Download or read book Base Ball in a River Town written by Justin Endres and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2016-09-05 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Base Ball in a River Town seeks to answer how our national pastime started in New Albany. Who were its founders? Who got the ball rolling across the New Albany fields? The answers to these questions open a window into the past-the lively and booming post-Civil War New Albany. From steamships to railroads, the first team experienced the end of one era and the start of another. The growth of baseball in New Albany also mirrors the rise of baseball across the country. From its infancy to national past time in no time. Learn about the first pitch thrown at the first official game on September 29, 1866, and join that unbroken line of young Southern Indiana men and women who have embraced our national past-time.
Download or read book The Best of River Town Small Ball written by Doug Nachbar and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2023-05-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Best of River-Town Small-Ball captures the spirit, culture, and intensity of a special era of American life-The Golden Age of Baseball. Using both local "amateur" and professional baseball as both historical subject and literary vehicle, the book details aspects of the game and great local balllplayers whose excellence at the game made them at least local legends. Characteristics of the game and the time are clear: Baseball was life, and life was baseball. The boys were home from the war, full of hope and fire. Recovering economies began to roar. Character was stilll king. Boys of alll ages had an abundance of heroes. Country and communities were growing and optimistic. Jackie Robinson had broken MLB's racial barrier. Obscene salaries didn't separate the heroes in Boston and Brooklyn from those in Brownton and Belle Plaine. Baseball was the National Myth and the Local Buzz. Boys found a way to play ball every summer day. Town teams played "up" to bring the "best brand of baseball" possible to rabid fans. League competitions were ferocious dogfights. "God, baseball was fun back then," Arlington, MN, and Iron Range legend Jim Stoll exclaimed. "It was the golden age of everything," Minneapolis shortstop and advertising executive Jerry Stahl said of the era.
Download or read book When Towns Had Teams written by Jim Baumer and published by RSM Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Towns Had Teams is a comprehensive history of town team and semi-pro baseball in Maine, from post-WWII, until the present day.While the professional game is all that is talked about today, there was a time when town team baseball was the centerpiece of communities across the state, particularly the smaller towns.While certainly a record of the towns, teams and players that competed on diamonds all across the state, it also reflects the small-town values and sense of community that was a big part of rural America.
Download or read book Deep River written by Jones Howell and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2011 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "After his mother's mysterious death, young Jones escapes into Little League baseball and adventure in the small river town of Ramseur, North Carolina. He finds trouble enough when the smoking, stealing hoodlum Donnie Ratcliff and the simple-minded Buford Hicks move into the neighborhood and befriend him. Other quirky townspeople and their bizarre stories come alive when Hollywood decides to film a Depression-era movie the likes of Bonnie and Clyde, using the town, the river, and the defunct cotton mill as a backdrop. The invisible influence of his mother and the charm of the river, especially the mystique of an enormous bird he sights there, help Jones find meaning for his life beyond the heartbreak of loss and even beyond the confidence he gains as a baseball pitcher"--Page 4 of cover.
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 Baseball in Blue and Gray written by George B. Kirsch and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-24 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Civil War, Americans from homefront to battlefront played baseball as never before. While soldiers slaughtered each other over the country's fate, players and fans struggled over the form of the national pastime. George Kirsch gives us a color commentary of the growth and transformation of baseball during the Civil War. He shows that the game was a vital part of the lives of many a soldier and civilian--and that baseball's popularity had everything to do with surging American nationalism. By 1860, baseball was poised to emerge as the American sport. Clubs in northeastern and a few southern cities played various forms of the game. Newspapers published statistics, and governing bodies set rules. But the Civil War years proved crucial in securing the game's place in the American heart. Soldiers with bats in their rucksacks spread baseball to training camps, war prisons, and even front lines. As nationalist fervor heightened, baseball became patriotic. Fans honored it with the title of national pastime. War metaphors were commonplace in sports reporting, and charity games were scheduled. Decades later, Union general Abner Doubleday would be credited (wrongly) with baseball's invention. The Civil War period also saw key developments in the sport itself, including the spread of the New York-style of play, the advent of revised pitching rules, and the growth of commercialism. Kirsch recounts vivid stories of great players and describes soldiers playing ball to relieve boredom. He introduces entrepreneurs who preached the gospel of baseball, boosted female attendance, and found new ways to make money. We witness bitterly contested championships that enthralled whole cities. We watch African Americans embracing baseball despite official exclusion. And we see legends spring from the pens of early sportswriters. Rich with anecdotes and surprising facts, this narrative of baseball's coming-of-age reveals the remarkable extent to which America's national pastime is bound up with the country's defining event.
