In this gripping account of one of the most important steps in the history of American desegregation, Jules Tygiel tells the story of Jackie Robinson's crossing of baseball's color line. Examining the social and historical context of Robinson's introduction into white organized baseball, both on and off the field, Tygiel also tells the often neglected stories of other African-American players--such as Satchel Paige, Roy Campanella, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron--who helped transform our national pastime into an integrated game. Drawing on dozens of interviews with players and front office executives, contemporary newspaper accounts, and personal papers, Tygiel provides the most telling and insightful account of Jackie Robinson's influence on American baseball and society. The anniversary issue features a new foreword by the author. 4

The Cup of Coffee Club shares the stories of eleven men who played in just a single major league baseball game and how they responded to the heartache of never making it back. Featuring exclusive interviews with each of the players, their insight provides a unique look into the struggles of being a professional ballplayer. Reaching the major leagues is a pipe dream for most young baseball players in America. Very few ever get to live it out. While many that do make it to the big leagues stay there for a long time, there are just as many that are only there for a brief moment. A select few of those players face the elation and frustration of getting to play in just one major league game. The Cup of Coffee Club: 11 Players and Their Brush with Baseball History tells the stories of eleven of these players and their struggles to reach the major leagues, as well as their struggles to get back. They include a former Major League Baseball manager, the son of a Baseball Hall of Famer, and two different brothers of Hall of Famers. Exclusive interviews with each of the players provide insight into what that single seminal moment meant and how they dealt with the blow of never making another major league appearance again. Spanning half a century of baseball, each player’s journey to Major League Baseball is distinct, as is each of their responses to having played in just a single game. The Cup of Coffee Club shares their unique perspectives, providing a better understanding of just how special each major league game can be.

Being a new youth baseball coach can feel like stepping into the batter's box and facing a 100mph ball. Coaching Youth Baseball will relieve your first time coaching jitters and put you on the base path to success. Coaching Youth Baseball helps you manage your team with confidence. This age-specific, field-tested coaching guide prepares you all eventualities in baseball. These include establishing proper priorities as a coach, communicating with players, officials and parents, and teaching baseball skills and strategies. Written for coaches of players under 18, this book helps you create an environment that promotes player development, enjoyment, motivation, safety and sportsmanship.

Why are Americans obsessed with the home run in sports, business, and even life? What made the steroid era inevitable? Revisiting the great home run seasons of Babe Ruth through that of Barry Bonds, All the Babe's Men answers these and other provocative questions. Baseball evolved in a Darwinian study of fate, accident, necessity, and occasional subterfuge. Babe Ruth clubbed his record sixty homers with a heavier bat than what contemporary sluggers like Sammy Sosa used. Ruth batted low in the lineup, swung freely, and knocked balls over the fences. Other players noticed, like Rogers Hornsby, whose own home run totals went from nine in 1919 to forty-two in 1922. But bat speed has become more important in today's game. Big league stadiums built in urban areas have compressed the field and sport shorter outfields, compared to the vast meadows where the game was born. The players, owners, and fans became hooked, but our addiction took us to excess. All the Babe's Men features the game's special long ball seasons from Ruth to Bonds and divulges how baseball became king, America evolved into a home run society, and the contemporary game found itself trapped in a legal nightmare. About the Author Eldon L. Ham has taught sports law at Chicago-Kent College of Law since 1994 and was one of the first lawyers to challenge the NFL's drug policy in court. He is the sports legal analyst for WSCR sports radio in Chicago and has appeared on dozens of radio stations coast to coast as a sports lawyer, expert, and historian. He is also the author of The Playmasters: From Sellouts to Lockouts-an Unauthorized History of the NBA, Larceny& Old Leather: The Mischievous Legacy of Major League Baseball, and Broadcasting Baseball: A History of the National Pastime on Radio and Television. He lives near Chicago.

