Dick Bosman's career in Major League Baseball as a player and coach has spanned more than 50 years. He pitched eleven seasons in the American League, was the Major League pitching coach for multiple teams, and has served as a minor league pitching coordinator for the Tampa Bay Rays since 2001. Throughout his years in baseball, Bosman has developed a distinct pitching philosophy and astute insights into the cat-and-mouse game between hitter and pitcher. In Dick Bosman on Pitching: Lessons from the Life of a Major League Ballplayer and Pitching Coach, author Ted Leavengood examines Bosman's life in baseball, from his winning the ERA title in the American League in 1969 and his no-hitter in 1974 to his current coaching position with the Tampa Bay Rays. For those wanting an inside look at the essentials of pitching, Leavengood includes insights and tips from Bosman throughout the book, compiled through hours of personal interviews. Bosman has worked for and with some of the best pitchers and coaches in major league baseball, and he not only shares stories from their time together but also the many things he learned from them about the game. Dick Bosman has found enormous success working with young ballplayers at all levels and fostered innovations-such as his signature slide step-that have impacted pitching in today's game. With personal anecdotes from Bosman, his teammates, and those he coached, Dick Bosman on Pitching will entertain and inform young pitchers as well as baseball fans of all generations.

Famed Washington sportswriter Shirley Povich once said that Clark Griffith's life was a true Horatio Alger story. Born in a frontier log cabin in Missouri in 1869, Griffith enjoyed a successful 64-year career in baseball that ended with his death in 1955. He spent 20 seasons as a major league pitcher, another 20 seasons as a manager--including five as the first manager of the New York Yankees--and 35 years as owner of the Washington Senators, where he won three American League pennants and the 1924 World Championship. One of the game's greatest ambassadors, Griffith made his lasting mark as a labor leader and as one of the founders of the American League in 1901. This biography chronicles "The Old Fox's" long life in baseball, revealing in the process a vast trove of sporting history and illuminating the changing landscape of both baseball and American culture.

Heading into their ninth season, the expansion Washington Senators had never won more than 76 games in a season. The team even seemed to be backsliding, as the 1968 season brought 31 more losses than wins. Desperate to try something new, Senators owner Bob Short hired Hall of Famer Ted Williams to manage the team. Williams sparked the Senators to the best record for a Washington team since the old Senators (now the Minnesota Twins) had won 87 games in 1945. ""The Splendid Splinter"" oversaw dramatic improvements in both offense and pitching, with Dick Bosman even leading the league in ERA.The Senators' last winning season, 1969 was an unlikely high point in an otherwise lackluster 11 - year stay in the capital. Prior to that season, they'd been a perennial cellar dweller, and after 1969 the team would experience steep declines in attendance and wins, leading to an acrimonious departure to Texas. This book recounts that 1969 season in-depth.

Here is the story of the 2005 Washington Nationals. Told from a fan's perspective, the narrative begins inside RFK on opening day, expressing the simple pleasures of baseball that 34 years couldn?t erase. As the team took one series after another, baseball fans quickly forgot that many on the roster had ever played to empty seats in Montreal. Descriptive prose covers each game, from the crack of Brad Wilkerson's bat to Livan Hernandez's eight-inning outings.