Gabby Harnett is believed by many to be the greatest catcher of all time. This work chronicles Hartnett's life from his early years in Millville, Massachusetts, through his twenty-year career with the Chicago Cubs as player and manager, his time in various capacities in the minor leagues and with the New York Giants and Kansas City Athletics, to his post-major league career as a businessman in Chicago. His childhood, early baseball experiences with the local team and with a nearby prep school, and his first professional baseball season with the Worcester Boosters of the Eastern League are covered in detail. Hartnett's major league career as the catcher for the Cubs is well-documented, including his near career-ending arm injury in 1929, the 1932 World Series that featured Babe Ruth's legendary ""called shot,"" and Hartnett's famous ""homer in the gloamin"" against the Pittsburgh Pirates that propelled Chicago to the 1938 National League pennant. The author also compares Hartnett's statistics to those of his famous contemporaries, Mickey Cochrane and Bill Dickey, on a year-by-year basis.

Negro League ballplayers, earning paychecks comparable to those of blue-collar workers, needed an off-season source of income to make ends meet. Many of them found the answer in baseball, by joining racially integrated barnstorming teams that toured the country after the regular season ended, or by playing in the organized winter leagues that operated in Florida, California, in a number of Caribbean countries, and in Central and South American countries. This history recounts the experiences of American black ballplayers outside of the Negro Leagues--often in places where a lack of prejudice contrasted sharply with conditions at home. Tracing the development of the game in each location and the unique character of each winter league, it details the contributions of the Negro League players and collects their statistics in each of the winter leagues.

Since the Boston Red Sox came into existence in 1901, some of the greatest players ever to step onto a baseball diamond have filled its rosters. Starting with Cy Young, the parade of legendary players included Tris Speaker, Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, Carlton Fisk, Roger Clemens, Pedro Martinez, Manny Ramirez, and David Ortiz, among others. This work profiles 200 of the most memorable players to have donned Boston's red, white and blue. Some, like Williams, enjoyed long, illustrious careers with the Red Sox. Others, like Smokey Joe Wood, shone brightly for only a brief period. Also included are journeymen who became legends as a result of one glorious World Series game, like Bernie Carbo, or players with just one memorable post-season appearance, like Dave Roberts. Together, these legends, idols, and heroes made Red Sox history and forever changed American baseball.

The California Winter League was the first to bring together Negro League teams and white professional teams in one league. It operated from October through February each year from the early part of the century until the late 1940s and generally consisted of one or more Negro League teams, which included Hall-of-Famers Satchel Paige, Turkey Stearnes, Willie Wells, and Cool Papa Bell on their rosters, and three or more white teams, which were made up of major league players who lived in California as well as minor leaguers from the top-rated Pacific Coast League. This work is the first complete history of the California Winter League from its murky beginnings around 1912 to its golden years from 1924 to 1935 to its final demise in the mid 1940s. It provides an overview of the league and the early years of local amateur ball clubs evolving into the semi-professional league on through 1919. It then provides detailed summaries for the official seasons of 1920 through 1947 and accounts of the exciting pennant races between the Negro League teams and the white professional teams. Appendices provide statistical information: league champions season by season, career leaders in many categories such as batting average, home runs, complete games, victories, and shutouts, batting and pitching statistics for each season, and more.

It's often said that catcher is the most important, most demanding defensive position in baseball. This view explains why so many light-hitting catchers have enjoyed long?and by all accounts successful?major league careers. Yet arguments over the all-time greats invariably privilege offensive standouts, and even among these players batting statistics are more likely than fielding numbers to affect ranking. So what, historically, have been the expectations for major league catchers, and who stands as the greatest in a more balanced view of offensive and defensive contributions? In Part I of this book, the history of catching and catchers is discussed in detail, with attention to the most celebrated players of each era. In Part II, the author employs sabermetric formulas to rank the 50 greatest catchers since 1920, when changes to the rules, the parks, and the ball dramatically changed the way baseball was played. Also included is a chapter on catchers of the 19th century, deadball era, and Negro Leagues, whose career statistics are either incomplete, inaccurate, or produced under markedly different playing conditions and rules.

Are today's major league baseball pitchers better than ever? Or do they pale in comparison to the great hurlers of 20, 30 or 40 years ago? This book tackles a debate that has been traveling baseball circles for the past decade or so. With changes in everything from the size of the playing field to the composition of the ball, it's a tall task to compare pitchers over the 170 year history of the sport in America. This author does a meticulous job. No stone is unturned as he delves into every facet from the ancient roots of the game to bigger size of today's players. The first chapters reach back to the first known ""batting contests"" in Egypt 5,000 years ago and bring readers to a popular 18th century English game called rounders, which evolved into organized baseball in 19th century America. The author then paces through the changes in rules that helped mold baseball into its modern form, and discusses innovators like James 'Jimmy' Creighton and Asa Brainard, early stars like Cy Young and Walter Johnson, and modern day standouts such as Roger Clemens and Kerry Woods. The book explores rule changes, adaptations to pitching and pitching strategies, and the effect of pitcher injuries and conditioning, among other influences. Fourteen former major league players comment on the game. In the final chapter, the author reviews what has happened to major league pitching. An appendix gives stats for major league starting pitchers with comparisons by era, those with more than 5,000 career innings pitched, relief pitchers, and their single season save records. Another table takes a look at the increase in major league home runs from 1919 to 2004.

Researchers in American anthropology and archaeology from the late seventeenth century to the present - including Cotton Mather, John Wesley Powell, Thor Heyerdahl, and Betty Meggers, among others - all had discoveries that lead to the following conclusion: America was visited by Europeans well before the time of Christopher Columbus. Divided into two main parts, this work is a comprehensive study of the evidence suggesting that ancient European and Asian mariners visited the United States more than 1000 years ago. The first section is an historical overview of the external evidence that would support the theory of ancient incursions to America. A review of ancient ships and the currents in both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans is offered. The experiences of several seagoing peoples (such as Polynesians and Vikings) are explored. Both legendary voyages and modern adventures of mariners are discussed. Ancient transoceanic stories are also examined. From mammoth stone chambers of New York and New England to inscribed stones found in ancient graves form Minnesota to West Virginia, the second half of the work focuses on the American evidence for ancient visitations to the U.S., primarily in the northeast section of the country. Several alleged ancient sites are also explored in this richly illustrated work.

Covering Mike Tyson's complete amateur and professional boxing career, this book follows the Brooklyn native from his early years as a 12 year old criminal in Brownsville to his 1988 heavyweight unification match with Michael Spinks. The book focuses on the Catskill Boxing Club - where boxing guru Cus D'Amato trained the 210-pound teenager in the finer points of the art and developed his impregnable defense - and on his home life with D'Amato and his surrogate mother Camille Ewald, and the other boys who shared the house with him. Tyson's boxing education began in the unauthorized "smokers" held in the Bronx every week, matching his skills against older, more experienced fighters. He won the 1981 Amateur Heavyweight Boxing Championship in Colorado Springs at the age of 14, and repeated the amazing feat the following year. By 1985, finding no other challenging amateur competition, he was forced to join the professional ranks where, in November 1986, he became the youngest heavyweight champion in boxing history. Less than two years later, he unified the crown, establishing himself as one of the most dominant heavyweight fighters in the annals of the game.