Download or read book Bottom of the 33rd written by Dan Barry and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2011-04-12 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In “a worthy companion to . . . Boys of Summer,” a Pulitzer prize winning journalist “exploits the power of memory and nostalgia with literary grace” (New York Times). From award-winning New York Times columnist Dan Barry comes the beautifully recounted story of the longest game in baseball history—a tale celebrating not only the robust intensity of baseball, but the aspirational ideal epitomized by the hard-fighting players of the minor leagues. On April 18, 1981, a ball game sprang eternal. For eight hours, the night seemed to suspend a town and two teams between their collective pasts and futures, between their collective sorrows and joys—the shivering fans; their wives at home; the umpires; the batboys approaching manhood; the ejected manager, peering through a hole in the backstop; the sportswriters and broadcasters; and the players themselves—two destined for the Hall of Fame (Cal Ripken and Wade Boggs), the few to play only briefly or forgettably in the big leagues, and the many stuck in minor-league purgatory, duty bound and loyal forever to the game. With Bottom of the 33rd, Barry delivers a lyrical meditation on small-town lives, minor-league dreams, and the elements of time and community that conspired one fateful night to produce a baseball game seemingly without end. An unforgettable portrait of ambition and endurance, Bottom of the 33rd is the rare sports book that changes the way we perceive America’s pastime—and America’s past. “Destined to take its place among the classics of baseball literature.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Bottom of the 33rd is chaw-chewing, sunflower-spitting, pine tar proof that too much baseball is never enough.” —Jane Leavy, author of The Last Boy and Sandy Koufax
Download or read book The Desperado who Stole Baseball written by John H. Ritter and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1881, the scrappy, rough-and-tumble baseball team in a California mining town enlists the help of a quick-witted twelve-year-old orphan and the notorious outlaw Billy the Kid to win a big game against the National League Champion Chicago White Stockings. Prequel to: The boy who saved baseball.
Download or read book Baseball Before We Knew It written by David Block and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2006-03-01 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It may be America?s game, but no one seems to know how or when baseball really started. Theories abound, myths proliferate, but reliable information has been in short supply?until now, when Baseball before We Knew It brings fresh new evidence of baseball?s origins into play. David Block looks into the early history of the game and of the 150-year-old debate about its beginnings. He tackles one stubborn misconception after another, debunking the enduring belief that baseball descended from the English game of rounders and revealing a surprising new explanation for the most notorious myth of all?the Abner Doubleday?Cooperstown story. ø Block?s book takes readers on an exhilarating journey through the centuries in search of clues to the evolution of our modern National Pastime. Among his startling discoveries is a set of long-forgotten baseball rules from the 1700s. Block evaluates the originality and historical significance of the Knickerbocker rules of 1845, revisits European studies on the ancestry of baseball which indicate that the game dates back hundreds, if not thousands of years, and assembles a detailed history of games and pastimes from the Middle Ages onward that contributed to baseball?s development. In its thoroughness and reach, and its extensive descriptive bibliography of early baseball sources, this book is a unique and invaluable resource?a comprehensive, reliable, and readable account of baseball before it was America?s game.
Download or read book Old Time Baseball written by Harvey Frommer and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2006 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Frommer's latest book takes us to the birthplace of America's most beloved sport. Starting from baseball's humble beginnings, Frommer vividly introduces the reader to the trailblazing personalities that shaped baseball's history. From the first games in Madison, New York to the rise of the National League, Frommer vividly recreates the energy of this early time. Frommer's expertise lends itself to tell the magical story of baseball's history and insight into an era that is not to be forgotten.
Download or read book West Virginia Baseball written by William E. Akin and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2006-07-06 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: West Virginia sprang into existence as a state in the midst of the Civil War, and "base ball," as it was called then, was close on the heels of statehood. A game in 1866 hosted by the Hunkidori Base Ball Club in Wheeling, is considered the first "match game of Base Ball." Some historians contend the game spread via the movement of soldiers who were from urban areas. The real roots of baseball are not the romantic image of rural boys in sandlots or lazy father-son afternoons. It was born and came of age as an urban sport, a social pursuit of well-heeled young men that in the early days often involved banquets and shows following each game. The author traces the history of minor league and independent league baseball in West Virginia. Baseball below the minor leagues has a rich and comparatively unexplored history, and West Virginia has made substantial contributions to this legacy. Chapters examine the chronological history of baseball and the larger economic and cultural changes that have influenced it. Eras include baseball as a social game (through 1873); the emergence of professional baseball (through 1895); its second boom (through 1905); the deadball era (through 1920); the Martinsburg dynasty (1914 to 1934); as a miners' sport (1920 to 1941); the Middle Atlantic League (1925-1942); the Mountain State League (1937-1942); the postwar years (1945-1955); the nadir (1955-1985); and "A Minor Miracle" (1985-2000), a chapter that heralds a comeback in the popularity of professional baseball.
Download or read book Baseball in Minnesota written by Stew Thornley and published by Minnesota Historical Society. This book was released on 2006 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the early days of town ball to the latest seasons of the Twins and Saints, Stew Thornley offers the ultimate history of the Great American Pastime in the North Star State.
