Going as far back as the mid-nineteenth century, to the early days of Cuban baseball, Wendel traces the spread of American baseball fever in the Caribbean and Mexico; discusses lesser-known historical standouts, including Adolfo Luque and Martin Dihigo; and describes the days when only light-skinned Latinos wereallowed to participate in Major League competition as well as the linguistic barrier many Latinos faced when playing on teams with "English only" rules.

Featuring interviews with Latino superstars past and present; a foreword by Bob Costas; the first-ever-published Latino All-Century Team, featuring players selected by Omar Minaya; and photos taken by award-winning Sports Illustrated photographer Victor Baldizon, The New Face of Baseball helps fans of America's favorite pastime to understand the history of those who bring hope and honor every season to the teams they have given their lives to, and the Hispanic culture that, if allowed, can lie hidden and unnoticed under a team jersey.

Named a 2021 Top Thriller by Alta Journal 2022 Next Generation Indie Book Award Finalist in Action/Adventure Fiction 2021 Professional Achievement Award, Johns Hopkins University faculty Finalist for the 2021 CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year In this visionary sequel to Castro's Curveball, the former Washington Senators Minor League catcher has returned to Havana with a small role in a movie being filmed on location. Billy Bryan soon realizes that this place and his past remain as star-crossed as when he played winter ball in the Cuban capital decades before. Against his better judgment, Billy becomes entangled in a scheme to spirit a top baseball prospect off the island. This pits him against his old friend Fidel Castro. Despite being in his final days, the dictator remains a dangerous adversary, as does the Cuban sports machine and the Mexican crime syndicates that now direct baseball talent toward the U.S. Major Leagues. In Escape from Castro's Cuba, Billy must once again navigate the crosscurrents of the so-called City of Columns: a place where the sunsets from the Hotel Nacional along the Malecon breakwater are as beautiful as ever, but where the alleyways in Old Havana still fan out, crooked and broken, like an old catcher's fingers.

Never in baseball history had a team ranked last rebounded to take the pennant the following season. Yet in 1991 lightning struck twice as the Minnesota Twins and the Atlanta Braves, a pair of cellar dwellers the year before, faced each other in an unforgettable World Series. When the final out was recorded, the cover headline in Baseball Weekly read: Best World Series Ever."

The distance between Cuba and the United States: tantalizingly close yet worlds apart. When a beautiful showgirl married to Cuba's most famous baseball player escapes to the sea, only a boy and a boat and a belief in the "American Dream" keep her afloat. Planning to rendezvous with her husband after an exhibition game in El Norte, the showgirl risks everything only to discover that crossing the straits might be easier than spanning allegiances. Set against the backdrop of actual games played between the Cuba National Team and the Baltimore Orioles, Habana Libre is the story of people caught between home and hope.

p style="mso-outline-level:1" class="MsoNormal"The extraordinary story of the 1968 baseball season,when the game was played to perfection even as the country was being pulled apart at the seams p style="mso-outline-level:1" class="MsoNormal"From the beginning, '68 was a season rocked by national tragedy and sweeping change. Opening Day was postponed and later played in the shadow of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s funeral. That summer, as the pennant races were heating up, the assassination of Robert Kennedy was later followed by rioting at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. But even as tensions boiled over and violence spilled into the streets, something remarkable was happening in major league ballparks across the country. Pitchers were dominating like never before, and with records falling and shut-outs mounting, many began hailing '68 as The Year of the Pitcher."In Summer of '68 , Tim Wendel takes us on a wild ride through a season that saw such legends as Bob Gibson, Denny McLain, Don Drysdale, and Luis Tiant set new standards for excellence on the mound, each chasing perfection against the backdrop of one of the most divisive and turbulent years in American history. For some players, baseball would become an insular retreat from the turmoil encircling them that season, but for a select few, including Gibson and the defending champion St. Louis Cardinals, the conflicts of '68 would spur their performances to incredible heights and set the stage for their own run at history.Meanwhile in Detroit,which had burned just the summer before during one of the worst riots in American history,'68 instead found the city rallying together behind a colourful Tigers team led by McLain, Mickey Lolich, Willie Horton, and Al Kaline. The Tigers would finish atop the American League, setting themselves on a highly anticipated collision course with Gibson's Cardinals. And with both teams'seasons culminating in a thrilling World Series for the ages,one team playing to establish a dynasty, the other fighting to help pull a city from the ashes,what ultimately lay at stake was something even larger: baseball's place in a rapidly changing America that would never be the same.In vivid, novelistic detail, Summer of '68 tells the story of this unforgettable season,the last before rule changes and expansion would alter baseball forever,when the country was captivated by the national pastime at the moment it needed the game most. p style="" class="MsoNormal"

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....