When in 1911 Phillies pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander set the National League record for wins by a rookie (28), it was a sign of things to come. Alexander went on to win 373 games over his 20?year career, the third highest total in major league history, and he would lead the league in ERA four times, shutouts seven times, complete games six times, and wins six times. But he also became a deeply troubled man. After the Shell-Shocked pitcher returned from World War I, he would battle alcoholism, epilepsy, and personal demons that damaged his reputation and proved disastrous for his life outside of baseball. This biography sheds new light on the pitcher and the man, focusing on Alexander's personal life, especially his complex relationship with his wife, Aimee, as well as their marriages and divorces. His Hall of Fame career, wartime service, and long decline are also documented.

When the Milwaukee Braves moved to Atlanta after the 1965 season, many impassioned fans grew indifferent to baseball. Others-Namely car dealer Bud Selig-decided to fight for the beloved sport. Selig formed an ownership group with the goal of winning a new franchise. They faced formidable opposition-American League President Joe Cronin, lawyer turned baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn, and other AL team owners would not entertain the notion of another team for the city. This first ever history of baseball's return to Milwaukee covers the owners, teams and ballparks behind the rise and fall of their Braves, the five-year struggle to acquire a new team, the relocation of a major league club a week prior to the 1970 season and how the Brewers created an identity and built a fan base and a contending team.

This book provides a basis for a good, solid survey of college mathematics for students in non-technical fields. It covers a variety of topics that are applicable to real life in ways that college algebra may not be for those majoring in the liberal arts. The book can also be used for a high school course once students have had algebra and geometry. Since mathematics is often a challenge for students in the non-technical majors, this book seeks to make it more palatable by finding the motivation for all of its topics in sports, primarily baseball. Topics covered include Logical Fallacies, Unit Conversions, Statistics, Probability/Combinatorics, Finance, Geometry, Modeling, and Voting Theory.

It's 1984. Minor League Baseball mogul Larry Schmittou needs a new home for his Southern League Nashville Sounds franchise. Walt Jocketty, an Oakland A's executive, searches for a new town for his Double-A club. Fate brings them together in Huntsville, Alabama, a city in need of an outlet to unite its residents. Thus the Huntsville Stars are born. One Season in Rocket City brings to life the baseball renaissance that shook up Huntsville, a city many doubted would support professional baseball. Named after Huntsville's celebrated space industry, the Stars electrified the town with baseball fever to become one of the biggest attractions in Minor League Baseball that first season. Composed of Oakland's top prospects, who later fueled the A's championship run in the late 1980s, the Stars were the hottest ticket in town. Visiting teams called Huntsville the "Minor League show," and the Stars were the toast of the Southern League. Wearing patriotic red, white, and blue team colors, the team won the Southern League championship in their first year, led by future Major Leaguers Darrel Akerfelds, Tim Belcher, Greg Cadaret, Jose Canseco, Brian Dorsett, Stan Javier, Eric Plunk, Luis Polonia, and Terry Steinbach. But besides the lineup of touted prospects on the club, it was the gutsy role players who never reached the Major Leagues that willed them to a championship. Through interviews with former players, managers, executives, coaches, and beat writers who witnessed the Stars take the Southern League by storm, Dale Tafoya depicts the city's romance with the club, success on the field, and push for a championship. Beginning with a glimpse into Huntsville's rich history, One Season in Rocket City takes readers on a journey through the team's dramatic founding, Huntsville politics, tape-measure home runs, and the club's resilience to win the championship despite losing top players to promotions in midseason. The Stars were just what Huntsville needed.

Between October 1961 and October 1962, the Yankees and the Mets shared the city for the first time, their front offices located on opposite sides of Fifth Avenue in midtown Manhattan, and their playing fields--Yankee Stadium and the Polo Grounds--situated on opposite sides of the Macombs Dam Bridge. This book tells the story of the first year of their life together as New York City rivals. The emerging rivalry between the New York Yankees and the New York Mets was about more than just games won or money earned. As personified by Mets manager Casey Stengel and Yankees right-fielder Roger Maris, it was also a struggle over the future of the game. Bill Morales holds a doctorate in history from Rutgers University and has lectured at the Baseball Hall of Fame Symposium in Cooperstown, New York. He has taught at Rutgers University, Nassau Community College, and is professor of history at Bergen Community College.

For 52 years, Boston was a two-team Major League city, home to both the Red Sox and the Braves. This comprehensive study focuses on the two team's period of coexistence and competition for fan allegiance. The author analyzes the Boston fan base through trends in transportation, communication, geography, population and employment. Tracing the pendulum of fan preference between the two teams over five distinct time periods, a deeper understanding emerges of why the Red Sox remained in Boston and the Braves moved to Milwaukee.

