This is a history of Major League Baseball's first All-Star Game, originally conceived in 1933 as a one-time ""Game of the Century"" (including greats such as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Carl Hubbell and Lefty Grove) to lift the spirits of the nation and its people in the midst of the Great Depression. The game was so successful that it became a yearly event and an integral part of the baseball season. The work describes the game, from the Chicago Tribune's early advocacy for the contest through every play, and describes the later accomplishments of many of the individuals involved.

This book continues the riches of two highly praised previous volumes, ""Voices from the Negro Leagues"" ('interesting...solid' - ""MultiCultural Review"") and ""The Negro Leagues Revisited"" ('wonderful' - ""Booklist/RBB""; 'voluminous...top-notch' - ""Public Library Quarterly""). The players interviewed in this new book of interviews are Bill Bethea, John 'Scoop' Brown, Paul Casanova, Jim Colzie, Bunny Davis, Ross Davis, Clifford DuBose, Lionel Evelyn, Hubert Glenn, Herald 'Beebop' Gordon, Raymond Haggins, J.C. Hartman, Joe Henry, Carl Holden, Vernell Jackson, Clarence Jenkins, Ernest Johnson, Thomas Johnson, Marvin Jones, Ezell King, Willie Lee, Larry LeGrande, William Little, Nathaniel McClinic, John Mitchell, Grady Montgomery, Bob Motley, Charley Pride, Mack Pride, Bill 'Sonny' Randall, Henry Saverson, Eugene Scruggs, Willie Sheelor, Sam Taylor, Ron Teasley, James Way, Sam Williams, Walter Williams, and Willie Young. Photographs of the players and their teammates and complete-as-possible statistics supplement the interviews.

In 1947, after 18 major league seasons with the Browns, Senators, and Red Sox, Rick Ferrell retired as baseball's all-time leader in games caught. His record 1,806 games would stand for more than 40 years, surpassed finally by another Hall of Famer, Carlton Fisk. A stout defender and choosy batter, Ferrell was an eight-time All-Star who had the bad luck of never playing for a team that went to the postseason. Perhaps that's one of the reasons he went on to work in baseball for another 48 years, serving as coach, scout, front-office executive, general manager and assistant general manager, the role in which Ferrell at last found his way to the World Series (with the Tigers in 1968). This biography includes highlights of Ferrell's career, confidential letters written as Detroit's general manager, 15 interviews with Ferrell's friends and peers, as well as thirty-four photographs, some never before published.

Since the first baseball movie (""Little Sunset"") was released in 1915, Hollywood has had an on-again, off-again affair with the sport. The resulting relationship has produced a wide array of films, some good (""Field of Dreams"", ""A League of Their Own""), some obscure (""Roogie's Bump"", ""Hot Curves"") and some flops (""The Slugger's Wife"", ""The Babe Ruth Story""). This is a detailed look at the 111 'fictional' baseball films produced and released in the United States from 1915 through 2001. This expanded and updated version of the 1992 first edition includes 29 new films produced between 1991 and 2001. New material includes an entry on 1978's ""Goodbye Franklin High"" (unavailable for the 1992 edition) and revisions to several entries after the uncut versions of several silent and pre - 1950 talkie baseball films were made available, among them ""Hit and Run"" (1924), ""The Battling Orioles"" (1924), ""Slide Kelly Slide"" (1927) and ""They Learned About Women"" (1930). Each entry contains full cast and production credits, year of release, production company, a synopsis, and a critique of the movie. Behind-the-scenes and background information is included. Two additional (and completely updated) sections cover baseball short subjects and baseball in non-baseball films. An extensive bibliography completes the work.

Organized in 1845, the New York Knickerbockers were the first fully organized base ball club to play the game with written rules similar to those used today. While the Knickerbockers did not invent the game, they played an unparalleled role in stabilizing the playing rules and maintaining standards of conduct in a way that fostered the astonishing proliferation of players and clubs which helped to shape the early development of baseball. Based on years of research and told in the style of oral history, this fictional work features all the principal figures from the Knickerbocker club, including Doc Adams, James Whyte Davis, Alexander Cartwright, William Wheaton, and, Duncan Curry.

After winning the 1968 World Series, the Detroit Tigers looked to be sliding their way into obscurity. Though they still had some marquee players, including Kaline, Cash, Lolich and Freehan, the dynastic Baltimore Orioles seemed to have passed them by. But then in a move that seemed to stoke the competitive fires of the team, Detroit hired manager Billy Martin, the star second baseman on Yankees teams that won five World Series and whose managerial debut in 1969 ended in the league championship series. Told against the backdrop of a momentous summer in American history, this is the story of a great team's last hurrah.

