strikes, homers and grand slams in between.

Each played baseball as kids. They all played together on a college baseball juggernaut at Seton Hall. All of them wanted to make baseball their life. The Hit Men and the Kid Who Batted Ninth traces the baseball lives of Craig Biggio, Mo Vaughn, John Valentin, and Marteese Robinson—from the playgrounds through college ball to the big leagues—revealing a fascinating and personal account of four routes to the same destination and dream.

If there was ever a place in America where a city and its baseball team were as close as family, it was Brooklyn. The legacy of this relationship comes down to us in stories of childhoods spent at Ebbets Field and in the stories of Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey, whose courage changed the face of America. Baseball in Brooklyn goes back to the beginning of the sport, when a young city embraced a new game and, like missionaries, carried it to the nation. This book tells the story of that beginning and concludes with the heart-wrenching move of the franchise to the West Coast after the 1957 season.

Brooklyn Dodgers carries us from the birth of baseball in the streets of Brooklyn through the decades in Flatbush when Ebbets Field was the center of the Brooklyn community. That was a time when the players lived in the neighborhoods not far from the ballpark, side by side with their followers. Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, Jackie Robinson, Gil Hodges, and Johnny Podres all make appearances in this exciting selection of photographs. A large part of Brooklyn Dodgers is dedicated to those teams of the 1950s and their irrepressible fans.

Dubbed "America's Game" by Walt Whitman, baseball has been enjoyed in our nation's capital by everyone from young boys playing street stickball to Presidents throwing out the inaugural first pitch of the season. Just 13 years after Alexander Cartwright codified baseball's rules, the Washington Nationals Baseball Club formed and in 1867 toured the country spreading the "baseball gospel." By 1901 the team became one of the first eight major league teams in the newly formed American League. Players such as Walter Johnson, probably the greatest pitcher of all time, and other Senators under the stewardship of owner Clark Griffith successfully led the club in 1924 to what many consider to be the most exciting World Series in baseball history. Later, the Homestead Grays played at Griffith Stadium and fielded a team featuring legendary Negro League greats such as Josh Gibson and Buck Leonard. The powerhouse Grays, during a ten-year span, won nine Negro League World Championships, a record that may never be equaled in any team sport again. When the Grays disbanded, the original Senators left for Minnesota in 1960, and the expansion Senators of the 1960s relocated, the city was left without a professional baseball team. While many feared that baseball in D.C. was over, a spirit remained on the diamond and is still felt today as children and adults team up in one way or another to play the national pastime in the nation's capital. Hopes for a new professional team linger, and those remembering baseball's heyday will enjoy this extensive and unusual collection ofhistoric photos that celebrate a time when the crowds roared and Washingtonians believed that the summer game would never end.

A TRUE STORY OF FINDING THE AMERICAN DREAM . . . ABROAD
India is a country with more than one billion people, a fanatical national cricket obsession, and exactly zero talent scouts. There, superstar sports agent J. B. Bernstein knew that he could find the Yao Ming of baseball-- someone with a strong arm and enough raw talent to pitch in the major leagues. Almost no one in India is familiar with the game, but Bernstein had heard enough coaches swear that if you gave them a guy who throws a hundred miles an hour, they could teach him how to pitch. So in 2007, Bernstein flew to Mumbai with a radar gun and a plan to find his diamond in the rough. His idea was "The Million Dollar Arm," a reality television competition with a huge cash prize and a chance to become the first native of India to sign a contract with an American major-league team.
The result is a humorous and inspiring story about three guys transformed: Bernstein, the consummate bachelor and shrewd businessman, and Dinesh and Rinku, the two young men from small farming villages whom he brought home to California. "Million Dollar Arm" is a timeless reflection on baseball and the American dream, as well as a tale of victory over incredible odds. But, above all, it's about the limitless possibilities inside every one of us.

"I swing big, with everything I've got. I hit big or I miss big. I like to live as big as I can." -- Babe Ruth

Babe Ruth is without a doubt the most famous character ever produced by the sport of baseball. A legendary player, world-famous for his hitting prowess, he transcended the sport to enter the mainstream of American life as an authentic folk hero.

In this extraordinary biography, noted sportswriter Robert W. Creamer reveals the complex man behind the sports legend. From Ruth's early days in a Baltimore orphanage, to the glory days with the Yankees, to his later years, Creamer has drawn a classic portrait of an American original.