2022 SABR Seymour Medal Finalist for the 2021 CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year When New York Giants owner Charles A. Stoneham came home one night in 1918 and told his teenage son, Horace, "Horrie, I bought you a ballclub," he set in motion a family legacy. Horace Stoneham would become one of baseball's greatest figures, an owner who played an essential role in integrating the game, and who was a major force in making our pastime truly national by bringing Major League Baseball to the West Coast. Horace Stoneham began his tenure with the Giants in 1924, learning all sides of the operation until he moved into the front office. In 1936, when his father died of kidney disease, Horace assumed control of the Giants at age thirty-two, becoming one of the youngest owners in baseball history. Stoneham played a pivotal role in not just his team's history but the game itself. In the mid-1940s when the Pacific Coast League sought to gain Major League status, few but Stoneham and Branch Rickey took it seriously, and twelve years later the Giants and Dodgers were the first two teams to relocate west. Stoneham signed former Negro Leaguers Monte Irvin and Hank Thompson, making the Giants the second National League franchise to racially integrate. In the late 1940s, the Giants hired their first Spanish-speaking scout and soon became the leading team in developing Latin American players. Stoneham was shy and self-effacing and avoided the spotlight. His relationships with players were almost always strong, yet for all his leadership skills and baseball acumen, sustained success eluded most of his teams. In forty seasons his Giants won just five National League pennants and only one World Series. The Stoneham family business struggled, and the team was forced to sell off its beloved stars, first Willie Mays, then Willie McCovey, and finally Juan Marichal. Then Stoneham had no choice but to sell the club in 1975. While his tenure came to an unfortunate end, he is heralded as a pioneer and leader whose story tells much of baseball history from the 1930s through the 1970s.

Hairs vs. Squares is an ode to an unforgettable season that began with the first major players' strike in the history of North American sports and ended with a record-setting World Series played by two of the game's greatest and most colorful dynasties. In a sign of the times it was Hippies vs. Hardhats, a clash of cultures with the hirsute, mod Mustache Gang colliding with the clean-cut, conservative Big Red Machine on the game's grandest stage. When the Oakland A's met the Cincinnati Reds in the 1972 Fall Classic, more than a championship was at stake. The more than two dozen interviews bring to life a time when controversy was commonplace, both inside and outside the national pastime. In baseball, Willie Mays was traded, Hank Aaron was chasing down Babe Ruth's home run record, and Dick Allen was helping to save the Chicago White Sox franchise while winning the American League's Most Valuable Player award. Outside the American pastime the war in Vietnam was raging, campus protests spread throughout the country, and Watergate and the Munich Olympics headlined the tumultuous year. The 1972 Major League Baseball season was marked by the rapid rise of rookies and young stars, the fall of established teams and veterans, courageous comebacks, and personal redemptions. Along with the many unforgettable and outrageous characters inside baseball, Hairs vs. Squares emphasizes the dramatic changes that took place on and off the field in the 1970s. Owners' lockouts, on-field fights, maverick managers, controversial trades, artificial fields, the first full five-game League Championship Series, and the closest, most competitive World Series ever, combined to make the 1972 season as complex as the social and political unrest that marked the era.

2021 SABR Baseball Research Award 2021 Independent Publisher Book Awards, Silver Medal Winner Baseball has been called America's true melting pot, a game that unites us as a people. Issei Baseball is the story of the pioneers of Japanese American baseball, Harry Saisho, Ken Kitsuse, Tom Uyeda, Tozan Masko, Kiichi Suzuki, and others-young men who came to the United States to start a new life but found bigotry and discrimination. In 1905 they formed a baseball club in Los Angeles and began playing local amateur teams. Inspired by the Waseda University baseball team's 1905 visit to the West Coast, they became the first Japanese professional baseball club on either side of the Pacific and barnstormed across the American Midwest in 1906 and 1911. Tens of thousands came to see "how the minions of the Mikado played the national pastime." As they played, the Japanese earned the respect of their opponents and fans, breaking down racial stereotypes. Baseball became a bridge between the two cultures, bringing Japanese and Americans together through the shared love of the game. Issei Baseball focuses on the small group of men who formed the first professional and semiprofessional Japanese baseball clubs. These players' story tells the history of early Japanese American baseball, including the placement of Saisho, Kitsuse, and their families in relocation camps during World War II and the Japanese immigrant experience.

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.

Written by three esteemed baseball statisticians, The Book continues where the legendary Bill James's Baseball Abstracts and Palmer and Thorn's The Hidden Game of Baseball left off more than twenty years ago. Continuing in the grand tradition of sabermetrics, the authors provide a revolutionary way to think about baseball with principles that can be applied at every level, from high school to the major leagues. Tom Tango, Mitchel Lichtman, and Andrew Dolphin cover topics such as batting and pitching matchups, platooning, the benefits and risks of intentional walks and sacrifices, the legitimacy of alleged "clutch" hitters, and many of baseball's other theories on hitting, fielding, pitching, and even baserunning. They analyze when a strategy is a good idea and when it's a bad idea, and how to more closely watch the "inside" game of baseball. Whenever you hear an announcer talk about the "unwritten rule" or say that so-and-so is going "by the book" in bringing in a situational substitute, The Book reviews the facts and determines what the real case is. If you want to know what the folks in baseball should be doing, find out in The Book.

