Each summer, on the fields of glorious Cape Marlin, off the New England coast, the nation's best college players gather to play the most important baseball of their lives.

Jack Faber is a young hotshot pitcher with an unhittable slider and a rocket for a fastball. He plays for the fabled Seapuit Seawolves and dreams of making the Big Show. But a new coach, the scowling Bruno Riazzi, a former pro catcher, resents the kid's celebrity status and decides to knock him down a peg or two. And he stops at nothing to make it happen.

Humiliated, Jack loses his lifelong art, and with it his passion for the game, as well as, mysteriously, his ability to throw. A devastated Jack Faber is released from the St. Charles College roster. But the Seawolves coaches won't give up on him. They bring Jack back to Cape Marlin, determined to help him rediscover his lost talent. He finds himself again under the summer sun, coaches and old friends standing by him. But in the end it will be up to Jack.

Based on a true story, "Slider" celebrates the national pastime, a game that can break grown men's hearts -- as well as make them whole again.

This real-time, historical record of the New York Yankees from their hometown newspaper allows you to experience over a century of the pride, power, and pinstripes of Major League Baseball's most successful team. There has never been a team that has won as many World Series titles, hit as many home runs, or had as many great superstars as The New York Yankees. The New York Times Story of the Yankees includes more than 390 articles chronicling the team's rich history through the best writing on the ball club by beloved Times reporters like Arthur Daley, Red Smith, George Vecsey, Tyler Kepner, and more. Organized by era, the book covers the biggest stories and events in Yankee history, such as the purchase of Babe Ruth, Roger Maris's 61st home run, and Derek Jeter's last game. This completely up-to-date through 2020 edition, including the Aaron Boone era and the rise of Aaron Judge, is illustrated with hundreds of black-and-white photographs that capture every era. A foreword by diehard Yankees fan, Alec Baldwin, completes the celebration of baseball's greatest team.

Here is a comprehensive, practical resource that makes building a successful baseball program considerably easier for both the new and the experienced coach. Included are proven techniques and ready-to-use materials for virtually every aspect of the coach’s job, from recruiting to training talent for each position.

"An extraordinary book . . . invitingly written and brisk."
--"Chicago Tribune"

"Perhaps no one has ever told the tale [of Robinson's arrival in the major leagues] so well as [Simon] does in this extended essay."
--"The Washington Post Book World"

"Scott Simon tells a compelling story of risk and sacrifice, profound ugliness and profound grace, defiance and almost unimaginable courage. This is a meticulously researched, insightful, beautifully written book, one that should be read, reread, and remembered."
--Laura Hillenbrand, author of the "New York Times" bestseller "Seabiscuit"

The integration of baseball in 1947 had undeniable significance for the civil rights movement and American history. Thanks to Jackie Robinson, a barrier that had once been believed to be permanent was shattered--paving the way for scores of African Americans who wanted nothing more than to be granted the same rights as any other human being.

In this book, renowned broadcaster Scott Simon reveals how Robinson's heroism brought the country face-to-face with the question of racial equality. From his days in the army to his ascent to the major leagues, Robinson battled bigotry at every turn. Simon deftly traces the journey of the rookie who became Rookie of the Year, recalling the taunts and threats, the stolen bases and the slides to home plate, the trials and triumphs. Robinson's number, 42, has been retired by every club in major league baseball--in homage to the man who had to hang his first Brooklyn Dodgers uniform on a hook rather than in a locker.

Professional baseball took root in America in the 1860s during the same years that the sons of the first wave Irish famine refugees began to reach adulthood, and the Irish quickly demonstrated a special affinity for baseball. This is a survey of the enormous contribution of the Irish to the American pastime and the ways in which Irish immigrants and baseball came of age together. Chapters cover the Irish and early immigrants in Boston; the Chicago White Stockings; the Shamrocks, Trojans and Giants; Charlie Comiskey; Patsy Tebeau and the Hibernian Spiders; Ned Hanlon and the Orioles; Hugh Duffy and Tommy McCarthy, the ""Heavenly Twins""; umpires; John McGraw; ""Wild Bill"" Donovan, Patrick Joseph ""Whiskey Face"" Moran, and Connie Mack; the Red Sox and the Royal Rooters; and, more.

