NATIONAL BESTSELLER A unique, unfiltered memoir from the NBA champion and fifteen-time all-star ahead of his induction into the Hall of Fame.Kevin Garnett was one of the most dominant players the game of basketball has ever seen. He was also one of its most outspoken. Over the course of his illustrious twenty-one-year NBA career, he elevated trash talk to an art form and never shied away from sharing his thoughts on controversial subjects. In KG A to Z, published ahead of Garnett's induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame, he looks back on his life and career with the same raw candor. Garnett describes the adversity he faced growing up in South Carolina before ultimately relocating to Chicago, where he became one of the top prospects in the nation. He details his headline-making decision to skip college and become the first player in two decades to enter the draft directly from high school, starting a trend that would be followed by future superstars like Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. He shares stories of playing with and against Bryant, James, Michael Jordan, and other NBA greats, and he chronicles his professional ups and downs, including winning a championship with the Boston Celtics. He also speaks his mind on a range of topics beyond basketball, such as fame, family, racism, spirituality, and music. Garnett's draft decision wasn't the only way he'd forever change the game. His ability to play on the perimeter as a big man foreshadowed the winning strategy now universally adopted by the league. He applies this same innovative spirit here, organizing the contents alphabetically as an encyclopedia. If you thought Kevin Garnett was exciting, inspiring, and unfiltered on the court, just wait until you read what he has to say in these pages.

Baseball fans are often passionate about statistics, but true numbers fanatics want to go beyond the 'baseball card' stats and make comparisons through other objective means. ""Sabermetrics"" uses algebra to expand on statistics and measure a player's value to his team and how he ranks among players of different eras. The mathematical models in this book, a follow-up to ""Understanding Sabermetrics"" (2008), define the measures, supply examples, and provide practice problems for readers.

At the start of the 1947 baseball season, reporters projected the Boston Red Sox would repeat as American League champions. The New York Yankees were picked to finish no higher than third place. The reporters were wrong. The Yankees were a veteran team as Joe DiMaggio, Phil Rizzuto, Tommy Henrich, and Charlie Keller returned from World War II military service. It was also a team that introduced New York fans to rookies Yogi Berra, Bobby Brown, and Frank Shea. The team saw stand-out performances from players such as Allie Reynolds, who was obtained in a trade with Cleveland and was a nineteen-game winner, and Joe Page, who became baseball's top relief hurler that same year. Frank Strauss was a twelve-year-old fan in 1947; he kept meticulous scrapbooks and even met some of the players. In "Dawn of a Dynasty," he relives for readers how this team won nineteen straight games in midseason and later claimed the pennant-then capped the season with a memorable World Series win against the Brooklyn Dodgers. The unforgettable 1947 Yankee team launched a remarkable record of winning fifteen American League pennants and ten World Championships between 1947 and 1964 and truly marked the "Dawn of a Dynasty."

The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture, 2009-2010 is an anthology of scholarly essays that utilize the national game to examine topics whose import extends beyond the ballpark and constitute a significant academic contribution to baseball literature. The essays represent sixteen of the leading presentations from the two most recent proceedings of the annual Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture, held, respectively, on June 3-5, 2009, and June 2-4, 2010. The anthology is divided into five parts: Baseball as Culture: Dance, Literature, National Character, and Myth; Constructing Baseball Heroes; Blacks in Baseball: From Segregation to Conflicted Integration; The Enterprise of Baseball: Economics and Entrepreneurs; and Genesis and Legacy of Baseball Scholarship, which features an essay written by the co-creator of baseball scholarship, Dorothy Jane Mills.

What if the world had never heard of Steve Bartman? What if Alex Gonzalez had fielded that ground ball cleanly, and turned the pair? What if Grady Little had listened when Pedro told him he was tired, and gone to the bullpen, which had, after all, been extremely effective throughout the post-season. This story is about how the world and the 2003 World Series would have been had those things happened. The stories in this book are a mixture of fact, fiction, fantasy, and fanaticism. Outside of New York and Florida, there was not a lot of sentiment for the Yankees and Marlins to get to the 2003 World Series. Even Fox Sports, Sports Business Journal, ESPN, and every other media in the country were pulling for a Cubs vs. Red Sox World Series.

