A captivating history of the baseball reformers and revolutionaries who challenged their sport and society--and in turn helped change America. Athletes have often used their platform to respond to and protest injustices, from Muhammad Ali and Colin Kaepernick to Billie Jean King and Megan Rapinoe. Compared to their counterparts, baseball players have often been more cautious about speaking out on controversial issues; but throughout the sport's history, there have been many players who were willing to stand up and fight for what was right. In Major League Rebels: Baseball Battles over Workers' Rights and American Empire, Robert Elias and Peter Dreier reveal a little-known yet important history of rebellion among professional ballplayers. These reformers took inspiration from the country's dissenters and progressive movements, speaking and acting against abuses within their profession and their country. Elias and Dreier profile the courageous players who demanded better working conditions, battled against corporate power, and challenged America's unjust wars, imperialism, and foreign policies, resisting the brash patriotism that many link with the "national pastime." American history can be seen as an ongoing battle over wealth and income inequality, corporate power versus workers' rights, what it means to be a "patriotic" American, and the role of the United States outside its borders. For over 100 years, baseball activists have challenged the status quo, contributing to the kind of dissent that creates a more humane society. Major League Rebels tells their inspiring stories.

When Stan "The Man" Musial retired after 22 years with the Cardinals (disrupted only by a year of service with the U.S. Navy during World War II), he held 17 Major League records, 29 National League records, and 9 All Star game records. His unwavering consistency with the bat still has no peer: he hit over .300 17 times in his career, and left the game 2nd all-time in total bases, 4th in hits, 5th in RBIs, and 6th in number of games played. Despite his extreme production at the plate-achieved, in fact, only after a shoulder injury forced him to drop his duties as a pitcher-he never achieved the fame or iconic status of a Joe DiMaggio in New York or a Ted Williams in Boston; but when he collected his last hit in 1963, he departed with one of the most magical and representative statistics in the history of the game: 1,815 hits at his home ballpark, and 1,815 hits away from home. His career is a testament to concentration and integrity, and to this day Stan Musial's statistics and legacy place him among the true greats of baseball's pantheon. It has been said that hitting a baseball is the hardest thing in professional sports. Baseball's All-Time Greatest Hitters presents biographies on Greenwood's selection for the 12 best hitters in Major League history, written by some of today's best baseball authors. These books present straightforward stories in accessible language for the student researcher and the general reader alike. Each volume includes a timeline, bibliography, and index. In addition, each volume includes a "Making of a Legend" chapter that analyses the evolution of the player's fame and (in some cases) infamy.

Major League Baseball has had a long and storied history, but perhaps no era has been as competitive and unpredictable as the past 25 years, with an expanded postseason making for an unexpected and entertaining end to each season. In America's Game in the Wild-Card Era: From Strike to Pandemic, Bryan Soderholm-Difatte provides a compelling examination of Major League Baseball since the 1994 players' strike. He reveals how the last quarter century has been the most dynamic in MLB history and argues that bringing wild-card teams and the division-series round into the postseason mix have fundamentally changed how dynasties should be perceived. Following the major storylines for all 30 teams, along with the division races and state of dynasties over the past 25 years, America's Game in the Wild-Card Era is a captivating look into a new age of baseball. America's Game in the Wild-Card Era, together with Soderholm-Difatte's America's Game, Tumultuous Times in America's Game, and The Reshaping of America's Game, form the author's complete, definitive history of Major League Baseball.