'The most valuable team player in sports' shows you what 'teamwork' really means. What does it take to be a real team player, especially in a society that glorifies selfishness and a corporate culture that often uses 'team player' as a buzzword but rewards only the show boaters and prima donnas. Well, you can observe a lot by watching. In this happy and hilarious guide to teamwork, sportsmanship, and winning, Yogi Berra draws on the timeless wisdom handed down by example from ballplayers who came before him to inspire you to make the right choices and become not only a better team player - at sports, at work, and in life - but a better person. Filled with colorful stories from his life and career, not to mention the down-to-earth wit and insight that Yogi fans love, "You Can Observe a Lot by Watching" shows you how to make a bad team good and a good team great.

From the perspective of 2007, the unintentional irony of Chance's boast is manifest-- these days, the question is when will the Cubs ever win a game they have to have. In October 1908, though, no one would have laughed: The Cubs were, without doubt, baseball's greatest team-- the first dynasty of the 20th century. Crazy '08 recounts the 1908 season-- the year when Peerless Leader Frank Chance's men went toe to toe to toe with John McGraw and Christy Mathewson's New York Giants and Honus Wagner's Pittsburgh Pirates in the greatest pennant race the National League has ever seen. The American League has its own three-cornered pennant fight, and players like Cy Young, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, and the egregiously crooked Hal Chase ensured that the junior circuit had its moments. But it was the National League's-- and the Cubs'-- year. Crazy '08, however, is not just the exciting story of a great season. It is also about the forces that created modern baseball, and the America that produced it. In 1908, crooked pols run Chicago's First Ward, and gambling magnates control the Yankees. Fans regularly invade the field to do handstands or argue with the umps; others shoot guns from rickety grandstands prone to burning. There are anarchists on the loose and racial killings in the town that made Lincoln. On the flimsiest of pretexts, General Abner Doubleday becomes a symbol of Americanism, and baseball's own anthem, Take Me Out to the Ballgame, is a hit. Picaresque and dramatic, 1908 is a season in which so many weird and wonderful things happen that it is somehow unsurprising that a hairpiece, a swarm of gnats, a sudden bout of lumbago, and a disasterdown in the mines all play a role in its outcome. And sometimes the events are not so wonderful at all. There are several deaths by baseball, and the shadow of corruption creeps closer to the heart of baseball-- the honesty of the game itself. Simply put, 1908 is the year that baseball grew up. Oh, and it was the last time the Cubs won the World Series. Destined to be as memorable as the season it documents, Crazy '08 sets a new standard for what a book about baseball can be.

April 15, 1947, marked the most important opening day in baseball history. When Jackie Robinson stepped onto the diamond that afternoon at Ebbets Field, he became the first black man to break into major-league baseball in the twentieth century. World War II had just ended. Democracy had triumphed. Now Americans were beginning to press for justice on the home front -- and Robinson had a chance to lead the way.

He was an unlikely hero. He had little experience in organized baseball. His swing was far from graceful. And he was assigned to play first base, a position he had never tried before that season. But the biggest concern was his temper. Robinson was an angry man who played an aggressive style of ball. In order to succeed he would have to control himself in the face of what promised to be a brutal assault by opponents of integration.

In "Opening Day," Jonathan Eig tells the true story behind the national pastime's most sacred myth. Along the way he offers new insights into events of sixty years ago and punctures some familiar legends. Was it true that the St. Louis Cardinals plotted to boycott their first home game against the Brooklyn Dodgers? Was Pee Wee Reese really Robinson's closest ally on the team? Was Dixie Walker his greatest foe? How did Robinson handle the extraordinary stress of being the only black man in baseball and still manage to perform so well on the field? "Opening Day" is also the story of a team of underdogs that came together against tremendous odds to capture the pennant. Facing the powerful New York Yankees, Robinson and the Dodgers battled to the seventh game in one of the most thrilling World Series competitions of all time.

Drawing on interviews with surviving players, sportswriters, and eyewitnesses, as well as newly discovered material from archives around the country, Jonathan Eig presents a fresh portrait of a ferocious competitor who embodied integration's promise and helped launch the modern civil-rights era. Full of new details and thrilling action, "Opening Day" brings to life baseball's ultimate story.

