Download or read book The Bullpen Gospels written by Dirk Hayhurst and published by Kensington Books. This book was released on 2010 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A minor league pitcher deals with both the lighter and darker sides of a life at the edge of the pro ranks where he refuses to quit and eventually finds himself playing for the league championship.
Download or read book Out of My League written by Dirk Hayhurst and published by Citadel Press. This book was released on 2013-03-01 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestseller from the author of The Bullpen Gospels. “A humorous, candid and insightful memoir . . . Grade: Home Run.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer After six years in the minors, pitcher Dirk Hayhurst hopes 2008 is the year he breaks into the big leagues. But every time Dirk looks up, the bases are loaded with challenges—a wedding balancing on a blind hope, a family in chaos, and paychecks that beg Dirk to ask, “How long can I afford to keep doing this?” Then it finally happens—Dirk gets called up to the Majors, to play for the San Diego Padres. A dream comes true when he takes the mound against the San Francisco Giants, kicking off forty insane days and nights in the Bigs. Like the classic games of baseball’s history, Out of My League entertains from the first pitch to the last out, capturing the gritty realities of playing on the big stage, the comedy and camaraderie in the dugouts and locker rooms, and the hard-fought, personal journeys that drive our love of America’s favorite pastime. “A rare gem of a baseball book.”—Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated “Observant, insightful, human, and hilarious.”—Bob Costas “A fun read . . . This book shows why baseball is so often used as a metaphor for life.”—Keith Olbermann “Entertaining and engaging . . . reminiscent of Jim Bouton’s Ball Four.”—Booklist “The book is a terrific read. If you loved Bullpen Gospels (I’d have a hard time believing you are a baseball fan if you didn’t) you will love Out of My League too.”—Bluebird Banter
Download or read book Bigger Than the Game written by Dirk Hayhurst and published by Kensington Books. This book was released on 2014 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The best writer in a baseball uniform." --Tyler Kepner, The New York Times After nearly a decade in the minors, Dirk Hayhurst defied the odds to climb onto the pitcher's mound for the Toronto Blue Jays. Newly married, with a big league paycheck and a brand new house, Hayhurst was ready for a great season in the Bigs. Then fate delivered a crushing hit. Hayhurst blew out his pitching shoulder in an insane off-season workout program. After surgery, rehab, and more rehab, his major-league dreams seemed more distant than ever. From there things got worse, weirder, and funnier. In a crazy world of injured athletes, autograph-seeking nuns, angry wrestlers, and trainers with a taste for torture, Hayhurst learned lessons about the game--and himself--that were not in any rulebook. Honest, soul'searching, insightful, hilarious, and moving, Dirk Hayhurst's latest memoir is an indisputable baseball classic. Praise for The Bullpen Gospels and Out of My League "Dirk Hayhurst writes about baseball in a unique way. Observant, insightful, human, and hilarious." --Bob Costas "A fun read. . .This book shows why baseball is so often used as a metaphor for life." --Keith Olbermann "Entertaining and engaging. . .reminiscent of Jim Bouton's Ball Four." --Booklist "A rare gem of a baseball book." --Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated "A humorous, candid, and insightful memoir of Hayhurst's rookie season in the majors. . .Grade: Home Run." --Cleveland Plain Dealer
Download or read book Wherever I Wind Up written by R.A. Dickey and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-03-26 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The perfect gift for baseball fans, now with a new epilogue by author R.A. Dickey, winner of the 2012 Cy Young award. "An astounding memoir—haunting and touching, courageous and wise."—Jeremy Schaap, bestselling author, Emmy award-winning journalist, ESPN In 1996, R.A. Dickey was the Texas Rangers’ much-heralded No. 1 draft choice. Then, a routine physical revealed that his right elbow was missing its ulnar collateral ligament, and his lifelong dream—along with his $810,000 signing bonus—was ripped away. Yet, despite twice being consigned to baseball’s scrap heap, Dickey battled back. Sustained by his Christian faith, the love of his wife and children, and a relentless quest for self-awareness, Dickey is now the starting pitcher for the Toronoto Blue Jays (he was previously a star pitcher for the New York Mets) and one of the National League’s premier players, as well as the winner of the 2012 Cy Young award. In Wherever I Wind Up, Dickey eloquently shares his quintessentially American tale of overcoming extraordinary odds to achieve a game, a career, and a life unlike any other.