In parks and cafes, homes and stadium stands, Cubans talk baseball. Thomas F. Carter contends that when they are analyzing and debating plays, games, teams, and athletes, Cubans are exchanging ideas not just about baseball but also about Cuba and "cubanidad," or what it means to be Cuban. "The Quality of Home Runs" is Carter's lively ethnographic exploration of the interconnections between baseball and Cuban identity. Suggesting that baseball is in many ways an apt metaphor for cubanidad, Carter points out aspects of the sport that resonate with Cuban social and political life: the perpetual tension between risk and security, the interplay between individual style and collective regulation, and the risky journeys undertaken with the intention, but not the guarantee, of returning home.

As an avid baseball fan, Carter draws on his experiences listening to and participating in discussions of baseball in Cuba (particularly in Havana) and among Cubans living abroad to describe how baseball provides the ground for negotiations of national, masculine, and class identities wherever Cubans gather. He considers the elaborate spectacle of Cuban baseball as well as the relationship between the socialist state and the enormously popular sport. Carter provides a detailed history of baseball in Cuba, analyzing players, policies, rivalries, and fans, and he describes how the sport has forged connections (or reinforced divisions) between Cuba and other nations. Drawing on insights from cultural studies, political theory, and anthropology, he maintains that sport and other forms of play should be taken seriously as crucibles of social and cultural experience.

Diamond Dollars is a fresh, provocative, insightful, and analytical look at the business of baseball by author Vince Gennaro, a consultant to MLB teams. Gennaro addresses some key questions that affect how teams make decisions, how they assemble their roster, and ultimately, their bottom line: * How does winning affect revenues for each team? * How much value does a berth in the postseason generate for the Red Sox and Yankees? * What is the Yankees' marginal revenue vs. marginal cost of winning? * What is the economic value of a highly productive Twins' farm system? * Why is a player's value "situational," depending on the competitiveness of his team and the market in which he plays? * How much was Carlos Beltran worth to the Mets in 2006? * How can we quantify Derek Jeter's "marquee value..".his ability to draw fans? * What is the relative cost of developing talent vs. buying it in the free agent market? * How can we quantify Nomar Garciaparra's injury risk and its impact on his dollar value? * What is the dollar value of Cubs' fans loyalty to their beloved team? * How have the Red Sox, Yankees and Cubs built their team as a brand? * How much Babe Ruth was worth to his Yankee teams of the 1920s and 1930s? Baseball teams may have thought conceptually about some of these issues, but Diamond Dollars gives them the math to measure the effectiveness of their thinking and practices. "Diamond Dollars provides an insightful look at the business of baseball-at the free agent market, teams' scouting and player development systems, and how clubs market their brands. The book mixes Vince's business acumen as a top executive at a Fortune 50 company with his passion for the national pastime." --Mark Attanasio, Chairman and Principal Owner, Milwaukee Brewers "Vince Gennaro shows a profound understanding of the economics of a team's baseball decisions. His analyses of a team's win-revenue relationship, the player development system and player valuation, make for a remarkably innovative examination of the baseball front office model that's just as informative for a baseball executive as for a fan." --Chris Antonetti, General Manager, Cleveland Indians "Diamond Dollars offers up exciting and stimulating new ideas about the business of baseball. It provides a set of metrics for decisions that have typically been a "gut feeling" for many organizations. I think teams should make this required reading for everyone in their organizations." --Jim Beattie, former Executive VP and General Manager, Baltimore Orioles and Montreal Expos "Vince Gennaro has written the best book I've read on the business of baseball. It serves as both a "how-to manual" for baseball owners and a tour guide for fans who scratch their heads at the things their teams do. It should find plenty of readers in both camps." --Dave Studenmund, Editor, The Hardball Times Annual

There are many complexities in pitching, but the complexities are the last ten percent, not the first ninety. The first 90% - the things every good pitcher does - are simple. Pitching. Isn't. Complicated. is a concise explanation of the pitching maxims that every pitcher must exhibit. Covered are mechanics, mindset, mental training, situational pitching, holding runners, and more. The author has combined his playing experience with innovative training techniques to become one of the most successful young pitching coaches in the country. The methods in this book are not sensational and there are no fads, no superfluous exercises and no gimmicks. Rather, the goal is to provide only the best drills, teaching methods and concepts that comprise the optimal dose of training. Pitching. Isn't. Complicated. is a concise, layman and actionable book written to give coaches, parents and pitchers a holistic understanding of elite pitching. With a mountain of conflicting information available on the Internet, the development of pitchers has become more confusing than ever; this book will change that.