Clearing the Bases is a much-needed call to arms by one of baseball's most respected players. Drawing on his experiences as a third baseman, a manager, and, most recently, a fan, Mike Schmidt takes on everything from skyrocketing payrolls, callous owners, and unapproachable players to inflated statistics, and, of course, ersatz home run kings.

But Schmidt's book goes beyond the Balco investigation and never-ending free-agent bonanzas that dominate the back pages. It also examines all that's right with our national pastime, including interleague play, expansion, and, most surprisingly, better all-around hitters. Riveting, wise, and illuminating, Clearing the Bases is a hall of famer's look at how Major League Baseball has lost its way and how it can head back home.

Since radio's debut in the 1920s and television's in the '30s, the baseball announcer has become entertainer, observer, and extended member of the family. In "A Talk in the Park: Nine Decades of Baseball Tales from the Broadcast Booth", many of the pastime's most popular and famous announcers-the Voices-tell their favourite stories in their own distinctive words. It is riveting oral history. Herein is the largest total of active and retired broadcasters featured in any sports book: 116. Its radio and TV tales include every major-league team and such networks as ESPN, Fox, TBS, and the new MLB channel, and capture the Voices commenting on ballparks, managers, the characters of the game, umpires, special teams, interleague play, improvements to the game-and on one another, including the beloved Ernie Harwell, who died in 2010 and to whom the book is dedicated. Here are Bob Wolff, airing the longest-ever wild pitch, Howie Rose, using the 1969 Mets to pass a high school exam, and Charley Steiner, telling why George Steinbrenner"hired" Jason Giambi. Denny Matthews recalls George Scott's faux uniform number 6-4-3. Ken Harrelson defends his one-handed catch: "With bad hands like mine, one hand was better than two." Eduardo Ortega announces for his mother, who is deaf. Pat Hughes remembers when Harry Caray called a game with a tea bag dangling from his ear. Voices hail Lou Piniella: dressed, undressed, volatile, and loveable. Columnist Christine Brennan says of author Curt Smith:"No one knows baseball broadcasters as well as he does." In particular, "A Talk in the Park" addresses trends of the past two decades-the rise of Hispanic and other minority announcers, interleague play, ex-jocks' warp-speed climb, whiz-bang technology, 24/7 coverage, and the evolution of broadcasting, from radio to network television to cable. Told by baseball's leading broadcast historian, endorsed by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and the National Radio Hall of Fame, and starring announcers who reach millions, A Talk in the Park brilliantly relates what baseball was, is, and is likely to become.

In the most famous scandal of sports history, eight Chicago White Sox players-including Shoeless Joe Jackson-agreed to throw the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for the promise of $20,000 each from gamblers reportedly working for New York mobster Arnold Rothstein. Heavily favored, Chicago lost the Series five games to three. Although rumors of a fix flew while the series was being played, they were largely disregarded by players and the public at large. It wasn't until a year later that a general investigation into baseball gambling reopened the case, an a nationwide scandal emerged. In this book, Charles Fountain offers a full and engaging history of one of baseball's true moments of crisis and hand-wringing, and shows how the scandal changed the way American baseball was both managed and perceived. After an extensive investigation and a trial that became a national morality play, the jury returned not-guilty verdicts for all of the White Sox players in August of 1921. The following day, Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis, baseball's new commissioner, "regardless of the verdicts of juries," banned the eight players for life. And thus the Black Sox entered into American mythology. Guilty or innocent? Guilty and innocent? The country wasn't sure in 1921, and as Fountain shows, we still aren't sure today. But we are continually pulled to the story, because so much of modern sport, and our attitude towards it, springs from the scandal. Fountain traces the Black Sox story from its roots in the gambling culture that pervaded the game in the years surrounding World War I, through the confusing events of the 1919 World Series itself, to the noisy aftermath and trial, and illuminates the moment as baseball's tipping point. Despite the clumsy unfolding of the scandal and trial and the callous treatment of the players involved, the Black Sox saga was a cleansing moment for the sport. It launched the age of the baseball commissioner, as baseball owners hired Landis and surrendered to him the control of their game. Fountain shows how sweeping changes in 1920s triggered by the scandal moved baseball away from its association with gamblers and fixers, and details how American's attitude toward the pastime shifted as they entered into "The Golden Age of Sport." Situating the Black Sox events in the context of later scandals, including those involving Reds manager and player Pete Rose, and the ongoing use of steroids in the game up through the present, Fountain illuminates America's near century-long fascination with the story, and its continuing relevance today.

