Download or read book Iowa Baseball Greats written by Don Doxsie and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-09-18 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the world of sports, Iowa is probably best known for wrestling but the state has also produced more than 200 major league baseball players. Sixteen of them are profiled here, including six Hall of Famers, the game's brightest star of the 19th century, an American League batting champion, the only pitcher to lead the National League in strikeouts seven years in a row, the only catcher to catch two back-to-back no-hitters and one of the most dominant pitchers in American League history. They made their presence felt off the field, too. One helped fortify the game's racial barriers. One helped tear them down. One invented devices that changed the game. Two wrote instructional books on baseball. One became famous so young that he graced the cover of national magazines before graduating from high school. Each has a compelling story, some interwoven with the game's greatest moments.
Download or read book The Baseball Whisperer written by Michael Tackett and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2016-07-05 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Field of Dreams was only superficially about baseball. It was really about life. So is The Baseball Whisperer . . . with the added advantage of being all true.” —MLB.com From an award-winning journalist, this is the story of a legendary coach and the professional-caliber baseball program he built in America's heartland, where boys would come summer after summer to be molded into ballplayers—and men. Clarinda, Iowa, population 5,000, sits two hours from anything. There, between the cornfields and hog yards, is a ball field with a bronze bust of a man named Merl Eberly, who specialized in second chances and lost causes. The statue was a gift from one of Merl’s original long-shot projects, a skinny kid from the Los Angeles ghetto who would one day become a beloved Hall-of-Fame shortstop: Ozzie Smith. The Baseball Whisperer traces the “deeply engrossing” story (Booklist, starred review) of Merl Eberly and his Clarinda A’s baseball team, which he tended over the course of five decades, transforming them from a town team to a collegiate summer league powerhouse. Along with Ozzie Smith, future manager Bud Black, and star player Von Hayes, Merl developed scores of major league players. In the process, he taught them to be men, insisting on hard work, integrity, and responsibility. More than a book about ballplayers in the nation’s agricultural heartland, The Baseball Whisperer is the story of a coach who put character and dedication first, reminding us of the best, purest form of baseball excellence. “Mike Tackett, talented journalist and baseball lover, has hit the sweet spot of the bat with his first book. The Baseball Whisperer takes one coach and one small Iowa town and illuminates both a sport and the human spirit.” —David Maraniss, New York Times-bestselling author of Clemente and When Pride Still Mattered
Download or read book Iowa Baseball Greats written by Don Doxsie and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-09-02 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the world of sports, Iowa is probably best known for wrestling but the state has also produced more than 200 major league baseball players. Sixteen of them are profiled here, including six Hall of Famers, the game's brightest star of the 19th century, an American League batting champion, the only pitcher to lead the National League in strikeouts seven years in a row, the only catcher to catch two back-to-back no-hitters and one of the most dominant pitchers in American League history. They made their presence felt off the field, too. One helped fortify the game's racial barriers. One helped tear them down. One invented devices that changed the game. Two wrote instructional books on baseball. One became famous so young that he graced the cover of national magazines before graduating from high school. Each has a compelling story, some interwoven with the game's greatest moments.
Download or read book The Iowa Baseball Confederacy written by W. P. Kinsella and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2003 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of the bestselling "Shoeless Joe" comes another vintage baseball tale that "like magic . . . holds together and entices you from one page to the next, until at the end you ache for more" ("Milwaukee Journal").
Download or read book Baseball in Northwest Iowa written by Joan Wendl Thomas and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2017 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While new railroad tracks cut through Northwestern Iowa in the mid-19th century, hardy pioneers cultivated the fertile soil, and the burgeoning sport of baseball took root and flourished. An integral element of the developing culture, it promoted community pride. Eight Northwestern Iowa towns supported professional teams by 1912, the first being Sioux City in 1888. Over time, that city's clubs produced hall-of-fame shortstop Dave Bancroft and initiated the still-existing American League. Homegrown talent from an abundance of professional, semiprofessional, and amateur clubs throughout the area's 19 counties yielded 38 major-league players before 1960 and more since.