2020 SABR Seymour Medal 2019 CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year Buck O'Neil once described him as "Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, and Tris Speaker rolled into one." Among experts he is regarded as the best player in Negro Leagues history. During his prime he became a legend in Cuba and one of Black America's most popular figures. Yet even among serious sports fans, Oscar Charleston is virtually unknown today. In a long career spanning from 1915 to 1954, Charleston played against, managed, befriended, and occasionally fought men such as Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Lefty Grove, Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Jesse Owens, Roy Campanella, and Branch Rickey. He displayed tremendous power, speed, and defensive instincts along with a fierce intelligence and commitment to his craft. Charleston's competitive fire sometimes brought him trouble, but more often it led to victories, championships, and profound respect. While Charleston never played in the Major Leagues, he was a trailblazer who became the first Black man to work as a scout for a Major League team when Branch Rickey hired him to evaluate players for the Dodgers in the 1940s. From the mid-1920s on, he was a player-manager for several clubs. In 1932 he joined the Pittsburgh Crawfords and would manage the club many consider the finest Negro League team of all time, featuring five future Hall of Famers, including himself, Cool Papa Bell, Josh Gibson, Judy Johnson, and Satchel Paige. Charleston's combined record as a player, manager, and scout makes him the most accomplished figure in Black baseball history. His mastery of the quintessentially American sport under the conditions of segregation revealed what was possible for Black achievement, bringing hope to millions. Oscar Charleston introduces readers to one of America's greatest and most fascinating athletes.

Most fans today know that gamblers and ballplayers conspired to "fix" the 1919 World Series-the Black Sox Scandal. It has been touched upon in classic works of sports history such as Eliot Asinof's "Eight Men Out," referred to in literary classics like W. P. Kinsella's "Shoeless Joe," and has been central to two of the best baseball movies ever made, John Sayles's "Eight Men Out" and Phil Robinson's "Field of Dreams,"Many, however, would be surprised to learn that it took nearly a year to uncover the fix. "Burying the Black Sox" is the first book to focus on the cover-up that kept the fix from the American public until almost another whole baseball season was played, and to examine in detail the way events unfolded as the deception was unraveled. Unlike Eliot Asinof in "Eight Men Out," previously the definitive book on the subject, Carney thoroughly documents his information and brings together evidence from a wide variety of sources, many not available to Asinof or more recent writers.In "Burying the Black Sox," Gene Carney reveals what else happened and answers the questions that fascinate any baseball fan wondering about baseball's original dilemma over guilt and innocence. Who else in baseball knew that the fix was in? When did they know? And what did they do about it? Carney explores how Charles Comiskey, the owner of the White Sox, and his fellow owners tried to bury the incident and control the damage, how the conspiracy failed, and how "Shoeless" Joe Jackson attempted to clear his name. He uses primary research materials that weren't available when Asinof wrote "Eight Men Out," including the 1920 grand jury statements by Jackson and pitcher Eddie Cicotte, the diary of Comiskey'ssecretary, and the transcripts of Jackson's 1924 suit against the Sox for back pay. Where Asinof told the story of the eight "Black Sox," Carney explains the baseball industry's uncertain response to the scandal.

In 1968, Johnny Bench was a 20-year-old rookie embarking on his first full Major League season with the Cincinnati Reds. He was also the Reds starting catcher, an All-Star, and the National League Rookie of the Year. And he was one other thing as well: the foundation for one of the greatest teams ever assembled in Major League history-the Big Red Machine. Bench's Major League journey lasted 17 seasons-all in Cincinnati-and earned him a place in the Baseball Hall of Fame as one of the game's greatest legends. But when talking about the legendary Reds teams of the 1970s, it was Bench who said, "The Big Red Machine teams will never be forgotten ... They'll be remembered because of the professionals they had, the character they had, the skill they had. Those teams were a symbol of what baseball really should be." The professionals included Tony Perez and Pete Rose, who were already on the club when Bench burst on the scene in 1968, and then one by one the rest of the pieces fell into place: manager Sparky Anderson (1970), followed by Dave Concepcion and George Foster (1971), Joe Morgan and Cesar Geronimo (1972), and Ken Griffey (1973). In 1975, with all the pieces firmly in place, the Reds were World Champions. In 1976, the Reds defended their title and became a dynasty. This is a book of history and trivia that covers all eras of Reds baseball-but it is also a tribute to the legacy of Sparky Anderson and the professionals who made up the Big Red Machine. Think you know everything about Reds baseball? Think again. With ten chapters and 200 brand new trivia questions to challenge fans of all ages and skill levels, it's time to find out how smart you really are about the Cincinnati Reds. Each chapter profiles a member of the Big Red Machine and then offers 20 brand new exciting and challenging trivia questions. And we're keeping score ... so test your skills, wrack your brain, and get ready for the ultimate Cincinnati Reds IQ test