"Shoeless" Joe Jackson was one of baseball's greatest hitters and most colorful players. Born on July 16, 1888, in Pickens County, South Carolina, Jackson went to work in a textile mill when he was around six years old, and got his start in baseball playing for the Brandon Mill team at the age of 13 earning $2.50 a game. He emerged as the star of the team and a favorite of fans, and moved up to play in the Carolina Association, where he received his nickname "Shoeless" because the blisters on his feet forced him to play in stockings. He then made his move to the major leagues, signing on with the Philadelphia Athletics and rising to fame. This work chronicles Jackson's life from his poor beginnings to his involvement in the scandal surrounding the 1919 World Series to his life after baseball and his death December 5, 1951, with most of the work focusing on his baseball career. This entry refers to the LARGE PRINT edition. For the standard edition please see ISBN 978-0-7864-0978-5.

This book tells the story of how Mexican multimillionaire businessman Jorge Pasquel and the Mexican League hastened the integration of major league baseball. During the decade that preceded Jackie Robinson's breaking of the color barrier, almost 150 players from the Negro League played in Mexico, most of them recruited by Pasquel.

Henry Chadwick remains one of the titans of baseball history. As a pioneering baseball journalist and author, an innovator of scorekeeping practices and statistics, and chairman of the first rules committee, Chadwick left an indelible mark on the history of the game. This deeply researched biography is the first book-length work on the Hall of Famer, known at the time of his death as the "Father of Base Ball." It covers Chadwick's driving role in the symbiotic rise of baseball and sports journalism, and demonstrates how Chadwick helped baseball to become firmly established as an American cultural institution. Appendices provide a selected bibliography of Chadwick's writing and a guide for further research.

Roberto "Bobby" Maduro (1916-1986) was a visionary baseball team owner and executive. His dedication to promoting the game internationally from the 1950s through the 1970s remains unrivaled. He headed Havana-based clubs in the Cuban Winter League and teams in the U.S. minor leagues, which helped brand Caribbean baseball in the eyes North American fans. He co-built the first million-dollar ballpark in Latin America. His Havana stadium was confiscated by Castro's revolution, along with all his accumulated wealth. Maduro began a new life in exile in the U.S., first as a minor league owner, then as a front office executive. He founded the short-lived Inter-American League in 1979, composed of five Caribbean-basin teams and one U.S. entry from his adopted hometown of Miami. Commissioner Bowie Kuhn said of his many achievements, "No one was more dedicated, more knowledgeable or more concerned about the game than Bobby Maduro.

From its 1909 construction through the final game on June 28, 1970, this volume presents a detailed look at Forbes Field, home to the Pittsburgh Pirates for 62 seasons. Part I includes essays on important events at the stadium (not just in major league baseball but in boxing, football, and black baseball?Forbes Field also housed the Homestead Grays) as well as a transcript of the last game's play-by-play. Historians consider the stadium's legacy and discuss the dimensions and configurations of the field. In Part II, more than 55 former players, managers, and club officials of the Pittsburgh Pirates, over 100 fans, and several sportswriters reminisce.

When the 1949–1953 New York Yankees won an astounding five consecutive World Series, they did it without the offensive firepower that characterized so many of their championship teams before and after. The franchise came to rely instead on three aging pitchers, an unlikely trio that won 255 games during the five-year championship run. This book focuses on the close relationship and quiet achievement of Allie Reynolds, Vic Raschi and Eddie Lopat. Soon after Robinson and the cross-town Dodgers had publicly confronted the issues of race and ethnicity, these men from very different backgrounds—Creek Indian, Italian and Polish—established a deep communion with each other, became lifelong friends, and over a handful of years re-wrote baseball history.

