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 small-time 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 Irish-American 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.

Not only was it probably the most cutthroat pennant race in baseball history, it was also a struggle to define how baseball would be played. A Game of Brawl re-creates the rowdy, season-long 1897 battle between the Baltimore Orioles and the Boston Beaneaters. The Orioles had acquired a reputation as the dirtiest team in baseball. Future Hall of Famers John McGraw, Wee Willie Keeler, and “Foxy� Ned Hanlon were proven winners—but their nasty tactics met with widespread disapproval among fans. So it was that their pennant race with the comparatively saintly Beaneaters took on a decidedly moralistic air.   Bill Felber brings to life the most intensely watched team sporting event in the country’s history to that time. His book captures the drama of the final week, as the race came down to a three-game series. And finally, it conveys the madness of the third and decisive game, when thirty thousand fans literally knocked down the gates and walls of a facility designed to hold ten thousand to watch the Beaneaters grind out a win and bring down baseball’s first and most notorious evil empire.

Organized baseball has survived its share of difficult times, and never was the state of the game more imperiled than during the Great Depression. Or was it? Remarkably, during the economic upheavals of the Depression none of the sixteen Major League Baseball teams folded or moved. In this economist's look at the sport as a business between 1929 and 1941, David George Surdam argues that although it was a very tough decade for baseball, the downturn didn't happen immediately. The 1930 season, after the stock market crash, had record attendance. But by 1931 attendance began to fall rapidly, plummeting 40 percent by 1933.

To adjust, teams reduced expenses by cutting coaches and hiring player-managers. While even the best players, such as Babe Ruth, were forced to take pay cuts, most players continued to earn the same pay in terms of purchasing power. Off the field, owners devised innovative solutions to keep the game afloat, including the development of the Minor League farm system, night baseball, and the first radio broadcasts to diversify teams' income sources.

Using research from primary documents, Surdam analyzes how the economic structure and operations side of Major League Baseball during the Depression took a beating but managed to endure, albeit changed by the societal forces of its time.

In Baseball Rebels Peter Dreier and Robert Elias examine the key social challenges-racism, sexism and homophobia-that shaped society and worked their way into baseball's culture, economics, and politics. Since baseball emerged in the mid-1800s to become America's pastime, the nation's battles over race, gender, and sexuality have been reflected on the playing field, in the executive suites, in the press box, and in the community. Some of baseball's rebels are widely recognized, but most of them are either little known or known primarily for their baseball achievements-not their political views and activism. Everyone knows the story of Jackie Robinson breaking baseball's color line, but less known is Sam Nahem, who opposed the racial divide in the U.S. military and organized an integrated military team that won a championship in 1945. Or Toni Stone, the first of three women who played for the Indianapolis Clowns in the previously all-male Negro Leagues. Or Dave Pallone, MLB's first gay umpire. Many players, owners, reporters, and other activists challenged both the baseball establishment and society's status quo. Baseball Rebels tells stories of baseball's reformers and radicals who were influenced by, and in turn influenced, America's broader political and social protest movements, making the game-and society-better along the way.

The previously untold legacy of Ty Cobb Ty Cobb is a baseball immortal, considered by many the greatest player who ever lived. In an age when the game was young and tough, he cultivated a reputation as the fiercest competitor of them all. Yet after he retired, he realized that the very qualities that helped him reach the pinnacle of his profession also undermined his relationship with his own children. He was deeply depressed when two of his sons died at a very young age. Cobb never had the chance to bridge the emotional distance between them. Herschel Cobb grew up in a chaotic, destructive household. His father was cruel and abusive, and his mother was an adulterous alcoholic. After his father died, when Herschel was eight, he began to spend a portion of each summer with his grandfather. Along with his sister and brother, Herschel visited Ty Cobb at his home in Atherton, California, or at his cabin at Lake Tahoe. These days were filled with adventures, memorable incidents, and discoveries as "Granddaddy" warmed to having his "three redheads" with him. Heart of a Tiger is Herschel Cobb's moving account of how a retired sports star seized a second chance at having a close family, with his grandchildren the lucky recipients of his change of heart. He provided wisdom, laughter, and a consistent affection that left an indelible mark. He proved the enormous power of a grandparent to provide stability, love, and guidance. As he developed this new, wholly different legacy, in turn he would finally come to peace with himself.