It's been more than a century since Connecticut had big league baseball - and many fans today might be surprised to learn that the state ever did - but in the 1870s, Middletown, Hartford, and New Haven fielded pioneering professional teams that competed at the highest level. By the end of the decade, when the state's final big league team, Mark Twain's beloved Hartford Dark Blues, left the National League, baseball's transition from amateur pastime to major league sport had been accomplished. And Connecticutt had played a significant role in its development.The story of the Nutmeg State's three major league teams is told here in full, the rise, brief tenure, and eventual collapse of each described and the impact of the Connecticut teams on the regional baseball scene thoughtfully examined. The book includes a foreword by noted 19th - century baseball expert Bill Ryczek and an appendix including dates, opponents, location, and scores for all National Association, National League, and non-league games played by the Middletown, Hartford and New Haven clubs.

The Indiana State University Conference on Baseball in Literature and American Culture has consistently produced a strong body of scholarship since its inception in 1995. This work is comprised of 18 essays from the ISU conferences of 1995 through 2001..""I Just Hit .300-Time to Renegotiate My Contract"" explores how major American writers such as Hemingway, Faulkner, and Ellison have challenged the pastoral idea of baseball envisioned by Whitman. ""The Durable Relic"" argues that Donald Hall, one of the foremost poets of today, uses baseball in much the same way that William Butler Yeats used Irish mythology to create ""frozen moments, unchanging and durable; ageless heroes, Oisin on the Island of Eternal Youth and Ruth pointing to centerfield."" ""Baseball, the Market and the Public"" analyzes the tension between the game as a business and the game as public trust, tracking the game to its present state of overpaid players and greedy owners. ""The Story of Toni Stone"" considers race and gender in both the game and culture by looking at one of the most remarkable but least known women in the sport, the only one to play in the Negro Leagues. These are just four of the essays, which cover a wide variety of topics.

This ambitious study of major league managers through the entire history of baseball since the formation of the National League applies a sabermetric approach to gauging the performance and tendencies of such men as Connie Mack, John McGraw, Tommy Lasorda and scores of others. Rather than focusing solely on in-game tactical decisions, it also analyzes broader, off-the-field management issues such as handling players, fans, and media, enforcing team rules, working with the front office, and balancing pressure versus performance to develop a fuller appraisal of each manager's effectiveness and stature among his peers.

For more than five decades, pioneering researcher Dorothy Seymour Mills has studied and written about baseball's past. With this groundbreaking book, she turns her attention to the historians, stat hounds, and many thousands of not-so-casual fans whose fascination with the game and its history, like her own, defies easy explanation. As Mills demonstrates, baseball elicits a passion--and inspires a slightly off-kilter, obsessive behavior--that is only slightly less interesting than the people who indulge it.

Inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1948, Pie Traynor was the face of Pittsburgh baseball during the twenties and thirties, a time when the Pirates were a perennial pennant contender. (They would win the Series in 1925.) Traynor was a line-drive hitter who drove in runs as effectively with doubles and triples as most of his peers did launching balls over the fence, and by all accounts he was a dazzling defender. After his playing days ended, Traynor stayed in Pittsburgh, managing the Pirates for five years and working as a popular broadcaster for decades, cementing his place as one of the most popular athletes ever to play in the Steel City.

This collection of essays by some of the most widely recognized experts on baseball history focuses on the national pastime as a marker of our times and cultural ideals. Topics include the rise and spread of baseball in the nineteenth century, the influence of iconic major league players from Honus Wagner to Jackie Robinson, the fates of great teams well known (the Yankees and Orioles) and undeservedly obscure (the Elite Giants), and the advances of Latinos and blacks on the field and in the broader culture.

*Finalist for the 2007 Seymour Medal of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR).*

*Winner of the 2007 Robert Peterson Book Award of the Negro Leagues Committee of the Society for American Baseball*

When to Stop the Cheering? documents the close and often conflicted relationship between the black press and black baseball beginning with the first Negro professional league of substance, the Negro National League, which started in 1920, and finishing with the dissolution of the Negro American League in 1957. When to Stop the Cheering? examines the multidimensional relationship the black newspapers had with baseball, including their treatment of and relationships with baseball officials, team owners, players and fans. Over time, these relationships changed, resulting in shifts in coverage that could be described as moving from brotherhood to paternalism, then from paternalism to nostalgic tribute and even regret.

What grandstand collapsed during a game, killing twelve? How high is the Green monster in Fenway? In what park was the outfield fence only 187 feet from home plate? ""Ballparks of North America"" is a comprehensive encyclopedia of the grounds, yards and stadiums used for organized baseball from the invention of the sport in the 1840s to the present. Entries, listed alphabetically by community, cover everything from cornfields to Yankee Stadium. Each entry gives the location of the park, who played there and when, home run dimensions, seating capacity, architectural comments, attendance records, and anecdotes. This title includes over 100 photos and drawings, some rare.