Advance Praise for Did Babe Ruth Call His Shot?
""Aron has found the Rosetta stone to all of baseball's enduring mysteries, and he skips it along the pond with utter disregard for the ducks. His fortunate readers will have so much fun they may not even notice that they are becoming, page by page, real experts. Here is surefire water-cooler ammo.""
--JOHN THORN, editor of Total Baseball
""Paul Aron puts a distant replay on the most famous controversies in baseball history. This is more fun than if he'd been there with a camcorder.""
--ALLEN BARRA, author of Clearing the Bases and Brushbacks and Knockdowns
""Paul Aron has hit a home run for baseball fans. He dissects the evidence on baseball's 28 most charming mysteries. The result is a well-written, enjoyable, enlightening tour of the last hundred years of baseball history.""
--ANDREW ZIMBALIST, author of Baseball and Billions
""Paul Aron's book on elements of baseball is both wise and fun, illuminating and entertaining.""
--ROBERT ADAIR, author of The Physics of Baseball
""The essential last word for every fan who loves to debate baseball fact and fiction.""
--MICHAEL SHAPIRO, author of The Last Good Season

In The Old Ball Game, Frank Deford, NPR sports commentator and Sports Illustrated journalist retells the story of an unusual friendship between two towering figures in baseball history. At the turn of the twentieth century, Christy Mathewson was one of baseball's first superstars. Over six feet tall, clean cut, and college educated, he didn't pitch on the Sabbath and rarely spoke an ill word about anyone. He also had one of the most devastating arms in all of baseball. New York Giants manager John McGraw, by contrast, was ferocious. The pugnacious tough guy was already a star infielder who, with the Baltimore Orioles, helped develop a new, scrappy style of baseball, with plays like the hit-and-run, the Baltimore chop, and the squeeze play. When McGraw joined the Giants in 1902, the Giants were coming off their worst season ever. Yet within three years, Mathewson clinched New York City's first World Series for McGraw's team by throwing three straight shutouts in only six days, an incredible feat that is invariably called the greatest World Series performance ever. Because of their wonderful odd-couple association, baseball had its first superstar, the Giants ascended into legend, and baseball as a national pastime bloomed.

"Cecilia Tan has written a Yankee Doodle Dandy of a book. The reader is taken through the dramatic ebb and flow of the 50 greatest Yankee games. We learn a lot about the team from the Bronx in this fact-filled, entertainingly written opus. Should be required reading for all fans of the New York Yankees."
--Harvey Frommer, author of "A Yankee Century and The New York Yankee Encyclopedia"

Every Yankee fan has a memory they will never forget or a game they wish they had seen. Covering an entire century of New York Yankees baseball, The 50 Greatest Yankee Games brings together the best (and sometimes worst) moments experienced by the most successful sports franchise on the planet. You'll be there as: Babe Ruth performs the most debated gesture in sports history Joe DiMaggio reaches one milestone on his way to another "The Wild Man" tames the Dodgers, but the Bombers fail to score Bobby Murcer delivers the game-winning hit just hours after delivering the eulogy at Thurman Munson's funeral Dave Righetti throws his no-hitter against the Red Sox Don Mattingly shines, but Seattle savors the day Derek Jeter saves the game and the season with a "shovel pass"

From the Yankees' first World Series to the pennant race that pitted Joe DiMaggio against Ted Williams to the Bucky Dent home run game, you'll have the best seat in the stadium as you experience all the excitement and drama. Featuring fascinating anecdotes and vintage photographs, The 50 Greatest Yankee Games is the perfect book for every Yankee fan and anyone who cherishes the game.

"Tan does a fine job choosing the most important contests from 100 seasons of Yankee baseball and recounting them in a gripping style . . .developing entertaining, dramatic story lines."
--"Publisher's Weekly"

Few people associate baseball with Great Britain, but for a brief period in the 1930s, America's pastime nearly gained a foothold with the British populace. Though never as popular as the beloved football clubs, or even greyhound races, baseball teams like the West Ham Hammers developed intense local followings, and played some excellent baseball - in 1936, the Hammers defeated the U.S. Olympic team. The outbreak of World War II ended the rising popularity of baseball among Britons, but speculation remains that, under different circumstances, British baseball could have flourished. This book traces the history of baseball as a popular British sport, concentrating on one particularly successful and notable team, the West Ham Hammers. It places the West Ham club within the historical context of 1930s Great Britain, and covers team management, major players (e.g., Roland Gladu, the ""Canadian Babe Ruth""), and the fans, many of whom still cling fondly to faded memories of the club and West Ham Stadium. Eight appendices include team rosters, British baseball rules, and year-by-year records from 1890 to 2005.

