Download or read book Expanding the Strike Zone written by Daniel A. Gilbert and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With its iconic stars and gleaming ballparks, baseball has been one of the most captivating forms of modern popular culture. In Expanding the Strike Zone, Daniel A. Gilbert examines the history and meaning of the sport's tumultuous changes since the mid-twentieth century, amid Major League Baseball's growing global influence. From the rise of ballplayer unionism to the emergence of new forms of scouting, broadcasting, and stadium development, Gilbert shows that the baseball world has been home to struggles over work and territory that resonate far beyond the playing field. Readers encounter both legendary and unheralded figures in this sweeping history, which situates Major League Baseball as part of a larger culture industry. The book examines a labor history defined at once by the growing power of big league stars -- from Juan Marichal and Curt Flood to Fernando Valenzuela and Ichiro Suzuki -- and the collective struggles of players working to make a living throughout the baseball world. It also explores the territorial politics that have defined baseball's development as a form of transnational popular culture, from the impact of Dominican baseball academies to the organized campaign against stadium development by members of Seattle's Asian American community. Based on a rich body of research along with new readings of popular journalism, fiction, and film, Expanding the Strike Zone highlights the ways in which baseball's players, owners, writers, and fans have shaped and reshaped the sport as a central element of popular culture from the postwar boom to the Great Recession.
Download or read book Strike Four written by Richard Hershberger and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-03-08 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Baseball began as a schoolyard game, brought to America by the colonists. It evolved rapidly over the second half of the nineteenth century, with innovations and rule changes continuing throughout the twentieth century and into the modern era. But why and how did these changes take place? In Strike Four: The Evolution of Baseball, Richard Hershberger examines the national pastime’s development, from the reasoning behind new rules and innovations to the consequences of these changes—both intended and unintended—that often led to a new round of modifications. Topics examined include the dropped third strike, foul territory, nine innings, tagging up, balls and strikes, tie games, equipment, the infield fly rule, and many more. Ultimately, this book provides the reader with a narrative history of how baseball evolved from an informal folk game to the sport played in ballparks around the world today. As such, Strike Four is a wonderful reference for sports fans and historians of all generations.
Download or read book How Baseball Happened written by Thomas W. Gilbert and published by Godine+ORM. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The untold story of baseball’s nineteenth-century origins: “a delightful look at a young nation creating a pastime that was love from the first crack of the bat” (Paul Dickson, The Wall Street Journal). You may have heard that Abner Doubleday or Alexander Cartwright invented baseball. Neither did. You may have been told that a club called the Knickerbockers played the first baseball game in 1846. They didn’t. Perhaps you’ve read that baseball’s color line was first crossed by Jackie Robinson in 1947. Nope. Baseball’s true founders don’t have plaques in Cooperstown. They were hundreds of uncredited, ordinary people who played without gloves, facemasks, or performance incentives. Unlike today’s pro athletes, they lived full lives outside of sports. They worked, built businesses, and fought against the South in the Civil War. In this myth-busting history, Thomas W. Gilbert reveals the true beginnings of baseball. Through newspaper accounts, diaries, and other accounts, he explains how it evolved through the mid-nineteenth century into a modern sport of championships, media coverage, and famous stars—all before the first professional league was formed in 1871. Winner of the Casey Award: Best Baseball Book of the Year
Download or read book The Mental Keys to Hitting written by H.A. Dorfman and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-03-01 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A must-have book by acclaimed author and expert H.A. Dorfman that highlights the crucial mental components involved in hitting a baseball and playing the game, components that are as important, if not more so, than the intense physical regimen of an athlete.
Download or read book High Scoring Baseball written by Todd Guilliams and published by Human Kinetics. This book was released on 2012-11-27 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the definition of a high-scoring offense? How do you measure a player’s offensive productivity? How do you keep your team on track throughout the course of a long season? High-Scoring Baseball is the definitive guide for establishing an aggressive, opportunistic, and disciplined offense. Inside you’ll find detailed coverage of the four offensive team goals and the six ways to create offensive pressure that gives every team a chance to be high scorers. Then go inside the numbers for an in-depth analysis of run production. Discover the most common predictors for achieving a big inning, the importance of getting the lead-off hitter on, and the importance of collecting free bases. You’ll identify the most effective strategies based on specific game situations as well as the proper mental approach and physical adjustments to execute in those situations. Offense is more than a player’s batting average or a team’s ability to hit the long ball. It’s all about run production. It’s a player’s ability to achieve a high-quality at-bat and a team’s ability to create a big inning. High-Scoring Baseball will change the way you see and play the game.
Download or read book Dear Baseball Gods A Memoir written by Dan Blewett and published by Dan Blewett. This book was released on 2019-04-08 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dear Baseball Gods, Why didn't you look out for him? Didn't he deserve better? He hustled, competed, and played the game the right way. What happened wasn't fair. A Second Comeback Dan sat by a tree, staring at the ground trying to decide what he would do next. The doctor had just explained that everything he worked for was now ruined. A second Tommy John surgery? Does anyone come back from that? Is my career over? Is this it? A Winding Road to the Top As a walk-on in college, Dan had to earn everything. He pitched on three hours sleep, lived in the clubhouse, played for a team that collapsed mid-season, and endured more arm pain than any kid should. A Way to Move On When finally forced to hang up his cleats, Dan looked in the mirror and didn't recognize the man peering back. If no longer a ballplayer...what would he do? What had been the point of it all? Who was he? The Deeper Side of Life as an Athlete In this philosophical memoir, written as a series of letters, you'll learn that the pinstripes don't wash off so easily.