Bat, Ball, and Bible chronicles the collision of moral and social forces in the argument over playing baseball on Sunday or upholding New York's blue laws, meant to restrict social activities and maintain Sunday's traditional standing as a day of religious observation. Baseball was at the center of this conflict, which led to social and moral upheaval at a time when New York was already undergoing rapid changes. Bat, Ball, and Bible is not solely about baseball; rather it illuminates one of the earliest instances of a "culture war" whose effects are still being felt today.

Jackie Robinson was a Negro Leaguer before he became a Major Leaguer. So too were Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Monte Irvin, Roy Campanella, Willie Mays, and Willie Wells before entering the Baseball Hall of Fame. Invisible Men is the story of their lives in baseball. The Negro baseball leagues were among the most important Black institutions in segregated America, and the players were known and revered throughout Black America, both north and south. At a time when baseball was America's favorite sport, the Negro League players crossed the color barrier to play memorable games with their white Major League counterparts and paved the way for Latin American ballplayers to become part of baseball's history. The Negro Leaguers helped lay the groundwork for the civil rights movement with their achievements and examples. This remarkable narrative is filled with the memories of many surviving Negro League players. What emerges is a glorious chapter in African American history and an often overlooked aspect of our American past. This edition features a new introduction by the author.

The Burden of Over-representation artfully explores three curious racial moments in sport: Jackie Robinson's expletive at a Dodgers spring training game; the transformation of a formality into an event at the end of the 1995 rugby World Cup in South Africa; and a spectral moment at the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Grant Farred examines the connotations at play in these moments through the lenses of race, politics, memory, inheritance and conciliation, deploying a surprising cast of figures in Western thought, ranging from Jacques Derrida and Friedrich Nietzsche to Judith Butler, William Shakespeare, and Jesus-the-Christ. Farred makes connection and creates meaning through the forces at play and the representational burdens of team, country and race. Farred considers Robinson's profane comments at black Dodgers fans, a post-match exchange of "thank yous" on the rugby pitch between white South African captain Francois Pienaar and Nelson Mandela, and being "haunted" by the ghost of Derrida on the occasion of the first FIFA World Cup on African soil. In doing so, The Burden of Over-representation provides a passionate, insightful analysis of the social, political, racial, and cultural consequences of conciliation at key sporting events.

Baseball is a strange sport: it consists of long periods in which little seems to be happening, punctuated by high-energy outbursts of rapid fire activity. Because of this, despite ever greater profits, Major League Baseball is bent on finding ways to shorten games, and to tailor baseball to today's shorter attention spans. But for the true fan, baseball is always compelling to watch-and intellectually fascinating. It's superficially slow-pace is an opportunity to participate in the distinctive thinking practice that defines the game. If baseball is boring, it's boring the way philosophy is boring: not because there isn't a lot going on, but because the challenge baseball poses is making sense of it all. In this deeply entertaining book, philosopher and baseball fan Alva Noe explores the many unexpected ways in which baseball is truly a philosophical kind of game. He ponders how, for example, observers of baseball are less interested in what happens, than in who is responsible for what happens; every action receives praise or blame. To put it another way, in baseball-as in the law-we decide what happened based on who is responsible for what happened. Noe also explains the curious activity of keeping score. A score card is not merely a record of the game, like a video recording; it is an account of the game. Baseball requires that true fans try to tell the story of the game, in real time, as it unfolds, and thus actively participate in its creation. Some argue that baseball is fundamentally a game about numbers. Noe's wide-ranging, thoughtful observations show that, to the contrary, baseball is not only a window on language, culture, and the nature of human action, but is intertwined with deep and fundamental human truths. The book ranges over different baseball topics, from the nature of umpiring and the role of instant replay, to the nature of the strike zone, from the rampant use of surgery to controversy surrounding performance enhancing drugs.

