Download or read book Character Is Not a Statistic the Legacy and Wisdom of Baseball s Godfather Scout Bill Lajoie written by Bill Lajoie and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2010-01-21 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bill Lajoie just had it. When it came to drafting ballplayers and building a World Series club, few in baseball history can match his extraordinary success. The lessons of Lajoies illustrious career and the brilliance of his philosophy are put to print in Character is Not a Statistic. After a playing career that fell achingly short of the major leagues, Lajoie returned to Detroit to become a teacher in the mid-1960s. But his unyielding passion for baseball and desire to atone for a broken dream pulled him back to the game as a scout. From there, hed go on to build World Series Championships from scratch by finding players who possessed the very character he lacked as a young athlete. Starting as an area scout for the Cincinnati Reds in 1965, Lajoie later moved up the ladder with the Detroit Tigers and was the architect and general manager of their 1984 World Series crowning. Lajoie would then be instrumental as an assistant GM for two more franchises who dominated their decades with championships and titles; the 1990s Atlanta Braves and the 2000s Boston Red Sox. Perhaps no one alive has scouted more baseball over the last 50 years or has better stories to tell about finding the greats. Though the modern era has seen the depersonalization of scouting via statistics and radar gun readings, Lajoie was immensely successful through five decades by emphasizing what a player had inside him. His belief in a players humanity and character persists to this day. This book is not only a biography, but a collection of great baseball stories and a manual for the next generation of fans and scouts alike. Lajoie tackles such controversial issues as the Moneyball movement, the importance of a strong manager, scouting for makeup, making trades, preventing pitching injuries, running a farm system, and ranking both the best general managers and scouting directors of the modern era.

Download or read book Out of the Park written by Ed Mickelson and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-02-18 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Golden Age of baseball, as many as 59 minor leagues operated in a single season, and hundreds of G.I.s returning home from World War II competed in them for the big break that would land them one of only 400 spots on 16 teams in the majors. These were truly the days when athletes played purely for the love of the game, motivated by goals that seemed always just beyond their fingertips. Among the many men who endured shocking extremes in pursuit of that diamond-plate dream was first baseman Ed Mickelson. This book relates the entirety of his 11-year struggle against the odds of success. A talented athlete from his early youth, Mickelson followed the game he loved across continental America, winning some and losing some, but always persevering. While a recruit for Lynchburg in the Class B Piedmont League, Mickelson maintained a league-leading .393 batting average. When traded to the Southeastern League in Montgomery, Alabama, he scaled his previous statistic to achieve an average of .417. In his first major league start, an ailing Stan Musial provided the opportunity for Ed to get one of only two hits against Hall of Famer Warren Spahn. After batting .335 and driving in 139 runs at Shreveport, Louisiana, in the Texas League, Ed was honored to become first pick among 8500 players in the Minor League draft in 1954, making him a Portland Beaver in the Pacific Coast League. This book captures the fierceness of his struggle throughout his career before the man who drove in the last run of the St. Louis Browns would eventually hand over his bat and go home. Despite his impressive statistics--the second highest batting average in the Pacific Coast League and the best fielding percentage among first basemen--Mickelson traded in professional baseball for a career of high school counseling and coaching young athletes, some becoming professionals themselves. His story is told here for veterans, scholars and fans alike, revealing first-hand the both difficult and rewarding challenges of the big game.

Download or read book Infinite Baseball written by Alva Noë and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-01 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Baseball is a strange sport: it consists of long periods in which little seems to be happening, punctuated by high-energy outbursts of rapid fire activity. Because of this, despite ever greater profits, Major League Baseball is bent on finding ways to shorten games, and to tailor baseball to today's shorter attention spans. But for the true fan, baseball is always compelling to watch -and intellectually fascinating. It's superficially slow-pace is an opportunity to participate in the distinctive thinking practice that defines the game. If baseball is boring, it's boring the way philosophy is boring: not because there isn't a lot going on, but because the challenge baseball poses is making sense of it all. In this deeply entertaining book, philosopher and baseball fan Alva Noë explores the many unexpected ways in which baseball is truly a philosophical kind of game. For example, he ponders how observers of baseball are less interested in what happens, than in who is responsible for what happens; every action receives praise or blame. To put it another way, in baseball - as in the law - we decide what happened based on who is responsible for what happened. Noe also explains the curious activity of keeping score: a score card is not merely a record of the game, like a video recording; it is an account of the game. Baseball requires that true fans try to tell the story of the game, in real time, as it unfolds, and thus actively participate in its creation. Some argue that baseball is fundamentally a game about numbers. Noe's wide-ranging, thoughtful observations show that, to the contrary, baseball is not only a window on language, culture, and the nature of human action, but is intertwined with deep and fundamental human truths. The book ranges from the nature of umpiring and the role of instant replay, to the nature of the strike zone, from the rampant use of surgery to controversy surrounding performance enhancing drugs. Throughout, Noe's observations are surprising and provocative. Infinite Baseball is a book for the true baseball fan.