Download or read book Baseball on the Prairie written by Kris Rutherford and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2021-05-03 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the close of the nineteenth century, railroad expansion in Texas at once shrank the state and expanded opportunities, including that of Texas League Baseball. Previously, the major cities monopolized Texas minor-league ball, but with the rails came small-town teams without which the league may have floundered. Sherman, Denison, Paris, Corsicana, Cleburne, Greenville and Temple teams produced some of the Texas League's greatest players and provided unprecedented statewide interest. The 1902 Corsicana Oil Citys was one of the most successful teams of the time, claiming the second-best winning percentage and baseball's most lopsided victory, 51-3 over Texarkana's Casketmakers. In its only year in the league, Cleburne won the league championship and team owner Doak Roberts discovered the great Tris Speaker. Kris Rutherford pieces together the Texas League's early days and the people and towns that made this centuries-old institution possible.
Download or read book Kansas Baseball 1858 1941 written by Mark E. Eberle and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2017-04-21 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As baseball was becoming the national pastime, Kansas was settling into statehood, with hundreds of towns growing up with the game. The early history of baseball in Kansas, chronicled in this book, is the story of those towns and the ballparks they built, of the local fans and teams playing out the drama of the American dream in the heart of the country. Mark Eberle's history spans the years between the Civil War–era and the start of World War II, encapsulating a time when baseball was adopted by early settlers, then taken up by soldiers sent west, and finally by teams formed to express the identity of growing towns and the diverse communities of African Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanic Americans. As elsewhere in the country, these teams represented businesses, churches, schools, military units, and prisons. There were men's teams and women's, some segregated by race and others integrated, some for adults and others for youngsters. Among them we find famous barnstormers like the House of David, the soldiers of the Seventh Cavalry who played at Fort Wallace in the 1860s, and Babe Didrikson pitching the first inning of a 1934 game in Hays. Where some of these games took place, baseball is still played, and Kansas Baseball, 1858–1941 takes us to nine of them, some of the oldest in the country. These ballparks, still used for their original purpose, are living history, and in their stories Eberle captures a vibrant image of the state's past and a vision of many innings yet to be played—a storied history and promising future that readers will be tempted to visit with this book as an informative and congenial guide.
Download or read book Minor League Baseball Towns of Michigan written by Marc Okkonen and published by Thunder Bay Press (MI). This book was released on 1997 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Minor league baseball in Michigan is back and this revival should encourage new interest in baseball traditions in over 40 Michigan towns. These traditions are brought back to life in Minor League Baseball Towns of Michigan -- 186 pages of team histories, rare photos, and location maps for all the communities in Michigan that have participated in professional baseball leagues dating back to the 1880s. All the diamond heroes of yesterday are remembered in this volume, along with the baseball pioneers and the ballparks that provided the memories for generations of fans in Michigan. An enjoyable and informative journey through time that is unprecedented for any state -- a treasure chest for sports fans and an irresistible reference volume for any sports library.
Download or read book ZANE GREY Ultimate Collection Historical Novels Western Classics Adventure Tales Baseball Stories 60 Titles in One Volume written by Zane Grey and published by Good Press. This book was released on 2024-01-09 with total page 12148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Zane Grey's Ultimate Collection, readers will find a treasure trove of historical novels, western classics, adventure tales, and baseball stories all compiled into one comprehensive volume. Grey's literary style is characterized by vivid descriptions of the American West, engaging dialogue, and thrilling plotlines that keep readers on the edge of their seats. Set against the backdrop of the rugged frontier, Grey's stories offer a unique blend of action, romance, and exploration, making them a must-read for fans of the genre. This collection showcases Grey's versatility as a writer, with each story offering a new and exciting adventure for readers to embark on. Zane Grey's deep connection to the American West and his love for the outdoors heavily influenced his writing. As an avid outdoorsman and angler, Grey drew inspiration from his own experiences to create unforgettable characters and settings that resonate with readers to this day. His passion for storytelling shines through in each tale, capturing the spirit of the Wild West and bringing it to life for modern audiences. I highly recommend Zane Grey's Ultimate Collection to readers who enjoy immersive historical fiction, gripping westerns, and thrilling adventure stories. With over 60 titles to choose from, this compilation offers hours of entertainment and a glimpse into the rich tapestry of American literature.
Download or read book River Town written by Peter Hessler and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2010-09-21 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Notable Book Winner of the Kiriyama Book Prize In the heart of China's Sichuan province, amid the terraced hills of the Yangtze River valley, lies the remote town of Fuling. Like many other small cities in this ever-evolving country, Fuling is heading down a new path of change and growth, which came into remarkably sharp focus when Peter Hessler arrived as a Peace Corps volunteer, marking the first time in more than half a century that the city had an American resident. Hessler taught English and American literature at the local college, but it was his students who taught him about the complex processes of understanding that take place when one is immersed in a radically different society. Poignant, thoughtful, funny, and enormously compelling, River Town is an unforgettable portrait of a city that is seeking to understand both what it was and what it someday will be.