Explores Jackie Robinson's compelling and complicated legacy Before the United States Supreme Court ruled against segregation in public schools, and before Rosa Parks refused to surrender her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama, Jackie Robinson walked onto the diamond on April 15, 1947, as first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers, making history as the first African American to integrate Major League Baseball in the twentieth century. Today a national icon, Robinson was a complicated man who navigated an even more complicated world that both celebrated and despised him. Many are familiar with Robinson as a baseball hero. Few, however, know of the inner turmoil that came with his historic status. Featuring piercing essays from a range of distinguished sportswriters, cultural critics, and scholars, this book explores Robinson's perspectives and legacies on civil rights, sports, faith, youth, and nonviolence, while providing rare glimpses into the struggles and strength of one of the nation's most athletically gifted and politically significant citizens. Featuring a foreword by celebrated directors and producers Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon, this volume recasts Jackie Robinson's legacy and establishes how he set a precedent for future civil rights activism, from Black Lives Matter to Colin Kaepernick.

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"Along with his astute social scientific insight, Borer also includes plenty of first-person accounts of the ballpark from Red Sox greats like Carl Yastrzemski and Johnny Pesky and from regular Bostonians and out-of-town baseball fans. This ability to intermingle scholarly research with Americaas beloved pastime has allowed Borer to write an astute academic treatise that has the appeal of a consumer sports pub."
--"Publishers Weekly"

"Borer assesses the attraction of Fenway Park through his own expert lens. The results . . . will prove invaluable not only to Red Sox and more general baseball scholars but also to students of urban life, the organization of limited inner-city space, social psychology and collective memory, how a baseball park can become a cultural shrine, and a cohorts shared values--not to mention Fenway's contributions to our understanding of fandom.
--"Library Journal"

"Boston's Fenway Park has become as valued as any star player in those cities and as much an attraction as the teams themselves. Borer, a sociologist and lifelong New Englander, explores the history of Fenway and its place in Bostons culture through research and interviews with players, stadium personnel, fans, and team owners...[H]e explains Fenway's place in the culture as an example of identity continuity. Fenway is an emotional anchor for fans in the sense that it encompasses a part of an individuals past and present."
--"Booklist"

"Borer has captured the magic of Fenway Park. "
--Doris Kearns Goodwin

"Even Yankee fans will have much to consider from this book, published so soon after the Red Sox curse has ended. This isan important work of the sociology of sport and of urban sociology."
--Gary Alan Fine, author of "With the Boys: Little League Baseball and Pre-adolescent Culture"

Even if you don't already love the Red Sox, you'll love this account of the stories people tell about why Fenway matters.
--Nancy T. Ammerman, author of "Everyday Religion: Observing Modern Religious Lives"

"[Faithful to Fenway is] a must-have item for the Red Sox fans who champion their old stadium despite its uncomfortable seats."
--"Portland Press Herald"

The Green Monster. Pesky's Pole. The Lone Red Seat. Yawkey Way. To baseball fans this list of bizarre phrases evokes only one place: Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox. Built in 1912, Fenway Park is Americas oldest major league ballpark still in use. In Faithful to Fenway, Michael Ian Borer takes us out to Fenway where we sit in cramped wooden seats (often with obstructed views of the playing field), where there is a hand-operated scoreboard and an average attendance of 20,000 less fans than most stadiums, and where every game has been sold out since May of 2003. There is no Hard Rock Caf (like Torontos Skydome), no swimming pool (like Arizonas' Chase Field), and definitely no sushi (which has become a fan favorite from Baltimore to Seattle). As Borer tells us in this captivating book, Fenway is short on comfort but long on character.

Faithful to Fenway investigates the mystique of the ballpark. Borer, who lived in Boston before and after the Red Sox historic 2004 World Series win, draws on interviews with Red Sox players, including Jason Varitek and Carl Yastrzemski, management, including Larry Lucchino and John Henry, groundskeepers, vendors, andscores of fans to uncover what the park means for Boston and the people who revere it. Borer argues that Fenway is nothing less than a national icon, more than worthy of the banner outside the stadium that proclaims, Americas Most Beloved Ballpark. Certainly as one of New Englands greatest landmarks, Fenway captures the hearts and imaginations of a deferential and devoted public. There are T-shirts, bumper stickers, banners, and snow globes that honor the ballpark. Fenway shows up in popular films, novels, television commercials, and in replicated form in peoples backyards--and coming in 2008 to Quincy, Massachusetts, is Mini-Fenway Park, a replica stadium built especially for kids.

Full of legendary stories, amusing anecdotes, and the shared triumph and tragedy of the Red Sox and their fans, Faithful to Fenway offers a fresh and insightful perspective, offering readers an unforgettable pilgrimage to the Mecca of baseball.