Download or read book What It Means to Be a Hawkeye written by Lyle Hammes and published by Triumph Books. This book was released on 2011-07 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unique, compelling new title assembles the greatest players from one of the most celebrated teams in college football to share their personal memories. Filled with firsthand accounts with dozens of players--from the team's early days through the new millennium. "What It Means to Be a Hawkeye: Kirk Ferentz and Iowa's Greatest Players "explores the program's vast success and the seemingly simple question: What does it mean to be a Hawkeye? One person or one phrase cannot answer that question because so many different emotions encompass the true Hawkeye spirit. Over 50 of the greatest Iowa student-athletes, coaches, and administrators from the past century were called upon to express why they are so proud to be a part of the storied tradition that is Iowa football. "What It Means to Be a Hawkeye" brings together all of their stories. It's not just one tradition, one season or one particular game--it's the stories coming from the student-athletes and coaches who made the magic happen over the decades that capture the true essence of representing the University of Iowa.
Download or read book Before Jackie Robinson written by Gerald R. Gems and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2017-02-01 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the accomplishments and influence of Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson, and Muhammad Ali are doubtless impressive solely on their merits, these luminaries of the black sporting experience did not emerge spontaneously. Their rise was part of a gradual evolution in social and power relations in American culture between the 1890s and 1940s that included athletes such as jockey Isaac Murphy, barnstorming pilot Bessie Coleman, and golfer Teddy Rhodes. The contributions of these early athletes to our broader collective history, and their heroic confrontations with the entrenched racism of their times, helped bring about the incremental changes that after 1945 allowed for sports to be more fully integrated. Before Jackie Robinson details and analyzes the lives of these lesser-known but important athletes within the broader history of black liberation. These figures not only excelled in their given sports but also transcended class and racial divides in making inroads into popular culture despite the societal restrictions placed on them. They were also among the first athletes to blur the line between athletics, entertainment, and celebrity culture. This volume presents a more nuanced account of early African American athletes' lives and their ongoing struggle for acceptance, relevance, and personal and group identity.
Download or read book Shoeless Joe written by W. P. Kinsella and published by Rosetta Books. This book was released on 2014-01-09 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The novel that inspired Field of Dreams: “A lyrical, seductive, and altogether winning concoction.” —The New York Times Book Review One of Sports Illustrated’s 100 Greatest Sports Books “If you build it, he will come.” When Ray Kinsella hears these mysterious words spoken in the voice of an Iowa baseball announcer, he is inspired to carve a baseball diamond in his cornfield. It is a tribute to his hero, the legendary Shoeless Joe Jackson, whose reputation was forever tarnished by the scandalous 1919 World Series. What follows is a timeless story that is “not so much about baseball as it is about dreams, magic, life, and what is quintessentially American” (The Philadelphia Inquirer). “A triumph of hope.” —The Boston Globe “A moonlit novel about baseball, dreams, family, the land, and literature.” —Sports Illustrated
Download or read book Class A written by Lucas Mann and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2013-05-07 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An unforgettable chronicle of a year of minor-league baseball in a small Iowa town that follows not only the travails of the players of the Clinton LumberKings but also the lives of their dedicated fans and of the town itself. Award-winning essayist Lucas Mann delivers a powerful debut in his telling of the story of the 2010 season of the Clinton LumberKings. Along the Mississippi River, in a Depression-era stadium, young prospects from all over the world compete for a chance to move up through the baseball ranks to the major leagues. Their coaches, some of whom have spent nearly half a century in the game, watch from the dugout. In the bleachers, local fans call out from the same seats they’ve occupied year after year. And in the distance, smoke rises from the largest remaining factory in a town that once had more millionaires per capita than any other in America. Mann turns his eye on the players, the coaches, the fans, the radio announcer, the town, and finally on himself, a young man raised on baseball, driven to know what still draws him to the stadium. His voice is as fresh and funny as it is poignant, illuminating both the small triumphs and the harsh realities of minor-league ball. Part sports story, part cultural exploration, part memoir, Class A is a moving and unique study of why we play, why we watch, and why we remember.