Download or read book Catching Caden written by Samantha Christy and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-12-15 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If all they see are her scars - they aren't looking hard enough.It was my home run ball that shattered her face.Right along with her modeling career.Now it's my mission to help her rebuild her life.And get her to love the game that she hates.The game that dictates my life both on and off the field.But when the lines of our friendship become blurred, I worry she'll just be another casualty of my three-strikes rule. The rule I have to protect my money, my future, my heart.No girl has ever broken it.I've never wanted one to.Until now.The question is ... will I let her?

Download or read book The Pleasure Principle written by Michael Bronski and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2000-02-23 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A brilliant and thought-provoking examination of the complicated relationship between gay and mainstream culture--and a finalist for the 1998 Lambda Literary Award and the Randy Shilts Award.

Download or read book Literary Digest written by and published by . This book was released on 1920 with total page 1490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Literary Digest written by and published by . This book was released on 1920 with total page 866 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Digest Review of Reviews Incorporating Literary Digest written by and published by . This book was released on 1920 with total page 1618 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The New Latina s Bible written by Sandra Guzmán and published by Seal Press. This book was released on 2011-05-03 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For nearly a decade, The Latina's Bible has been the go-to guide for Latinas everywhere. In this updated and expanded edition, author Sandra Guzman continues to use her trademark warmth, humor, and wisdom to explore a wide range of topics, from dating and sexuality to family and career. The New Latina's Bible charts new territory, adding chapters that cover important issues such as sexual abuse, domestic and dating violence, interracial love, and gender identity. Guzman once again provides a hip, empowering, highly readable guide for women who are facing the trials and joys of living and loving as twenty-first century Latinas.

Download or read book Literary Digest a Repository of Contemporaneous Thought and Research as Presented in the Periodical Literature of the World written by Edward Jewitt Wheeler and published by . This book was released on 1920 with total page 1510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Atkinson s Evening Post and Philadelphia Saturday News written by and published by . This book was released on 1957-09 with total page 1110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Boys Life written by and published by . This book was released on 1992-09 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Boys' Life is the official youth magazine for the Boy Scouts of America. Published since 1911, it contains a proven mix of news, nature, sports, history, fiction, science, comics, and Scouting.

Download or read book A Guy Like Me written by John Scott and published by Howard Books. This book was released on 2020-10-13 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the NHL’s most unexpected All-Star MVP comes a sports memoir unlike any other. Hilarious, candid, and reflective, A Guy Like Me recounts the heartwarming story of John Scott: an average joe who became a sports icon overnight. Known as a willing-and-able fighter and bruiser in the league, John Scott was a surprising and tongue-and-cheek nominee for the 2016 NHL All-Star Game. He’d been in the league for over eight NHL seasons, playing for teams such as the Wild, Blackhawks, Rangers, Sabres, and the Sharks. Scott’s best attribute as an NHL player was dropping his gloves—never the best player, he did become the most feared fighter in the NHL, racking up extensive penalty minutes. In order to prevent him from playing in the game, his current team—the Phoenix Coyotes—traded Scott to the Montreal Canadiens, who demoted him to the AHL team in an attempt to disqualify him from playing in the All-Star Game. Fans were outraged and Scott was devastated. He’d been downgraded in his job—forced to relocate while his wife was pregnant with twin girls. But the fans wouldn’t back down and insisted the NHL let Scott play in the game. What followed was an inspiring and unforgettable Cinderella story. Detailing his life growing up and with plenty of his signature humor, A Guy Like Me is a moving, witty, and remarkable memoir that you won’t be able to put down.