Download or read book Science of Hitting written by Ted Williams and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1986-04-29 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Advice on how to improve your turn at bat and become the best hitter possible.
Download or read book Baseball and Rhetorics of Purity written by Michael L. Butterworth and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2010-08-13 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Butterworth argues that baseball cannot be viewed as an innocent diversion or escape and that by promoting myths of citizenship and purity, post-9/11 discourse concerning baseball ironically threatens the health of the democratic system. Instead, he highlights how the game on the field reflects a more complex and diverse worldview, and he makes a plea for the game's recovery, both as a national pastime and as a site for celebrating the best of who we are and who we can be. --Book Jacket.
Download or read book HItting Low in the Zone written by Homer Bush and published by . This book was released on 2015-06-15 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Former MLB player Homer Bush shares his observations and takeaways from behind the plate in his new book, "Hitting Low in the Zone". These formulas and the strategies therein can be applied to a batter's game for consistent hitting results.
Download or read book Making My Pitch written by Ila Jane Borders and published by University of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2019-04-01 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Making My Pitch tells the story of Ila Jane Borders, who despite formidable obstacles became a Little League prodigy, MVP of her otherwise all-male middle school and high school teams, the first woman awarded a college baseball scholarship, and the first to pitch and win a complete men’s collegiate game. After Mike Veeck signed Borders in May 1997 to pitch for his St. Paul Saints of the independent Northern League, she accomplished what no woman had done since the Negro Leagues era: play men’s professional baseball. Borders played four professional seasons and in 1998 became the first woman in the modern era to win a professional ball game. Borders had to find ways to fit in with her teammates, reassure their wives and girlfriends, work with the media, and fend off groupies. But these weren’t the toughest challenges. She had a troubled family life, a difficult adolescence as she struggled with her sexual orientation, and an emotionally fraught college experience as a closeted gay athlete at a Christian university. Making My Pitch shows what it’s like to be the only woman on the team bus, in the clubhouse, and on the field. Raw, open, and funny at times, her story encompasses the loneliness of a groundbreaking pioneer who experienced grave personal loss. Borders ultimately relates how she achieved self-acceptance and created a life as a firefighter and paramedic and as a coach and goodwill ambassador for the game of baseball.
Download or read book The Physics of Baseball written by Robert K. Adair and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2015-01-20 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Blending scientific fact and sports trivia, Robert Adair examines what a baseball or player in motion does-and why. How fast can a batted ball go? What effect do stitch patterns have on wind resistance? How far does a curve ball break? Who reaches first base faster after a bunt, a right- or left-handed batter? The answers are often surprising—and always illuminating. This newly revised third edition considers recent developments in the science of sport such as the neurophysiology of batting, bat vibration, and the character of the "sweet spot." Faster pitchers, longer hitters, and enclosed stadiums also get a good, hard scientific look to determine their effects on the game. Filled with anecdotes about famous players and incidents, The Physics of Baseball provides fans with fascinating insights into America's favorite pastime.
Download or read book Ball Four written by Jim Bouton and published by Rosetta Books. This book was released on 2012-03-20 with total page 716 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 50th Anniversary edition of “the book that changed baseball” (NPR), chosen by Time magazine as one of the “100 Greatest Non-Fiction” books. When Ball Four was published in 1970, it created a firestorm. Bouton was called a Judas, a Benedict Arnold, and a “social leper” for having violated the “sanctity of the clubhouse.” Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn tried to force Bouton to sign a statement saying the book wasn’t true. Ballplayers, most of whom hadn’t read it, denounced the book. It was even banned by a few libraries. Almost everyone else, however, loved Ball Four. Fans liked discovering that athletes were real people—often wildly funny people. David Halberstam, who won a Pulitzer for his reporting on Vietnam, wrote a piece in Harper’s that said of Bouton: “He has written . . . a book deep in the American vein, so deep in fact that it is by no means a sports book.” Today Ball Four has taken on another role—as a time capsule of life in the sixties. “It is not just a diary of Bouton’s 1969 season with the Seattle Pilots and Houston Astros,” says sportswriter Jim Caple. “It’s a vibrant, funny, telling history of an era that seems even further away than four decades. To call it simply a ‘tell all book’ is like describing The Grapes of Wrath as a book about harvesting peaches in California.” Includes a new foreword by Jim Bouton's wife, Paula Kurman “An irreverent, best-selling book that angered baseball’s hierarchy and changed the way journalists and fans viewed the sports world.” —The Washington Post
Download or read book Reclaiming the Strike Zone written by Victor Alexander Baltov and published by Author House. This book was released on 2012-09-18 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America has steadily regressed from a Republic under the Sign of the Cross towards a mobacracy under the Sign of the Scorpion. Social responsibility and the ethics of conscience have vacated the Field of Dreams like a Baroid tater -- an all about me cult of celebrity has evolved. Reclaiming the Strike Zone traces the metaphorical cleat marks through forbidden history. The Inside Baseball version of the Soviet Socialist Paradise and Nazi Germany is pitched shekel free. Sub-systems of the American superstructure featuring education, entertainment, youth activities and family are explored in-depth. The search for something that has been lost -- the secret of the American Dream and American Exceptionalism -- is pursued. All base paths lead to the Christian Church and Jewish Nation. Wise Christian philosophy has been Billy-Goated off the playing field -- secular humanism has taken The Hill. Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud have taken a turn at-bat and gone long. Red tide has been harnessed into Economic Determinism by the F&F Boys. The hidden ball trick has been pulled on the sheeple. Disciples of General Zod lack American patriotism. Time is of the essence to restore what has been taken -- its the bottom of the 9th with two away. DO IT AMERICAN and dont give up the ship are battle cries. Intellectual Millenials must step up to the plate and reclaim what their baby booming Spock baby parents baptized in Dewey waters booted. Identifying the proton pseudos and resetting is the task. Restoring sub-systems [especially education] while playing small ball is the answer. Truth and patriotic leadership are catalysts. A burning desire to be an American -- free and independent -- without getting JFKd is the secret. There is a happy ending -- it is certain. The Good News delivers that promise.