This is an exciting story that takes you through more than 150 games of the regular season and the World Series of the 1957 Milwaukee Braves. A day-by-day - sometimes inning-by-inning - chronicle of one of the all-time best baseball teams, the book begins with a history of the Braves franchise, then an overview of the near-miss of 1956, followed by a detailed journey through the '57 season and the World Celebration after a seven-game conquest in the World Series with the New York Yankees. It ends with an analysis of how close the '57 team came to being a part of a dynasty. All the key players are profiled along with the winning streaks, tough stretches, key transactions and costly injuries. Game highlights, player statistics, and box scores are included.

Why do modern-day sluggers like Aaron Judge prefer maple bats over the traditional ash bats swung by Ted Williams and others? Why did the surge of broken bats in the early 21st century create a crisis for Major League Baseball and what steps were taken to address the issue? Are different woods being considered by players and manufacturers? Do insects, disease and climate change pose a problem long-term? These and other questions are answered in this exhaustive examination of the history and future of wooden bats, written for both lifelong baseball fans and curious newcomers.

An Intimate Look at the Man Behind the Headlines More than thirteen years after he was banned from Major League Baseball "for life" because of alleged sports gambling, Pete Rose continues to be a colorful and controversial newsmaker. His frequent appeals to commissioner Bud Selig for reinstatement--a move that likely would finally lead to his being voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame--has had the overwhelming support of fans, reflecting the enthusiasm Rose brought to the game and the passion he has generated over the years. Rose played twenty-four seasons before retiring in 1986 with numerous records, most notably 4,256 career hits, which surpassed the immortal Ty Cobb. Rose also set Major League records for most games played (3,562), most at bats (14,053), most seasons with two hundred or more hits (10), and most winning games played in (1,972). During a career with the Cincinnati Reds and Philadelphia Phillies, as well as a brief stint with the Montreal Expos, Rose was the National League's Rookie of the Year in 1963 and its Most Valuable Player in 1973, in addition to winning three batting titles and two gold gloves. He also was the World Series MVP with Cincinnati's "Big Red Machine" team that won the 1975 series title. In Pete Rose: Baseball's Charlie Hustle, dozens of the people who know him best--teammates, opposing players, friends, fans, hometown acquaintances, and baseball experts and observers--share their memories of the man and the player. Among the many aspects of Rose's life explored here are his competitive zeal even as a Little Leaguer; his athletic success in high school, where he competed against the likes of Roger Staubach; his on-field scrapes and collisions; hisleadership role on the Big Red Machine; his leaving the Reds to join the Phillies; his record-setting 44-game hitting streak; his pursuit of Cobb's record; his turbulent days as manager of the Reds; his banishment from baseball; and his various enterprises after baseball.

The 1950s marked a transformative period in postwar American history. In baseball, one dynasty was the story during the decade. The New York Yankees played in eight World Series from 1950 to 1959, winning six of them. Yankees icon Joe DiMaggio retired following the 1951 season, but a new super star, Mickey Mantle, took over in Yankee Stadium's center field in 1952. Mantle, the powerful switch-hitter who blasted tape-measure home runs and was often tortured by leg ailments, became the number one box office draw in baseball. He was the American League's most valuable player in 1956 and 1957, putting together a triple crown season in 1956. Mantle came into baseball when television was just catching on, and with the Yankees reaching the World Series and appearing on national TV seemingly every season, he became the face of the game during the decade. Mantle joined with his pals, pitcher Whitey Ford and infielder Billy Martin, to form a hard-partying trio that would be a joy and a pain to management. The author of several books on the Yankees, David Fischer brings expertise and a knack for great story-telling to the saga of the most dominant decade in the annals of sport, set during a defining moment in U.S. history.

This is a straightforward history of the Athletics franchise, from its Connie Mack years in Philadelphia with great teams featuring Eddie Collins, Chief Bender, Jimmy Foxx, Mickey Cochrane and Lefty Grove, through its 13 years in Kansas City, under Arnold Johnson and Charles O. Finley, and on to its great years in Oakland-with the three World Series wins featuring Catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson, Sal Bando and Vida Blue, and the conflicts with Finley-as well as the less successful seasons that followed, and ending up with the unusual operation of the club by Billy Beane.