Download or read book Poet in the Grandstand written by Thomas Porky McDonald and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2010-11-18 with total page 730 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the area of ballpark hopping, there have been a number of accounts written, recorded or talked about in recent times, sometimes for a cause or others just as a gimmick. Through Poet in the Grandstand, poet and writer Thomas Porky McDonald gives us a most unique twist on a preoccupation which has grown in the past few decades, in the wake of the closings of classic old yards and the birth of the more entertainment and nostalgia driven open-air parks. From his first trip in 1990, to the fabled Comiskey Park of Shoeless Joe Jackson, Bill Veeck and the Go-Go Sox, on through to the 2010 opening of Minnesotas fabulous Target Field, featuring the modern M&M Boys, Joe Mauer and Justin Mourneau, McDonald offers up a book that is part travelogue and part poetic tribute to all the places that men and women have gone to over the years for a very personal sense of joy. This journey, done methodically, over two decades, picks up steam as the chapters begin to flow. The effect of McDonald himself clearly growing as a poet through the years is accentuated by the fact that more and more pieces are written in the later trips. The end result is a most interesting volume of not just ballparks, but Americana, as numerous attractions taken in during those ballpark weeks and weekends are also noted and/or dissected. For fourteen seasons on his own and then six more accompanied by friend and confidant Adam Boneker, McDonalds travels, highlighted by over 300 poems, can take the reader back to a simpler time or into the possibilities of the future. In chapter and in verse, Poet in the Grandstand has something for both the baseball enthusiast and the curious traveler. Fans of the game and lovers of the road will each find much to offer within these pages.

Download or read book The Loner written by Bradley G. Andrus and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2002-10-27 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some killers kill for money. Some kill for fame. Still others kill for revenge. The Loner had a different motive. He killed to prove his point. For too many years, he sat by, as things remained the same. The Loner wanted to change the way things were and when the opportunity presented itself, he decided he had to take IT. Detective Darnell Simms is in charge of finding this serial killer and bringing him to justice, dead or alive. Darnell prefers to take the killer alive, but when the case takes a turn and those people closest to him are affected, Darnell no longer cares if the killer is found alive.

Download or read book Swing written by Kwame Alexander and published by Clarion Books. This book was released on 2018-10-02 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this YA novel in verse from bestselling authors Kwame Alexander and Mary Rand Hess (Solo), which Kirkus called “lively, moving, and heartfelt” in a starred review, Noah and Walt just want to leave their geek days behind and find “cool,” but in the process discover a lot about first loves, friendship, and embracing life . . . as well as why Black Lives Matter is so important for all. Best friends Noah and Walt are far from popular, but Walt is convinced junior year is their year, and he has a plan that includes wooing the girls of their dreams and becoming amazing athletes. Never mind he and Noah failed to make their baseball team yet again, and Noah’s crush since third grade, Sam, has him firmly in the friend zone. While Walt focuses on his program of jazz, podcasts, batting cages, and a “Hug Life” mentality, Noah feels stuck in status quo … until he stumbles on a stash of old love letters. Each one contains words Noah’s always wanted to say to Sam, and he begins secretly creating artwork using the lines that speak his heart. But when his art becomes public, Noah has a decision to make: continue his life in the dugout and possibly lose the girl forever, or take a swing and finally speak out. At the same time, American flags are being left around town. While some think it’s a harmless prank and others see it as a form of protest, Noah can’t shake the feeling something bigger is happening to his community. Especially after he witnesses events that hint divides and prejudices run deeper than he realized. As the personal and social tensions increase around them, Noah and Walt must decide what is really important when it comes to love, friendship, sacrifice, and fate. Swing: is written by New York Times bestselling author and Newbery Medal and Coretta Scott King Award-winner Kwame Alexander Features a diverse array of characters and perspectives tackles the biggest social issues of today, including racial prejudice and Black Lives Matter is perfect reading for the classroom or community-wide discussions is a 2020 YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers contains original artwork tied to the story If you enjoy Swing, check out Solo by Kwame Alexander and Mary Rand Hess.

Download or read book Runners written by John C. Pelkey and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2008-06 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shy Jon Perone is just getting by when an incident introduces him to the world of running. When he meets pretty Jennifer Carling, a new student in his school, he falls for her, hard. Overcoming his fear of everyone and everything to be in her life, he joins the track team and excels. Jennifer rewards his effort when she asks him to teach her how to run. However, a web of deceit and neglect rules Jennifer's life and snares Jon, ill equipped to handle both his emotions and the downward spiraling situation. Can Jon overcome the barriers of innocence, youth, and fear to succeed in life and find happiness with Jennifer? You'll have to read RUNNERS to find out.