Although largely ignored by historians of both baseball in general and the Negro leagues in particular, Latinos have been a significant presence in organized baseball from the beginning. In this benchmark study on Latinos and professional baseball from the 1880s to the present, Adrian Burgos tells a compelling story of the men who negotiated the color line at every turn - passing as 'Spanish' in the major leagues or seeking respect and acceptance in the Negro leagues. Burgos draws on archival materials from the U.S., Cuba, and Puerto Rico, as well as Spanish- and English-language publications and interviews with Negro league and major league players. He demonstrates how the manipulation of racial distinctions that allowed management to recruit and sign Latino players provided a template for Brooklyn Dodgers' general manager Branch Rickey when he initiated the dismantling of the color line by signing Jackie Robinson in 1947. Burgos' extensive examination of Latino participation before and after Robinson's debut documents the ways in which inclusion did not signify equality and shows how notions of racialized difference have persisted for darker-skinned Latinos like Orestes ('Minnie') Minoso, Roberto Clemente, and Sammy Sosa.

"Both a pleasure and a revelation."--Daniel Okrent, author of Nine Innings In 1968, two astounding pitchers would dominate the game as never before. One was black, the other white. The stoic Bob Gibson, together with the St. Louis Cardinals, embodied an entire generation's hope for integration at a heated moment in American history. The flashy Denny McLain was a crass self-promoter who lived a life apart from his Detroit Tigers teammates, searching for fame. But for one season, the nation watched as these two men and their teams swept their respective league championships to meet at the World Series. Gibson set a major-league record that year with a 1.12 ERA. McLain won more than 30 games in 1968, a feat not achieved since 1934 and untouched since. They would reach these heights against the backdrop of assassinations, while boys boarded planes to Saigon and riots swept through American cities, forever changing the fabric of this country. In the grand tradition of David Halberstam, The Year of the Pitcher evokes a nostalgic season and its incredible characters through the story of one of the great rivalries in sports, painting an indelible portrait of the national pastime during our most turbulent era.

Recently widowed and now retired, Billy Bryan is "coming to the end of many things". Then a long-forgotten scrapbook stirs memories of a distant past -- and beckons him and his grown daughter on a reluctant journey to relive his role in history. In 1947 Billy Bryan is playing winter ball in Cuba, his future as uncertain as that island country's. Then one fateful night Bryan witnesses a young student radical named Fidel unleash an amazing curveball. So begins Billy's tug-of-war with destiny....

The perfect gift for baseball fans, now with a new epilogue by author R.A. Dickey, winner of the 2012 Cy Young award. "An astounding memoir-haunting and touching, courageous and wise."-Jeremy Schaap, bestselling author, Emmy award-winning journalist, ESPN In 1996, R.A. Dickey was the Texas Rangers' much-heralded No. 1 draft choice. Then, a routine physical revealed that his right elbow was missing its ulnar collateral ligament, and his lifelong dream-along with his $810,000 signing bonus-was ripped away. Yet, despite twice being consigned to baseball's scrap heap, Dickey battled back. Sustained by his Christian faith, the love of his wife and children, and a relentless quest for self-awareness, Dickey is now the starting pitcher for the Toronoto Blue Jays (he was previously a star pitcher for the New York Mets) and one of the National League's premier players, as well as the winner of the 2012 Cy Young award. In Wherever I Wind Up, Dickey eloquently shares his quintessentially American tale of overcoming extraordinary odds to achieve a game, a career, and a life unlike any other.