Download or read book Wild Pitches written by Dirk Hayhurst and published by Kensington Publishing Corp.. This book was released on 2013-02-01 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Dirk Hayhurst has done it again. . .Turns out he's a starter and a closer." —Tim Kurkjian, ESPN As a major and not-so-major league pitcher, Dirk Hayhurst has learned to master more than striking out batters. While waiting for his name to be called in the bullpen, he honed his gifts as a storyteller, one the New York Times calls the "best writer in a baseball uniform." In this often hilarious collection of adventures on and off the diamond, Dirk details the intricacies of pulling off an epic team prank, even if it's at his own expense; the art of creating the perfect professional baseball nickname; his comically ineffective attempts at writing romance novels; and the bizarre tale in which a bear gets punched in the face (yes, really). No matter how wild his story, Dirk proves once again he knows that it's all in the delivery. "I find his writing both entertaining and thought provoking. . .unlike his fastball." —Ben Zobrist, Tampa Bay Rays All-Star "Dirk Hayhurst writes about baseball in a unique way. Observant, insightful, human, and hilarious." —Bob Costas "Hayhurst delivers an entertaining story for more than just sports fans." —Jordan Bastian, MLB.com "Hayhurst explains life in the minors and the major leagues like you've never read it before." —J. J. Cooper, Baseball America "Insight and humor from the pitcher's mound." —Businessweek 51,300 Words.
Download or read book Odd Man Out written by Matt McCarthy and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Matt McCarthy never expected to get drafted by a Major League Baseball team. A biophysics major at Yale, he was a decent left-handed starter for a dismal college team. But good southpaws are hard to find, and when the Anaheim Angels selected him in the 21
Download or read book The Art of Fielding written by Chad Harbach and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2011-09-07 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At Westish College, a small school on the shore of Lake Michigan, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for big league stardom. But when a routine throw goes disastrously off course, the fates of five people are upended. Henry's fight against self-doubt threatens to ruin his future. College president Guert Affenlight, a longtime bachelor, has fallen unexpectedly and helplessly in love. Owen Dunne, Henry's gay roommate and teammate, becomes caught up in a dangerous affair. Mike Schwartz, the Harpooners' team captain and Henry's best friend, realizes he has guided Henry's career at the expense of his own. And Pella Affenlight, Guert's daughter, returns to Westish after escaping an ill-fated marriage, determined to start a new life. As the season counts down to its climactic final game, these five are forced to confront their deepest hopes, anxieties, and secrets. In the process they forge new bonds, and help one another find their true paths. Written with boundless intelligence and filled with the tenderness of youth, The Art of Fielding is an expansive, warmhearted novel about ambition and its limits, about family and friendship and love, and about commitment--to oneself and to others.
Download or read book Power Ball written by Rob Neyer and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2018-10-09 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Winner of the 2018 CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year.” The former ESPN columnist and analytics pioneer dramatically recreates an action-packed 2017 game between the Oakland A’s and eventual World Series Champion Houston Astros to reveal the myriad ways in which Major League Baseball has changed over the last few decades. On September 8, 2017, the Oakland A’s faced off against the Houston Astros in a game that would signal the passing of the Moneyball mantle. Though this was only one regular season game, the match-up of these two teams demonstrated how Major League Baseball has changed since the early days of Athletics general manager Billy Beane and the publication of Michael Lewis’ classic book. Over the past twenty years, power and analytics have taken over the game, driving carefully calibrated teams like the Astros to victory. Seemingly every pitcher now throws mid-90s heat and studiously compares their mechanics against the ideal. Every batter in the lineup can crack homers and knows their launch angles. Teams are relying on unorthodox strategies, including using power-losing—purposely tanking a few seasons to get the best players in the draft. As he chronicles each inning and the unfolding drama as these two teams continually trade the lead—culminating in a 9-8 Oakland victory in the bottom of the ninth—Neyer considers the players and managers, the front office machinations, the role of sabermetrics, and the current thinking about what it takes to build a great team, to answer the most pressing questions fans have about the sport today.
Download or read book The Game from Where I Stand written by Doug Glanville and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2010-05-11 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Glanville, a former major league outfielder and Ivy League graduate, draws on his nine seasons in the big leagues to reveal the human side of baseball and of the men who play it.
Download or read book The Extra 2 written by Jonah Keri and published by ESPN. This book was released on 2011-03-08 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What happens when three financial industry whiz kids and certified baseball nuts take over an ailing major league franchise and implement the same strategies that fueled their success on Wall Street? In the case of the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays, an American League championship happens—the culmination of one of the greatest turnarounds in baseball history. In The Extra 2%, financial journalist and sportswriter Jonah Keri chronicles the remarkable story of one team’s Cinderella journey from divisional doormat to World Series contender. When former Goldman Sachs colleagues Stuart Sternberg and Matthew Silverman assumed control of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 2005, it looked as if they were buying the baseball equivalent of a penny stock. But the incoming regime came armed with a master plan: to leverage their skill at trading, valuation, and management to build a model twenty-first-century franchise that could compete with their bigger, stronger, richer rivals—and prevail. Together with “boy genius” general manager Andrew Friedman, the new Rays owners jettisoned the old ways of doing things, substituting their own innovative ideas about employee development, marketing and public relations, and personnel management. They exorcized the “devil” from the team’s nickname, developed metrics that let them take advantage of undervalued aspects of the game, like defense, and hired a forward-thinking field manager as dedicated to unconventional strategy as they were. By quantifying the game’s intangibles—that extra 2% that separates a winning organization from a losing one—they were able to deliver to Tampa Bay something that Billy Beane’s “Moneyball” had never brought to Oakland: an American League pennant. A book about what happens when you apply your business skills to your life’s passion, The Extra 2% is an informative and entertaining case study for any organization that wants to go from worst to first.