Shawn Green's career statistics can be found on the backs of baseball cards in shoeboxes across America: 328 home runs, 1,071 RBIs, .282 career batting average, All-Star, Gold Glove, Silver Slugger . . . but numbers tell only part of the story.
In the tradition of Phil Jackson's "Sacred Hoops, "Shawn Green illustrates the spiritual practices that guided his career and enabled him to "bring stillness into the flow of life." In "The Way of Baseball, "he shares the secrets to remaining focused both on and off the field, shedding light on a signature approach to living by using his remarkable baseball experiences to exemplify how one can find full awareness, presence, and, ultimately, fulfillment in any endeavor.

Red Sox MVP Pedroia tells this feel-good story about his love of baseball, overcoming the naysayers, and winning a World Series in his first season.

Could Confucius hit a curveball?
Could Yoda block the plate?
Can the Dalai Lama dig one out of the dirt?

No, there is only one Zen master who could contemplate the circle of life while rounding the bases.

Who is this guru lurking in the grand old game? Well, he's the winner of ten World Series rings, a member of both the Hall of Fame and the All-Century Team, and perhaps the most popular and beloved ballplayer of all time. And without effort or artifice he's waxed poetic on the mysteries of time ("It gets late awful early out there"), the meaning of community ("It's so crowded nobody goes there anymore"), and even the omnipresence of hope in the direst circumstances ("It ain't over 'til it's over").

It's Yogi Berra, of course, and in What Time Is It? You Mean Now? Yogi expounds on the funny, warm, borderline inadvertent insights that are his trademark. Twenty-six chapters, one for each letter, examine the words, the meaning, and the uplifting example of a kid from St. Louis who grew up to become the consummate Yankee and the ultimate Yogi.

Early in 2004, two writers and Red Sox fans, Stewart O'Nan and Stephen King, decided to chronicle the upcoming season, one of the most hotly anticipated in baseball history. They would sit together at Fenway. They would exchange emails. They would write about the games. And, as it happened, they would witness the greatest comeback ever in sports, and the first Red Sox championship in eighty-six years. What began as a Sox-filled summer like any other is now a fan's notes for the ages.

MILLIONS OF AMERICAN BASEBALL FANS KNOW, WITH ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY, that umpires are simply overpaid galoots who are doing an easy job badly. Millions of American baseball fans are wrong.
"As They See 'Em "is an insider's look at the largely unknown world of professional umpires, the small group of men (and the very occasional woman) who make sure America's favorite pastime is conducted in a manner that is clean, crisp, and true. Bruce Weber, a "New York Times "reporter, not only interviewed dozens of professional umpires but entered their world, trained to become an umpire, then spent a season working games from Little League to big league spring training. "As They See 'Em "is Weber's entertaining account of this experience as well as a lively exploration of what amounts to an eccentric secret society, with its own customs, its own rituals, its own colorful vocabulary. Writing with deep knowledge of and affection for baseball, he delves into such questions as: Why isn't every strike created equal? Is the ump part of the game or outside of it? Why doesn't a tie go to the runner? And what do umps and managers say to each other during an argument, really?
Packed with fascinating reportage that reveals the game as never before and answers the kinds of questions that fans, exasperated by the cliches of conventional sports commentary, pose to themselves around the television set, Bruce Weber's "As They See 'Em "is a towering grand slam.

Henry Aaron left his mark on the world by breaking Babe Ruth's record for home runs. But the world has also left its mark on him.

"Hammering Hank" Aaron's story is one that tells us much about baseball, naturally, but also about our times. His unique, poignant life has made him a symbol for much of the social history of twentieth-century America.

Raised during the Depression in the Deep South enclave of Mobile, Alabama, Aaron broke into professional baseball as a cross-handed slugger and shortstop for the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro American League. A year later, he and a few others had the unforgettable mission of integrating the South Atlantic League. A year after that, he was a timid rookie leftfielder for the Milwaukee Braves, for whom he became a World Series hero in 1957 as well as the Most Valuable Player of the National League.

Aaron found himself back in the South when the Braves moved to Atlanta in 1965. Nine years later, in the heat of hatred and controversy, he hit his 715th home run to break Ruth's and baseball's most cherished record--a feat that was recently voted the greatest moment in baseball history. That year, Aaron received over 900,000 pieces of mail, many of them vicious and racially charged.

In a career that may be the most consistent baseball has ever seen. Aaron also set all-time records for total bases and RBIs. He ended his playing days by spending two nostalgic seasons back in Milwaukee with the Brewers, then embarked on a new career as an executive with the Atlanta Braves. He was for a long time the highest-ranking black in baseball. In this position, Aaron has become an unofficial spokesman in racial matters pertaining to thenational pastime.

Because of the depth and pertinence of Aaron's dramatic experiences, "I Had A Hammer" is more than a baseball autobiography. Henry Aaron's candor and insights have produced a revealing book about his extraordinary life and time.