There was a time when no town was too small to field a professional baseball team. In 1949, the high point for the minor leagues, there were 59 leagues and 464 cities with teams, two-thirds of them in so-called bush leagues classified as C and D. Most of the players were strangers outside the towns where they played, but some achieved hero status and enthralled local fans as much as the stars in the majors. Left on Base in the Bush Leagues: Legends, Near Greats, and Unknowns in the Minors profiles some of the most fascinating characters from baseball's golden era. It includes the stories of players such as Ron Necciai, the only pitcher in history to strike out 27 batters in a single game; Joe Brovia, one of the most feared hitters to ever play in the Pacific Coast League (PCL), who had to wait 15 years for a shot in the majors; and Pat Stasey, a mellow Irishman who "Cubanized" minor league baseball in Texas and New Mexico, helping to bring down the walls of segregation. Compelling and timeless, their stories touch on many issues that still affect the sport today. Left on Base in the Bush Leagues provides an entertaining glimpse into a time when baseball was a game and the players were regular guys who often held second jobs off the field. Featuring hundreds of personal interviews with the players, their teammates, managers, and opponents, this book creates a colorful tapestry of the minor leagues during the 1950s and 60s.

Part reference, part trivia, part brain teaser, and absolutely the most unusual and thorough compendium of baseball stats and facts ever assembled--all verified for accuracy by the Baseball Hall of Fame. First created by legendary sportswriter Bert Randolph Sugar, and now updated, here are thousands of fascinating lists, tables, data, and stimulating facts. Inside, you'll find all of the big name baseball heroes like Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Ernie Banks, Pete Rose, Denny McLain, Ty Cobb, and a lot of information that will be new to even the most devoted fans: Highest batting averages not to win batting titles Home-run leaders by state of birth Players on last-place teams leading the league in RBIs, by season Most triples by position, season Winners of two "legs" of triple crown since last winner Oldest pitchers with losing record, leading league in ERA Career pitching leaders under six feet tall Managers replaced wile team was in first place Hall of Famers whose sons played in the majors Players with palindromic surnames And so much more! Not just a collection of facts or records, this is a book of glorious fun that will astound even the most bookish baseball fan. Read up and amaze your friends!

For a variety of reasons, the 1908 American League pennant race has received much less attention from baseball historians than what happened in the National League that year. Yet the AL's race, involving the league's four westernmost teams, was equally dramatic; with only five games left in the season, all four still had a chance to win the pennant. It was the height of what came to be called the "deal ball era," marked by spectacular pitching and mostly low-scoring, quickly played games, and featuring an abundance of colorful characters and controversial, often bizarre, episodes. It was also a time when professional baseball truly came into its own as America's "National Pastime."

Until 1947, professional ball players were paid only from opening day to season's end. Even during the season, a lot of their expenses came out of their own pockets. Even the best-paid players had trouble making ends meet. One answer to their money woes was barnstorming?tours out of season. Cities lacking their own major league teams were happy to host big-league players for such events, as well as for special exhibition games whose proceeds sometimes went to local charities. Here is a history of barnstorming and exhibition games from 1901 (when both of the two current major leagues began operating) through 1962 (when a team led by Willie Mays was unsuccessful in its attempt at a tour, signaling an end to true barnstorming). Decade by decade, it covers the teams, the games, and the players for a detailed look at how barnstorming and exhibition brought big-league baseball to the backyard ballparks of America.

At both the plate and in the field, Joe DiMaggio was one of baseball's most graceful athletes. During his thirteen seasons with the New York Yankees, he played in ten World Series and won nine world championships. For his career, he was a two-time batting champion, three-time Most Valuable Player, hit 361 home runs, and maintained a .325 batting average. His fifty-six-consecutive-game batting streak in 1941 has yet to be broken.

DiMaggio's baseball career began in 1932 when he filled in at shortstop at midseason for a minor league team. In 1934 he became the property of the New York Yankees, which marked the beginning of his road toward greatness in the nation's most famous city on one of the most hallowed fields in the sport. Off the field, his life was marked by a famous marriage to and divorce from Marilyn Monroe, a late-1960s popular song, and a somewhat unhappy retirement.

On baseball's one hundredth anniversary in 1969, he was voted the greatest living player of the game, and the Yankees erected a plaque to him among the memorials to Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. On March 8, 1999, at the age of eighty-four, DiMaggio died after a five-month battle with cancer.

In I Remember Joe DiMaggio, dozens of the great ballplayer's contemporaries, teammates, coaches, fans, friends, and relatives recall their favorite memories and anecdotes of this man who became an icon of America. It is a warm, entertaining, and inspiring book about a man whose fame has been the stuff of legend for more than half a century.