Sabermetrics, the systematic analysis of baseball statistics, has evolved over time to resemble something of a science, attracting fans from diverse professional and educational backgrounds, all fascinated by both the analysis itself and the objective insights it provides into the game. Although fans and analysts have devoted exhaustive efforts to developing statistics that measure offensive performance, defensive metrics have historically been deemed too difficult to measure accurately and objectively. In Wizardry: Baseball's All-Time Greatest Fielders Revealed, Michael Humphreys introduces a system that conclusively quantifies fielding statistics and compares player performance from as early as 1893 by estimating how many runs each fielder "saved" or "allowed." While a number of methods for analyzing defense have recently gained exposure, they rely on expensive proprietary data held by professional sports statistics companies and only capture information drawn from the contemporary era. Humphreys' method, Defensive Runs Analysis (DRA), makes unique use of free, open source data available to the average fan and incorporates equalizing historical factors to place players from different eras on equal footing. Wizardry is the first book to systematically rank and profile the greatest fielders at each position from throughout major league history. To frame and validate his results, the author tests DRA data against other well-known statistical measures and also presents an analysis of other defensive statistical metrics. Casual fans with little mathematical background will appreciate Wizardry's accessible style while professional statisticians will value the opportunity to validate Humphreys' methodology and results. Given the topic and the author's presentation of the material, the book will draw in both the serious, baseball statistics audience and the average fan.

Cy Young Award winners spanning fifty years of baseball history reflect on their iconic seasons, keys to success, and most memorable moments. In Pinnacle on the Mound: Cy Young Award Winners Talk Baseball, ten pitchers who were recognized as the best in the game share fascinating stories from their years in the majors. Featuring pitchers such as Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley and five-time Gold Glove Award winner Ron Guidry, this book offers captivating insight into the players' different approaches to the game, how they honed their skills, and what was happening behind the scenes in their award-winning seasons. From fastballs to sinkers, curveballs to knuckleballs, this diverse group of pitchers found success in many different ways, whether it was mastering a new pitch or taking on the role of a closer. Including All-Stars Jim Lonborg, Mike McCormick, Randy Jones, Ron Guidry, LaMarr Hoyt, Dennis Eckersley, Jack McDowell, Barry Zito, R.A. Dickey, and Corey Kluber, Pinnacle on the Mound makes fifty years of baseball history come alive.

There is nothing in all of American sport quite like baseball's spring training. This annual six-week ritual, whose origins date back nearly a century and a half, fires the hearts and imaginations of fans who flock by the hundreds of thousands to places like Dodgertown to glimpse superstars and living legends in a relaxed moment and watch the drama of journeyman veterans and starry-eyed kids in search of that last spot on the bench.
In Under the March Sun, Charles Fountain recounts for the first time the full and fascinating history of spring training and its growth from a shoestring-budget roadtrip to burn off winter calories into a billion-dollar-a-year business. In the early days southern hotels only reluctantly admitted ballplayers--and only if they agreed not to mingle with other guests. Today cities fight for teams by spending millions in public money to build ever-more-elaborate spring-training stadiums. In the early years of the 20th century, the mayor of St. Petersburg, Florida, Al Lang, first realized that coverage in northern newspapers every spring was publicity his growing city could never afford to buy. As the book demonstrates, cities have been following Lang's lead ever since, building identities and economies through the media exposure and visitors that spring training brings.
An entertaining cultural history that taps into the romance of baseball even as it reveals its more hard-nosed commercial machinations, Under the March Sun shows why spring training draws so many fans southward every March. While the prices may be growing and the intimacy and accessibility shrinking, they come because the sunshine and sense of hope are timeless.

This is a book about young men who learned to play baseball during the 1930s and 1940s, and then went on to play for one of the most exciting major-league ball clubs ever fielded, the team that broke the color barrier with Jackie Robinson. It is a book by and about a sportswriter who grew up near Ebbets Field, and who had the good fortune in the 1950s to cover the Dodgers for the Herald Tribune. This is a book about what happened to Jackie, Carl Erskine, Pee Wee Reese, and the others when their glory days were behind them. In short, it is a book about America, about fathers and sons, prejudice and courage, triumph and disaster, and told with warmth, humor, wit, candor, and love.

Suitable for anyone who enjoys logic puzzles Could be used as a companion book for a course on mathematical proof. The puzzles feature the same issues of problem-solving and proof-writing. For anyone who enjoys logical puzzles. For anyone interested in legal reasoning. For anyone who loves the game of baseball.