Generations after its demise, Ebbets Field remains the single most colorful and enduring image of a baseball park, with a treasured niche in the game's legacy and the American imagination. In this lively story of sports, politics, and the talented, hilarious, and charming characters associated with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Bob McGee chronicles the ballpark's vibrant history from the drawing board to the wrecking ball, beginning with Charley Ebbets and the heralded opening in 1913, on through the eras that followed. McGee weaves a story about how Ebbets Field's architectural details, notable flaws, and striking facade brought Brooklyn and its team together in ways that allowed each to define the other. Drawing on original interviews and letters, as well as published and archival sources, ""The Greatest Ballpark Ever"" explores the struggle of Charley Ebbets to build Ebbets Field, the days of Wilbert Robinson's early pennant winners, the ears of the Daffiness Boys, Larry MacPhail, and Branch Rickey, the tumultuous field leadership of Leo the Lip, the fiery triumph of Jackie Robinson, the golden days of the Boys of Summer, and Walter O'Malley's ignominious departure. With humor and passion, ""The Greatest Ballpark Ever"" lets readers relive a day in the raucous ballpark with its quirky angles and its bent right-field wall, with the characters and events that have become part of the nation's folklore.

In the most famous scandal of sports history, eight Chicago White Sox players-including Shoeless Joe Jackson-agreed to throw the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for the promise of $20,000 each from gamblers reportedly working for New York mobster Arnold Rothstein. Heavily favored, Chicago lost the Series five games to three. Although rumors of a fix flew while the series was being played, they were largely disregarded by players and the public at large. It wasn't until a year later that a general investigation into baseball gambling reopened the case, and a nationwide scandal emerged. In this book, Charles Fountain offers a full and engaging history of one of baseball's true moments of crisis and hand-wringing, and shows how the scandal changed the way American baseball was both managed and perceived. After an extensive investigation and a trial that became a national morality play, the jury returned not-guilty verdicts for all of the White Sox players in August of 1921. The following day, Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis, baseball's new commissioner, "regardless of the verdicts of juries," banned the eight players for life. And thus the Black Sox entered into American mythology. Guilty or innocent? Guilty and innocent? The country wasn't sure in 1921, and as Fountain shows, we still aren't sure today. But we are continually pulled to the story, because so much of modern sport, and our attitude towards it, springs from the scandal. Fountain traces the Black Sox story from its roots in the gambling culture that pervaded the game in the years surrounding World War I, through the confusing events of the 1919 World Series itself, to the noisy aftermath and trial, and illuminates the moment as baseball's tipping point. Despite the clumsy unfolding of the scandal and trial and the callous treatment of the players involved, the Black Sox saga was a cleansing moment for the sport. It launched the age of the baseball commissioner, as baseball owners hired Landis and surrendered to him the control of their game. Fountain shows how sweeping changes in 1920s triggered by the scandal moved baseball away from its association with gamblers and fixers, and details how American's attitude toward the pastime shifted as they entered into "The Golden Age of Sport." Situating the Black Sox events in the context of later scandals, including those involving Reds manager and player Pete Rose, and the ongoing use of steroids in the game up through the present, Fountain illuminates America's near century-long fascination with the story, and its continuing relevance today.

Noted baseball historian Norman L. Macht brings together a wide-ranging collection of baseball voices from the Deadball Era through the 1970s, including nine Hall of Famers, who take the reader onto the field, into the dugouts and clubhouses, and inside the minds of both players and managers. These engaging, wide-ranging oral histories bring surprising revelations-both highlights and lowlights-about their careers, as they revisit their personal mental scrapbooks of the days when they played the game. Not all of baseball's best stories are told by its biggest stars, especially when the stories are about those stars. Many of the storytellers you'll meet in They Played the Game are unknown to today's fans: the Red Sox's Charlie Wagner talks about what it was like to be Ted Williams's roommate in Williams's rookie year; the Dodgers' John Roseboro recounts his strategy when catching for Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax; former Yankee Mark Koenig recalls batting ahead of Babe Ruth in the lineup, and sometimes staying out too late with him; John Francis Daley talks about batting against Walter Johnson; Carmen Hill describes pitching against Babe Ruth in the 1927 World Series.