Download or read book The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2008 written by Bryan Tsao and published by ACTA Publications. This book was released on 2007-11 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive analysis of the entire 2007 baseball season from the first pitch to the last out, including a breakdown of the post season and the World Series. Key features include: ? Reviews of how 2005 played out in each of baseball's six divisions ? An in-depth look at the minor leagues ? Detailed team stats and graphs ? Team-by-team individual hitting and fielding numbers ? A postseason and World Series round up
Download or read book Talk to Strangers written by David Topus and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2012-03-16 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Connect to the world around you and realize the enormous potential in talking to strangers Everyday, random encounters really can change lives, when you make them happen the right way and leverage the connection at the other end. Talk to Strangers explains how to stand out and tap the potential of others by taking notice of who is standing alongside you on the bank line, the latte pickup point, or the ticket counter at the airport. David Topus' life-changing message is that we should "always connect," which means going beyond online relationships and engaging in the random, real-life interactions that have unlimited potential to supercharge businesses, accelerate careers, and enrich your life. Why there is opportunity through the people you meet wherever you go The four key beliefs of successful random connectors Techniques for creating comfort and trust quickly with complete strangers How to optimize and monetize your newly-established contacts When you connect to those in your everyday world, you'll discover the life-expanding potential of random encounters and unlimited opportunities.
Download or read book Emergency Response Guidebook written by U.S. Department of Transportation and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-06-03 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does the identification number 60 indicate a toxic substance or a flammable solid, in the molten state at an elevated temperature? Does the identification number 1035 indicate ethane or butane? What is the difference between natural gas transmission pipelines and natural gas distribution pipelines? If you came upon an overturned truck on the highway that was leaking, would you be able to identify if it was hazardous and know what steps to take? Questions like these and more are answered in the Emergency Response Guidebook. Learn how to identify symbols for and vehicles carrying toxic, flammable, explosive, radioactive, or otherwise harmful substances and how to respond once an incident involving those substances has been identified. Always be prepared in situations that are unfamiliar and dangerous and know how to rectify them. Keeping this guide around at all times will ensure that, if you were to come upon a transportation situation involving hazardous substances or dangerous goods, you will be able to help keep others and yourself out of danger. With color-coded pages for quick and easy reference, this is the official manual used by first responders in the United States and Canada for transportation incidents involving dangerous goods or hazardous materials.
Download or read book K A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches written by Tyler Kepner and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From The New York Times baseball columnist, an enchanting, enthralling history of the national pastime as told through the craft of pitching, based on years of archival research and interviews with more than three hundred people from Hall of Famers to the stars of today. The baseball is an amazing plaything. We can grip it and hold it so many different ways, and even the slightest calibration can turn an ordinary pitch into a weapon to thwart the greatest hitters in the world. Each pitch has its own history, evolving through the decades as the masters pass it down to the next generation. From the earliest days of the game, when Candy Cummings dreamed up the curveball while flinging clamshells on a Brooklyn beach, pitchers have never stopped innovating. In K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches, Tyler Kepner traces the colorful stories and fascinating folklore behind the ten major pitches. Each chapter highlights a different pitch, from the blazing fastball to the fluttering knuckleball to the slippery spitball. Infusing every page with infectious passion for the game, Kepner brings readers inside the minds of combatants sixty feet, six inches apart. Filled with priceless insights from many of the best pitchers in baseball history--from Bob Gibson, Steve Carlton, and Nolan Ryan to Greg Maddux, Mariano Rivera, and Clayton Kershaw--K will be the definitive book on pitching and join such works as The Glory of Their Times and Moneyball as a classic of the genre.