Download or read book Cooperstown To Dyersville written by Charles Fruehling Springwood and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-03-13 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By what magic is a simple geographical space such as a city or town transformed into cultural significance, into a "place" people travel to, enshrine, mythologize, and consume? What stardust falls upon the ground and in the public's mind that moves us to worship a piece of property that was once an unremarkable field or vacant lot? This book, written with the passion of both baseball fan and cultural anthropologist, unravels the mysteries of Cooperstown, New York–home of the Baseball Hall of Fame–and Dyersville, Iowa–site of the baseball field made enormous by the Hollywood movie Field of Dreams. Charles Springwood provides insight into the postmodern culture of the United States in which tourist sites and "American heritages" are culturally produced and consumed, by studying the people who visit them. The results of his interviews with visitors to these sites speak to issues of youth, innocence, family, domesticity, nation, and the hegemonic practices of the "leisure class." The book provides a reading of America steeped in narratives of pastoralism and nostalgia. Behind it all (the curtain behind which the great wizard sits) is the corporate mind creating an atmosphere of false histories and reconstructed pasts. Springwood pulls the reader's heart in two directions, seeking to honor the beautiful myth of baseball's pastoralism through two sacred geographical sites while also seeking to expose the underpinnings of myth-making to a gentle but constant light.
Download or read book Class A written by Lucas Mann and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2013 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chronicles a remarkable year for Iowa's Clinton LumberKings minor-league baseball team through the experiences of its players and dedicated fans, profiling the challenges being faced by the team's once-thriving lumber town, its achievements in a Depression-era stadium and the contributions of its former major league backup catcher-turned-minor league manager.
Download or read book The Dixon Cornbelt League and Other Baseball Stories written by W. P. Kinsella and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2004-07-01 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shortstops who run with the wolves, painted eggs that reveal deeply disturbing meanings, long-dead Hall of Famers who miraculously return to the game, an Iowa minor-league town with a secret conspiracy: these are the elements from which W.øP. Kinsella weaves nine fabulous stories about the magical world of baseball. From the dugouts, clubhouses, bedrooms, and barrooms to the interior worlds of hope and despair, these eerie stories present the absurdities of human relationships and reveal the writer's special genius for touching the heart.
Download or read book Shoeless Joe written by W. P. Kinsella and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dreamer builds a baseball diamond amid the Iowa cornfields and waits for the outstanding, but dead, baseball players of the past to show up for a very special game.
Download or read book Iowa State Greats written by Carole Marsh and published by Carole Marsh Books. This book was released on 1994 with total page 46 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Baseball at Davenport s John O Donnell Stadium written by Tim Rask and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2004 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John O'Donnell Stadium is one picturesque ballpark. With Centennial Bridge crossing the Mississippi River down the first base line and the Davenport skyline overlooking left center field, it is a minor league baseball landmark. John O'Donnell Stadium has been home to Quad Cities baseball since 1931-never mind the occasional flood. And though the teams have come and gone-the Blue Sox, Cubs, Quads, Angels, River Bandits-one constant has been the embrace of baseball itself by the local fans. Old-timers will remember cheering on Jim Bunning of the 1951 Quad Cities Tigers, the first Q.C. ballplayer to make it to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Since 1960, when Quad Cities joined the Midwest League, Q.C. baseball fans have seen dozens of young players like Dante Bichette, Carney Lansford, and Billy Wagner pass through John O'Donnell Stadium en route to the Big Leagues. And, if they didn't blink, they might have witnessed Chuck Finley pitch 12 scoreless innings in 1986 before being hurried up to the California Angels.
Download or read book Indiana Born Major League Baseball Players written by Pete Cava and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-09-22 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Indiana boasts a rich baseball tradition, with 10 native sons enshrined in Cooperstown. This biographical dictionary provides a close look at the lives of all 364 Hoosier big leaguers, who include New York City's first baseball superstar; the first rookie pitcher to win three games in a World Series; the man who caught most of Cy Young's record 511 career wins; one of the game's first star relievers; the player who held the record for consecutive games played before Lou Gehrig; an obscure infielder mentioned in Charles Schulz's Peanuts comic strip; baseball's only one-legged pitcher; Indiana's first Mr. Basketball, who became one of baseball's greatest pinch-hitters; the first African American to play for the Cincinnati Reds; the only pitcher to throw a perfect game in the World Series; the skipper of the 1969 "Miracle Mets"; the pitcher for whom a ground-breaking surgical procedure is named; and the only two men to have played in both the World Series and the Final Four of the NCAA Basketball Tournament.
Download or read book Bob Oldis written by Stephen Bratkovich and published by . This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
