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Books > Sport & Leisure > Sports & outdoor recreation > Ball games > Baseball
Growing up in a tiny shack in the Dominican Republic, Felipe Alou
never dreamed he would be the first man born and raised in his
country to play and manage in Major League Baseball-and also the
first to play in the World Series. In this extraordinary
autobiography, Alou tells of his real dream to become a doctor, and
an improbable turn of events that led to the pro contract. Battling
racism in the United States and political turmoil in his home
country, Alou persevered, paving the way for his brothers and
scores of other Dominicans, including his son Moises. Alou played
seventeen years in the Major Leagues, accumulating more than two
thousand hits and two hundred home runs, and then managed for
another fourteen years-four with the San Francisco Giants and ten
with the Montreal Expos, where he became the winningest manager in
franchise history. Alou's pioneering journey is embedded in the
history of baseball, the Dominican Republic, and a remarkable
family.
Pedro Martinez. Sammy Sosa. Manny Ramirez. By 2000, Dominican
baseball players were in every Major League clubhouse, and
regularly winning every baseball award. In 2002, Omar Minaya became
the first Dominican general manager of a Major League team. But how
did this codependent relationship between MLB and Dominican talent
arise and thrive? In his incisive and engaging book, Dominican
Baseball, Alan Klein examines the history of MLB's presence and
influence in the Dominican Republic, the development of the booming
industry and academies, and the dependence on Dominican player
developers, known as buscones. He also addresses issues of identity
fraud and the use of performance-enhancing drugs as hopefuls seek
to play professionally. Dominican Baseball charts the trajectory of
the economic flows of this transnational exchange, and the pride
Dominicans feel in their growing influence in the sport. Klein also
uncovers the prejudice that prompts MLB to diminish Dominican
claims on legitimacy. This sharp, smartly argued book deftly
chronicles the uneasy and often contested relations of the
contemporary Dominican game and industry.
The story of Jackie Robinson valiantly breaking baseball's color
barrier in 1947 is one most Americans know. But less recognized is
the fact that some seventy years earlier, following the Civil War,
baseball was tenuously biracial and had the potential for a truly
open game. How, then, did the game become so firmly segregated that
it required a trailblazer like Robinson? The answer, Ryan A.
Swanson suggests, has everything to do with the politics of
"reconciliation" and a wish to avoid the issues of race that an
integrated game necessarily raised. The history of baseball during
Reconstruction, as Swanson tells it, is a story of lost
opportunities. Thomas Fitzgerald and Octavius Catto (a Philadelphia
baseball tandem), for example, were poised to emerge as pioneers of
integration in the 1860s. Instead, the desire to create a "national
game"-professional and appealing to white northerners and
southerners alike-trumped any movement toward civil rights.
Focusing on Philadelphia, Washington DC, and Richmond-three cities
with large Black populations and thriving baseball clubs-Swanson
uncovers the origins of baseball's segregation and the mechanics of
its implementation. An important piece of sports history, his work
also offers a better understanding of Reconstruction, race, and
segregation in America.
Baseball is much more than a game. As the American national
pastime, it has reflected the political and cultural concerns of US
society for over 200 years, and generates passions and loyalties
unique in American society. This Companion examines baseball in
culture, baseball as culture, and the game's global identity.
Contributors contrast baseball's massive, big-business present with
its romanticized origins and its evolution against the backdrop of
American and world history. The chapters cover topics such as
baseball in the movies, baseball and mass media, and baseball in
Japan and Latin America. Between the chapters are vivid profiles of
iconic characters including Babe Ruth, Ichiro and Walter O'Malley.
Crucial moments in baseball history are revisited, ranging from the
1919 Black Sox gambling scandal to recent controversies over
steroid use. A unique book for fans and scholars alike, this
Companion explains the enduring importance of baseball in America
and beyond. Read Leonard Cassuto's article 'Baseball and the
Business of American Innocence' in the Chronicle of Higher
Education.
The Players League, formed in 1890, was a short-lived professional
baseball league controlled and owned in part by the players
themselves, a response to the National League's salary cap and
"reserve rule," which bound players for life to one particular
team. Led by John Montgomery Ward, the Players League was a
star-studded group that included most of the best players of the
National League, who bolted not only to gain control of their wages
but also to share ownership of the teams. Lasting only a year, the
league impacted both the professional sports and the labor politics
of athletes and nonathletes alike. The Great Baseball Revolt is a
historic overview of the rise and fall of the Players League, which
fielded teams in Boston, Brooklyn, Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, New
York, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. Though it marketed itself as a
working-class league, the players were underfunded and had to turn
to wealthy capitalists for much of their startup costs, including
the new ballparks. It was in this context that the league
intersected with the organized labor movement, and in many ways
challenged by organized labor to be by and for the people. In its
only season, the Players League outdrew the National League in fan
attendance. But when the National League overinflated its numbers
and profits, the Players League backers pulled out. The Great
Baseball Revolt brings to life a compelling cast of characters and
a mostly forgotten but important time in professional sports when
labor politics affected both athletes and nonathletes.