Hoosier Beginnings tells the story of Indiana University athletics from its founding in 1867 to the interwar period. Crammed full of rare images and little-known anecdotes, it recounts how sport at IU developed from its very first baseball team, made up mostly of local Bloomington townsfolks, to the rich and powerful tradition that is the "Hoosier" legacy. Hoosier Beginnings uncovers fascinating stories that have been lost to time and showcases how Indiana University athletics built its foundation as a pivotal team in sports history. Learn about the fatal train collision that nearly stopped IU athletics in its tracks; IU's first African American football player; the infamous Baseball Riot of 1913; how a horde of students grabbed axes and chopped down 200 apple trees to make way for a new gymnasium; and the legendary 1910 football team that didn't allow a single touchdown all season-but still lost a game. Most importantly, it attempts to answer the burning question, where did the "Hoosiers" get their mysterious name?

Advance Praise for Did Babe Ruth Call His Shot?

"Aron has found the Rosetta stone to all of baseball's enduring mysteries, and he skips it along the pond with utter disregard for the ducks. His fortunate readers will have so much fun they may not even notice that they are becoming, page by page, real experts. Here is surefire water-cooler ammo."
--JOHN THORN, editor of Total Baseball

"Paul Aron puts a distant replay on the most famous controversies in baseball history. This is more fun than if he'd been there with a camcorder."
--ALLEN BARRA, author of Clearing the Bases and Brushbacks and Knockdowns

"Paul Aron has hit a home run for baseball fans. He dissects the evidence on baseball's 28 most charming mysteries. The result is a well-written, enjoyable, enlightening tour of the last hundred years of baseball history."
--ANDREW ZIMBALIST, author of Baseball and Billions

"Paul Aron's book on elements of baseball is both wise and fun, illuminating and entertaining."
--ROBERT ADAIR, author of The Physics of Baseball

"The essential last word for every fan who loves to debate baseball fact and fiction."
--MICHAEL SHAPIRO, author of The Last Good Season

The Bad Guys Won, award-winning Sports Illustrated baseball writer Jeff Pearlman returns to an innocent time when a city worshipped a man named Mookie and the Yankees were the second-best team in New York.

It was 1986, and the New York Mets won 108 regular-season games and the World Series, capturing the hearts (and other assorted body parts) of fans everywhere. But their greatness on the field was nearly eclipsed by how bad they were off it. Led by the indomitable Keith Hernandez and the young dynamic duo of Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry, along with the gallant Scum Bunch, the Amazin's left a wide trail of wreckage in their wake--hotel rooms, charter planes, a bar in Houston, and most famously Bill Buckner and the hated Boston Red Sox.

With an unforgettable cast of characters--including Doc, Straw, the Kid, Nails, Mex, and manager Davey Joshson--this "affectionate but critical look at this exciting season" (Publishers Weekly) celebrates the last of baseball's arrogant, insane, rock-and-roll-and-party-all-night teams, exploring what could have been, what should have been, and what never was.

The baseball glove is a ubiquitous item, a crucial piece of equipment in the game of baseball, and it offers the opportunity to examine the production of material culture and social practice at numerous levels. Where and how is a glove made, and how does its manufacture square with the narratives surrounding its place in American cultural life? What are the myths, superstitions, and beliefs surrounding its acquisition, care, use, and significance? How does a glove function as the center of a web of cultural practices that illustrate how individuals relate to a consumer good as a symbol of memory, personal narrative, and national identity? How do the manufacturers of baseball gloves draw upon, promote, and in some sense create these practices? How do these practices and meanings change in other national and cultural contexts? The Baseball Glove offers students the opportunity to examine these questions in an engagingly written and illustrated book that promotes hands-on interaction with a quintessential item of material culture. At the same time, the book gives students the space for critical self-reflection about the place of material goods like sporting equipment in their lives, and it provides the chance to learn different methodological approaches to studying everyday objects.