This book presents season-by-season information for the original South Atlantic Baseball League, which operated for 60 years in the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida. (In 1963, with the collapse of the Southern Association, the league was promoted to Double-A status and renamed the Southern League.) Its each chapter opens with a season summary and is followed by league standings, team records and rosters, and statistics for each player.

In the fall of 1908, no one could have guessed that the Chicago Cubs, a team that had dominated the National league three straight years, would for a century be shut out in its efforts to reclaim the world championship. Stars like Frank Chance, Johnny Evers, Ed Reulbach, and Three Finger Brown were still in their primes, and they had just emerged the winner in the most remarkable pennant race in major league history.In the decades since, the achievement of the 1908 Cubs has been overshadowed first by the events of the season, which included the Merkle Game and a playoff that pitted two all-time great pitchers against each other, and more recently by the calendar, as the centennial anniversary of the last Cubs championship closed in. This engaging book rescues the 1908 team from its status as footnote to baseball history, following one of the all-time great clubs on a thrilling, season-long march toward the World Series.

In this work, first-hand accounts and original interviews illuminate how the father-son relationship thrives because of baseball, and, sometimes, in spite of it. Each of these men bears a legendary name in baseball broadcasting - Caray, Brennaman, Buck and Kalas - and some can count four generations of men whose voices defined a team. All of the sons relate how their fathers' names opened doors for them but concurrently raised expectations of how they should perform, and all relate how they learned from their fathers' (and grandfathers') triumphs and mistakes. Throughout the work, a clear picture of baseball as a generational bridge emerges. It includes a foreword by Chip Caray, speeches by Joe Buck about his father Jack, and articles by Skip Caray, Chip Caray and Marty Brennaman.

This is the first book-length biography of Hall of Fame catcher Ray Schalk, once described as the yardstick against which all other catchers were measured. For years the top defender at his position, Schalk was also a fiery leader on the field, and he guided two teams to the World Series. (One of those teams, however, was the 1919 Black Sox, whose conspiracy to throw the Series left Schalk with a deep and abiding sense of betrayal.)

After he retired as a player, the Illinois native spent decades as a manager or coach on the collegiate, minor league, and major league levels. Schalk entered the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1955.

This study considers the importance of location for new and relocated major league franchises in the more than 130 years since the National League was founded. Included are an analysis of market differences and similarities, team performances and demographics and area economic comparisons. Market data are used to predict future expansions and relocations of major league teams.

Until 2004, when the Boston Red Sox won their first World Series Championship in 86 years, the team had been plagued by the Curse of the Bambino, a mythical drought attributed to the team's loss of Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees. Though Ruth was a star pitcher in Boston, he was merely continuing a 14-year tradition of the club's strong arms and bats. With rosters that included Cy Young, Jimmy Collins, Jesse Burkett, Jack Chesbro, Big Bill Dinneen, Smoky Joe Wood and Tris Speaker, among others, the young franchise powered its way to three pennants and a couple of world championships before Babe arrived in Beantown. This book covers the team's early years from the diamond to the executive offices.

This volume examines early black baseball as it was represented in the artwork and written accounts of the popular press. From contemporary postbellum articles, illustrations, photographs and woodcuts, a unique image of the black athlete emerges, one that was not always positive but was nonetheless central in understanding the evolving black image in American culture. Chapters of this title cover press depictions of championship games, specific teams and athletes, and the fans and culture surrounding black baseball.

Baseball at its best is a combination of chess match and gladiatorial combat, waged over a long season but turning on split-second decisions and physical instincts. The 1916 season encompassed the drama that made the sport the national pastime: tight pennant races, multiple contenders, record-breaking performances, and controversy, both on and off the field. Nine of the 14 teams battled for first place, four pitchers started and won both games of a doubleheader, Babe Ruth pitched on Opening Day, and players from the Federal League became the sport's first free agents. This book features full rosters, player biographies, statistics, photographs and an appendix of the sportswriters who chronicled the season.

From 1921 through 1930, the young George E. Outland, who would go on to be a professor and United States Congressman, documented his love for baseball by arriving early at major league and Pacific Coast League ballgames armed with his camera and an album of his own photographs. He used his photographs to gain access to some of the greatest players and ballparks of his era, and his subjects included such legends as Walter Johnson, Paul Waner, Sam Crawford, Babe Ruth, and many more.

Collected here are more than 400 of Outland's photographs from the twenties, along with the stories of the ballplayers and ballparks depicted. The book also summarizes Outland's homerun log, a record of the 1,503 homers that he witnessed at 66 different ballparks from 1922 to 1974.