Reclaiming 42 centers on one of America's most respected cultural
icons, Jackie Robinson, and the forgotten aspects of his cultural
legacy. Since his retirement in 1956, and more strongly in the last
twenty years, America has primarily remembered Robinson's legacy in
an oversimplified way, as the pioneering first black baseball
player to integrate the Major Leagues. The mainstream commemorative
discourse regarding Robinson's career has been created and directed
largely by Major League Baseball (MLB), which sanitized and
oversimplified his legacy into narratives of racial reconciliation
that celebrate his integrity, character, and courage while
excluding other aspects of his life, such as his controversial
political activity, his public clashes with other prominent members
of the black community, and his criticism of MLB. MLB's
commemoration of Robinson reflects a professional sport that is
inclusive, racially and culturally tolerant, and largely
postracial. Yet Robinson's identity-and therefore his memory-has
been relegated to the boundaries of a baseball diamond and to the
context of a sport, and it is within this oversimplified legacy
that history has failed him. The dominant version of Robinson's
legacy ignores his political voice during and after his baseball
career and pays little attention to the repercussions that his
integration had on many factions within the black community.
Reclaiming 42 illuminates how public memory of Robinson has
undergone changes over the last sixty-plus years and moves his
story beyond Robinson the baseball player, opening a new, broader
interpretation of an otherwise seemingly convenient narrative to
show how Robinson's legacy ultimately should both challenge and
inspire public memory.
The 1967 Boston Red Sox made an "Impossible Dream" come true for
all Red Sox Fans. When the season began, Las vegas assigned the Red
Sox a one in one hundred shot to capture the American League
pennant. Their fate remained in doubt until the very last game of
the season. This truly was a team that captured lightning in a
bottle. They were counted out time and time again, but always
countered with the unlikely. They lost their star fielder when
local hero, Tony Conigliaro, was nearly killed by a fastball thrown
by Jack Hamilton of the California Angels. They entered the last
week of the season with only a mathematical chance at the pennant.
Yet each time they reached a little deeper to find their magic.
Relive this remarkable season through the reflections of the '67
team members.
How to live with difference--not necessarily in peace, but with
resilience, engagement, and a lack of vitriol--is a defining worry
in America at this moment. The poets, fiction writers, and
essayists (plus one graphic novelist) who contributed to Welcome to
the Neighborhood don't necessarily offer roadmaps to harmonious
neighboring. Some of their narrators don't even want to be
neighbors. Maybe they grieve, or rage. Maybe they briefly find
resolution or community. But they do approach the question of what
it means to be neighbors, and how we should do it, with open minds
and nuance. The many diverse contributors give this collection a
depth beyond easy answers. Their attentions to the theme of
neighborliness as an ongoing evolution offer hope to readers:
possible pathways for rediscovering community, even just by way of
a shared wish for it. The result is an enormously rich resource for
the classroom and for anyone interested in reflecting on what it
means to be American today, and how place and community play a
part. Contributors include Leila Chatti, Rita Dove, Jonathan
Escoffery, Rebecca Morgan Frank, Amina Gautier, Ross Gay, Mark
Halliday, Joy Harjo, Edward Hirsch, Marie Howe, Sonya Larson, Dinty
W. Moore, Robert Pinsky, Christine Schutt, and many more.
An inside look at the faith that guides the all-stars.
The St. Louis Cardinals have long been one of the most
successful franchises in the major leagues. They have won 11 World
Series titles and some of the most famous players in the history of
the game have worn the storied "Birds on the Bat" uniform.
While that on-field success has been well documented,
"Intentional Walk" is the first book which goes beyond the story of
what happens on the field to take an in-depth look at the men
inside the Cardinal uniforms, and examine how their strong
Christian faith is one of the driving forces behind their
success.
"Intentional Walk" features the stories of Adam Wainwright,
David Freese, Lance Berkman, Matt Holliday, Carlos Beltran, Jason
Motte and other members of the 2012 Cardinals, written as those
players and the rest of the team tried to repeat the 2011 world
championship. The book talks about how they became Christians and
offers their testimony about what it means for them to have God
play such a prominent role in their lives.
Playing for first-year manager Mike Matheny, a strong Christian
as well, these men talk about their success and failure, about the
challenges that come from playing baseball at the highest level,
and how thankful and blessed they are to have that God-given
ability. In the end, however, what is far more important to them is
their life-long relationship they have established with Jesus
Christ.
2022 SABR Baseball Research Award Before there was Joe DiMaggio,
there was Tony Lazzeri. A decade before the "Yankee Clipper" began
his legendary career in 1936, Lazzeri paved the way for the man who
would become the patron saint of Italian American fans and players.