Professional baseball players have always been well paid. In 1869, Harry Wright paid his Cincinnati Red Stockings about seven times what an average working-man earned. Today, on average, players earn more than fifty times the average worker's salary. In fact, on December 12, 1998, pitcher Kevin Brown agreed to a seven-year, $105,000,000 contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers, the first nine-figure contract in baseball history. Brown will be earning over $400,000 per game; more than 17,000 fans have to show up at Dodger Stadium every night just to pay his salary. Why are baseball players paid so much money? In this insightful book, legal scholar and salary arbitrator Roger Abrams tells the story of how a few thousand very talented young men obtain their extraordinary riches. Juggling personal experience and business economics, game theory and baseball history, he explains how agents negotiate compensation, how salary arbitration works, and how the free agency \u0022auction\u0022 operates. In addition, he looks at the context in which these systems operate: the players' collective bargaining agreement, the distribution of quality players among the clubs, even the costs of other forms of entertainment with which baseball competes. Throughout, Dean Abrams illustrates his explanations with stories and quotations -- even an occasional statistic, though following the dictum of star pitcher, club owner, and sporting goods tycoon Albert Spalding, he has kept the book as free of these as possible. He explains supply and demand by the cost of a bar of soap for Christy Mathewson's shower. He illustrates salary negotiation with an imaginary case based on Roy Hobbs, star of The National. He leads the reader through the breath-taking successes of agent Scott Boras to explain the intricacies of free agent negotiating. Although studies have shown that increases in admissions prices precede rather than follow the rise in player salaries, fans are understandably bemused by skyrocketing salaries. Dean Abrams does not shy away from the question of whether it is \u0022fair\u0022 for an athlete to earn more than $10,000,000 a year. He looks at issues of player (and team) loyalty and player attitudes, both today and historically, and at what increased salaries have meant for the national pastime, financially and in the eyes of its fans. The Money Pitch concludes that \u0022the money pitch is a story of good fortune, good timing, and great leadership, all resulting from playing a child's game -- a story that is uniquely American.\u0022

Baseball Hall of Famer Ted Williams is a true sports legend, a superstar who was his era's greatest hitter. His lifetime .344 average remains one of the highest marks ever achieved. Known at various times as "the Splendid Splinter, " "Teddy Ballgame, " and simply as "the Kid, " Williams played his entire career with the Boston Red Sox. Although missing nearly five full seasons due to military service and two major injuries, Williams still managed to hit 521 home runs to go with his six batting titles, two Triple Crowns, two Most Valuable Player awards, eighteen All-Star selections, and a .406 batting average in 1941 that remains the last time any major-leaguer has topped the .400 mark for a season.

Williams was a talented sportsman who hated to lose. He was also an athletic perfectionist who spent half his career being compared with and contrasted to fellow superstar Joe DiMaggio of the rival New York Yankees. The temperamental yet outgoing Williams wasn't exactly a media darling, but he was a respected, hard-working student of the game. Some observers say Williams was to hitting a baseball what Ben Hogan was to striking a golf ball, which might help explain why the two men had a mutual respect for each other that led to a casual friendship.

In I Remember Ted Williams, the legendary Red Sox outfielder is remembered through dozens of anecdotes, stories, and insights offered in their own words by former teammates as well as friends, associates, media, baseball officials, and fishing buddies. Together these contributors offer a unique and unforgettable reminiscence of one of the greatest and most enigmatic performers in baseball history.

Why do we sometimes refer to a left-handed pitcher as a "southpaw?" Why are major league pitchers normally limited to 100 pitches per game? Why was Jack Roosevelt Robinson the first African-American ever to play as part of an official lineup for a team in Major League Baseball? Why is a baseball field sometimes referred to as a diamond? This book provides over 100 questions and detailed answers concerning the traditions, rules, and history of the national pastime. Organized by the sport's five eras-Dead Ball, Live Ball, Golden Age, Expansion, and Steroid Era-it answers questions about hitting, pitching, fielding, base running, managing, scouting and ownership that vex even the most ardent fans of the game. Moreover, this book is an appreciation of how baseball's traditions began.

From the vaudeville gyrations of New York Giants star pitchers Rube Marquard and Christy Mathewson, to Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra as hoofing infielders in Take Me Out to the Ball Game, to the stage and screen versions of Damn Yankees, the connection between baseball and dance is an intimate, perhaps surprising one. Covering more than a century of dancing ballplayers and baseball-inspired dance, this entertaining study examines the connection in film and television, in theatrical productions and in choreography created for some of the greatest dancers and dance companies in the world.

If baseball is the heart of America, the legal process provides the sinews that hold it in place. It was the legal process that allowed William Hulbert to bring club owners together in a New York City hotel room in 1876 to form the National League, and ninety years later, it allowed Marvin Miller to change a management-funded fraternity of ballplayers into the strongest trade union in America.

But how does collective bargaining and labor arbitration work in the major leagues? Why is baseball exempt from the antitrust laws? In Legal Bases, Roger Abrams has assembled an all-star baseball law team whose stories illuminate the sometimes uproarious, sometimes ignominious relationship between law and baseball that has made the business of baseball a truly American institution.

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.