Download or read book Our American Adventure written by Arthur Conan Doyle and published by . This book was released on 1923 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Between Two Worlds written by John Stott and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2017 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published 1982 in the U.K. by Hodder and Stoughton, London, under the title "I Believe in Preaching."
Download or read book Hard to Grip written by Emil DeAndreis and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Emil DeAndreis was a promising star-pitcher of his high school team and went on to play for a D1 league in college (University of Hawaii/Hilo)and was poised to embark on a professional baseball career when he was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis which caused him to abandon his lifelong dream of playing in the major leagues, to rethink his life's path without having to abandon the sport he loves so deeply"--
Download or read book Playing with the Enemy written by Gary W. Moore and published by Savas Beatie. This book was released on 2006-09-15 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A memoir of fathers and sons, baseball, a world at war, and second chances. “I loved [it]. You will, too” (Jim Morris, author of The Oldest Rookie). Gene Moore was a small-town Illinois farm boy whose passion for “America’s Pastime” made him a local legend. It wasn’t long before word spread, and the Brooklyn Dodgers came calling on the teenage phenom who could hit a ball a country mile. Headed for stardom, and his dream within reach, Gene’s future in the majors was cut short by World War II. In 1944, after joining the US Navy, Gene found himself on a top-secret mission: guarding German sailors captured from U-505, a submarine carrying one of the infamous Enigma decoders. Stuck with guard duty, he decided to bide the time by doing what he loved. Gene taught the POWs how to play baseball. It was a decision that would change Gene’s life forever. The story of a remarkable man told by his inspired son, “Gene’s journey from promise to despair and back again, set against a long war and an even longer post-war recovery . . . [is] a 20th-century epic that demonstrates how, sometimes, letting go of a dream is the only way to discover one’s great fortune” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
Download or read book The Swoly Bible written by Dom Mazzetti and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the muscle god who launched the YouTube channel Bro Science Life comes the only book that will teach you everything you need to know about getting swole. For years, bros, meatheads, and gym rats around the world have posed pressing questions: What can you bench? Can I skip leg day? What goes in this protein shake? And importantly—do you even lift, bro? At long last, answers to these questions and more can be found in one handy volume—THE SWOLY BIBLE, written by the Internet’s favorite gym expert/literary genius, Dom Mazzetti. In it, Mazzetti lays out the truth about how to make gains in the gym and in your life, including: - How to Get Hyped for a Lift - The True Meaning of Meal Prep - How to Eat Chicken Without Wanting to Kill Yourself - The Best Tips for Taking a Post-Workout Selfie - How to Get Your Girlfriend to Start Lifting - Why Crossfitters Are the Worst - And much more Written in Dom’s signature comedic voice, with illustrations throughout, The Swoly Bible is the perfect gift for anyone in your #fitfam.
Download or read book Where Nobody Knows Your Name written by John Feinstein and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2015-03-17 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Minor league baseball is quintessentially American: small towns, small stadiums, $5 tickets, $2 hot dogs, the never-ending possibility of making it big. But looming above it all is always the real deal: Major League Baseball. John Feinstein takes the reader behind the curtain into the guarded world of the minor leagues, like no other writer can. Where Nobody Knows Your Name explores the trials and travails of the inhabitants of Triple-A, focusing on nine men, including players, managers and umpires, among many colorful characters, living on the cusp of the dream. The book tells the stories of former World Series hero Scott Podsednik, giving it one more shot; Durham Bulls manager Charlie Montoya, shepherding generations across the line; and designated hitter Jon Lindsey, a lifelong minor leaguer, waiting for his day to come. From Raleigh to Pawtucket, from Lehigh Valley to Indianapolis and beyond, this is an intimate and exciting look at life in the minor leagues, where you’re either waiting for the call or just passing through.
Download or read book Living with a SEAL written by Jesse Itzler and published by Center Street. This book was released on 2015-11-03 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Entrepreneur Jesse Itzler chronicles his month of living and extreme fitness training with a Navy SEAL in the New York Times and #1 LA Times bestseller LIVING WITH A SEAL, now with two bonus chapters. Entrepreneur Jesse Itzler will try almost anything. His life is about being bold and risky. So when Jesse felt himself drifting on autopilot, he hired a rather unconventional trainer to live with him for a month-an accomplished Navy SEAL widely considered to be "the toughest man on the planet"! LIVING WITH A SEAL is like a buddy movie if it starred the Fresh Prince of Bel- Air...and Rambo. Jesse is about as easy-going as you can get. SEAL is...not. Jesse and SEAL's escapades soon produce a great friendship, and Jesse gains much more than muscle. At turns hilarious and inspiring, LIVING WITH A SEAL ultimately shows you the benefits of stepping out of your comfort zone.