He did so by forging his own Hall of Fame career as a key member of
the Yankees' legendary Murderers' Row lineup between 1926 and 1937,
in the process becoming the first major baseball star of Italian
descent. An unwitting pioneer who played his entire career while
afflicted with epilepsy, Lazzeri was the first player to hit sixty
home runs in organized baseball, one of the first middle infielders
in the big leagues to hit with power, and the first Italian player
with enough star power to attract a whole new generation of fans to
the ballpark. As a twenty-two-year-old rookie for the New York
Yankees, Lazzeri played alongside such legends as Babe Ruth and Lou
Gehrig. He immediately emerged as a star, finishing second to Ruth
in RBIs and third in home runs in the American League. In his
twelve years as the second baseman for Yankee teams that won five
World Series, he was their third-most productive hitter, driving in
more runs than all but five American Leaguers, and hitting more
home runs than all but six. Yet for all that, today Lazzeri is a
largely forgotten figure, his legacy diminished by the passage of
time and tarnished by his bases-loaded strikeout to Grover
Cleveland Alexander in Game Seven of the 1926 World Series, a
strikeout immortalized on Alexander's Hall of Fame plaque. Tony
Lazzeri reveals that quite to the contrary, he was one of the
smartest, most talented, and most respected players of his time,
the forgotten Yankee who helped the team win six American League
pennants and five World Series titles.
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.
Their names were chanted, crowed, and cursed. Alone they were a
shortstop, a second baseman, and a first baseman. But together they
were an unstoppable force. Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, and Frank
Chance came together in rough-and-tumble early twentieth-century
Chicago and soon formed the defensive core of the most formidable
team in big league baseball, leading the Chicago Cubs to four
National League pennants and two World Series championships from
1906 to 1910. At the same time, baseball was transforming from
smalltime diversion into a nationwide sensation. Americans from all
walks of life became infected with "baseball fever," a phenomenon
of unprecedented enthusiasm and social impact. The national pastime
was coming of age.Tinker to Evers to Chance examines this pivotal
moment in American history, when baseball became the game we know
today. Each man came from a different corner of the country and
brought a distinctive local culture with him: Evers from the
IrishAmerican hothouse of Troy, New York; Tinker from the urban
parklands of Kansas City, Missouri; Chance from the verdant fields
of California's Central Valley. The stories of these early baseball
stars shed unexpected light not only on the evolution of baseball
and on the enthusiasm of its players and fans all across America,
but also on the broader convulsions transforming the US into a
confident new industrial society. With them emerged a truly
national culture. This iconic trio helped baseball reinvent itself,
but their legend has largely been relegated to myths and barroom
trivia. David Rapp's engaging history resets the story and brings
these men to life again, enabling us to marvel anew at their feats
on the diamond. It's a rare look at one of baseball's first
dynasties in action.
Ballparks Then and Now is a fascinating exploration of ballparks
across America. Packed with archival and modern photography, this
book documents the development of America's national pastime by
looking at the fields of dreams on which it is played. The ballpark
experience has changed dramatically from baseball's early days on
grassy lots with wooden grandstands and free admission. The Union
Grounds in Brooklyn, New York, is considered by many historians to
be the first ballpark ever built, when William Cammeyer decided to
use the Union Skating Pond as grounds for baseball games in 1862.
When the first professional leagues were formed in 1871,
enterprising owners began to invest in the creation of luxurious
wooden palaces such as the Grand Pavilion in Boston and Sportsman's
Park in St. Louis. The first steel-and-concrete ballpark was Shibe
Park in Philadelphia, built in 1909, which housed a record number
of 20,000 paying customers and set the standard in ballpark design
for the next fifty years. The cookie-cutter ballparks of the 1960s
and 1970s have largely been replaced by newer retro designs that
give each park its own unique feel and have re-established
ballparks as a vital part of urban America. Ballparks Then and Now
is a fascinating exploration of ballparks across America. Packed
with archival and modern photography, this book documents the
development of America's national pastime by looking at the fields
of dreams on which it is played.
Providing a behind-the-scenes look at the personalities and events
that have shaped the Detroit Tigers' recent resurgence, readers
will meet the players, coaches, and management and share in their
moments of greatness, grief, and quirkiness. Beginning in 2002,
when author Mario Impemba arrived in the Tigers' broadcast booth
and when the team had consecutive 100-loss seasons, the book
details how, in just three shorts years, team president Dave
Dombrowski and manager Jim Leyland led the Tigers to the American
League pennant--a feat the Tigers repeated in 2012. Impemba takes
readers into the Comerica Park broadcast booth alongside the
legendary Ernie Harwell, onto the team plane during the team's two
runs to the World Series, and into the clubhouse as Miguel Cabrera
closed in on the 2012 Triple Crown. He shares personal stories
about several Tigers stars, including Cabrera, Justin Verlander,
Prince Fielder, Curtis Granderson, Ivan Rodriguez, Kenny Rogers,
Magglio Ordonez, and more. "If These Walls Could Talk: Detroit
Tigers" gives fans a taste of what it's like to be a part of the
Tigers storied history from a perspective unlike any other.
To celebrate the 15th anniversary of the first publication of Skinnybones, bestselling author Barbara Park has updated the text of this award-winning novel and made it even more hilarious. A whole new generation of kids will meet Alex "Skinnybones" Frankovich, the smallest player on his baseball team, who is famous for his big mouth. Alex knows he's gone too far when he brags his way into a battle of skills with T.J. Stoner, a cocky Little League legend with a perfect hitting record. Can blabbermouth Alex talk his way out of this mess?
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