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.

A Constraints-Led Approach to Baseball Coaching presents a new approach to baseball coaching and practice. Applying a CLA to player development process across the skill spectrum from the beginners to elite, this book uses practical examples to demonstrate the theoretical principles of the Constraints-led coaching style embedded in research showing the numerous benefits of the approach. This book incorporates cases studies and examples of how constraints are manipulated to develop more adaptable players that can perform at a higher level with a reduced risk of injury, shifting the reader's view of skill acquisition from the concept of one "correct" solution, acquired through repetition, to the ecological dynamics framework focused on variability, adaptability and self-organization. Individual chapters cover major topics such as hitting, pitching and fielding for players at range of levels form little leagues to the pros and illustrating the underlying principles so that coaches can develop their own practice activities. A Constraints-Led Approach to Baseball Coaching is key reading for undergraduate students and practising sports coaches, physical education teachers and sport scientists alike as well as practising players and coaches in baseball and related sports.

Both the U.S. population and Major League Baseball rosters have seen dramatic demographic changes over the past 50 years. The nation and the sport are becoming multilingual, with Spanish the unofficial second language. Today, 21 of 30 MLB teams broadcast at least some games in Spanish. Filling a gap in the literature of baseball, this collection of new essays examines the history of the game in Spanish, from the earliest locutores who called the plays for Latin American audiences to the League's expansion into cities with large Latino populations--Los Angeles, Houston and Miami to name a few--that made talented sportscasters for the fanaticos a business necessity.

A wesome collection of facts about the best 100 baseball players who ever stepped up to the plate. The first of the '100' is Mike Kelly, the first baseball superstar, best known for stealing bases The 100th listing is for New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, who has won four World Series rings in his first six season, and seems destined for the Hall of Fame. Each entry is satisfyingly dense with facts and informational nuggets, and, just like the other books in the '100' series from Tallfellow, features:

Opening day in Milwaukee is an event like no other in baseball--all the pomp and reverence for the return of the season, with a tailgate party like only Brewers fans know how to throw. Each opener creates treasured memories, like Hank Aaron's return to Milwaukee, Sixto Lezcano's walk-off grand slam, the momentous opening of Miller Park, Lorenzo Cain's game-saving grab or the debuts of a couple of kids named Yount and Molitor. Chronicling a half-century of baseball lore, this book relives 53 home openers and the traditions, oddball characters, unlikely heroes and Hall of Fame legends they featured.

With the world's eyes on Jackie Robinson, there were not many who noticed the sportswriter that traveled by the baseball star's side in 1946-47. Wendell Smith was a pioneer not only in writing, but in broadcast media as well, with a career that spanned 1937-1972 and included more than 1,500 written pieces. After an extensive biographical sketch, this work presents a collection of Smith's writings. Chapters are organized to present Smith as one who chronicled Black history, traveled extensively, challenged racism, noted progress in racial relations, criticized friends, praised enemies, and bid farewell to notable figures who passed before him. Black athletes covered in his writings include Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis, Jesse Owens, Ernie Banks, and many more. When neccessary, the editor provides commentary to provide context or illustrate key points.

The most up-to-date and in-depth book on the business of professional team sports Pro team sports are the biggest and most important sector of international sport business Strong focus on applied analysis and performance measurement, invaluable real-world skills Covers sports, teams and leagues all over the world from the EPL to the NFL Addresses key themes from ownership and competitive balance to media revenue and the role of agents

Charge through the turnstiles of this collection of personal stories about baseball s greatest ballpark and the sacred space it occupies in the hearts of Cubs fans and the soul of Wrigleyville. With contributors like Bob Costas, Rick Sutcliffe and Steve Stone, this informal oral history salutes the legacy that has made Wrigley such an unforgettable part of baseball and Chicago for the last century. These one hundred stories reflect the variety of millions of Cubs fans around the world, from those whose relationship with the Friendly Confines has lasted a lifetime to those who are taking their seats up close to the ivy for the very first time.