Download or read book Baseball Homestand written by David Faris and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2011-03 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Homestand written by Will Bardenwerper and published by Doubleday Books. This book was released on 2025-03-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A poignant memoir exploring smalltown baseball as a lens into what's right and wrong with modern America - written by an acclaimed journalist who went from Princeton to Army Ranger School to Iraq in search of the core values he ended up finding in a minor league stadium in Batavia, New York. What happens when a minor league team - that has been the heart and soul of a modest upstate NY town - is shut down by the billionaires who run Major League Baseball? Batavia, New York - between Rochester and Buffalo - was a bastion of smalltown baseball where the professional game had been played uninterrupted since 1897. Many jobs have evaporated or gone overseas but its good families haven't, and one remaining jewel of Batavia is the Muckdogs' quirky ballpark that attracts a hefty portion of the local population from June to August every year. In HOMESTAND, acclaimed author and journalist Will Bardenwerper explores the question of 'What is baseball, ' and uses that as a lens to explore 'What is America today.' Introducing a vibrant and unforgettable cast of characters, Bardenwerper exposes the beating heart of smalltown America and its love of baseball - even as Major League Baseball is on a little-disguised mission to control the sport from the very top, closing down many minor league teams across the country. The Batavia Muckdogs were one of the victims of MLB contraction - shut down unceremoniously in 2021. But the town fought back and a new version of the Muckdogs arose, playing in a summer league comprised of mostly college players and prospects. The town rallied, and the sounds and sights of local baseball on summer nights continued. Tickets and draft beer and hot dogs were still affordable. Kids were still starry eyed and seeking autographs before games. Meanwhile, in other minor leagues, the mom-and-pop advertisements in center field are replaced by corporate ad sales controlled by NY marketing managers, and locally printed game programs and neighborhood teens working the ticket windows are replaced by convenient 'scan your ticket through the app at the kiosk and click the link to see today's lineup and pop-up advertisements from Google'... But at the heart of HOMESTAND, Bardenwerper searches the back roads of America for things that are still good and pure, for the crack of a bat in a small town under the summer stars - and he finds it.
Download or read book Slasher Films written by Kent Byron Armstrong and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-06-14 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The slasher film genre got its start in the early 1960s with filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock Psycho and Michael Powell Peeping Tom making provocative mainstream films, but it is most associated with the late 1970s and the releases of Halloween and Friday the 13th. They have been frightening and thrilling audiences ever since with their bloody scenes and crazed killers. Over 250 slasher films are presented in this work, each with major cast and production credits, a plot synopsis, and a short critique; interesting production notes are often provided. Some of the films covered include Alice, Sweet Alice, American Psycho, The Burning, Cherry Falls, Curtains, Deep Red, Frenzy, Hide and Go Shriek, Maniac, Prom Night, Scream, Sleepaway Camp, Slumber Party Massacre, and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Filmographies are provided for slasher directors, actors, writers, and composers.
Download or read book Ted Williams and the 1969 Washington Senators written by Ted Leavengood and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-11-26 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Heading into their ninth season, the expansion Washington Senators had never won more than 76 games in a season. New Senators owner Bob Short hired Hall of Famer Ted Williams to manage the team. Williams sparked the Senators to their only winning record for a Washington team since 1952. This book recounts that 1969 season in-depth.
Download or read book Baseball s Western Front written by Donald R. Wells and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2010-07-27 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Pacific Coast League had emerged from the Depression of the 1930s in fairly good condition. There were four new ball parks: Seals Stadium in San Francisco in 1931, Lane Field in San Diego in 1936, Sick's Stadium in Seattle in 1938 and Gilmore Field in Hollywood in 1939. But after the attack on Pearl Harbor, there was some doubt that baseball would be allowed to operate during the war. This work focuses on the 1942 to 1945 seasons offering final standings and details associated with the ballparks as well as the players. The appendix includes records of individual players listed by club and by year. The clubs are listed in order of finish.
Download or read book Baseball s Union Association written by Justin Mckinney and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2022-11-16 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hastily formed in 1883 as a rival, third major league, the Union Association upset the moguls of the baseball world and disrupted the status quo. Backed by Henry V. Lucas, an impetuous 26-year-old millionaire from St. Louis, the UA existed for one chaotic season in 1884. This first full-length history of the Union Association tells the captivating story of the league's brief and enigmatic existence. Lucas recruited a wild mix of disgruntled stars, misfits, crooks, has-beens, drunks, and the occasional spectator--along with a future star or two. The result was a bizarre experiment that sowed both turmoil and hope before fading into oblivion.
Download or read book Baseball s First Indian written by Ed Rice and published by Down East Books. This book was released on 2019-08-21 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Born in 1871 on Maine's Penobscot Indian reservation and nephew of a chief, Louis Sockalexis became professional baseball's first American Indian player. Ultimately, his prowess on the diamond inspired the name Cleveland's baseball team carries today. Exploring the brilliant but too-brief major league career of the "Deerfoot of the Diamond," Baseball's First Indian follows Sockalexis's rise to the majors, his fall to the minor leagues of New England, and his final return to the reservation in Maine, where he continued to coach baseball and work as an umpire. This fascinating study of the life of Louis Sockalexis is filled with game action and leavened by the flamboyant and colorful stories of 19th century sportswriters who frequently invented what the truth would not supply. It's a treasure for every student of baseball history.
Download or read book Baseball s Great Hispanic Pitchers written by Lou Hernández and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-11-19 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Baseball has had many outstanding Latin American pitchers since the early 20th century. This book profiles the greatest Hispanic hurlers to toe the rubber from the mounds of the major leagues, winter leagues and Negro leagues. The careers of the top major league pitchers to come from Central and South America and the Caribbean are examined in decade-by-decade portrayals, culminating with an all-time ranking by the author. The grand exploits of these athletes backdrop the evolving pitching eras of the game, from the macho, complete-game period that existed for the majority of the last century to the financially-driven, pitch-count sensitive culture that dominates baseball thinking today.
Download or read book Yankees 1936 39 Baseball s Greatest Dynasty written by Stanley Cohen and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-04-10 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Story of the Greatest Yankees Team—and Baseball Team—of All Time New York, 1936. Red Ruffing, Lefty Gomez, Bill Dickey, Lou Gehrig, Tony Lazzeri, and rookie Joe DiMaggio—with these six future Hall of Fame players, the Yankees embarked on a four-year run that would go down in the history books as the greatest Yankees team, if not, the greatest baseball team of all time. Over the next four years, the Yankees won four straight pennants, finishing an average of nearly fifteen games ahead of the second-place team. They won their four World Series by an overall margin of 16-3, sweeping the last two, putting the punctuation mark on baseball’s first true dynasty. Even the Ruthian Yankees of the twenties never won more than two consecutive world championships. From 1936 to 1939, the world was changing rapidly. America was in the grip of the Great Depression. Franklin D. Roosevelt was re-elected president in the greatest landslide in American history. And Hitler’s Germany was on the move in the fall of 1939, just as the Yankee dynasty reached its climax. Against the backdrop of a world in turmoil, baseball, and America’s love for baseball, thrived. Starring the best team of all time, featuring little-known anecdotes of players and set against a history of the world, Yankees 1936–39, Baseball's Greatest Dynasty tells the tale of a legendary team that changed history.
Download or read book Contraction Baseball s Failed Attempt at Eliminating Two Teams written by Michael Grant and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2020-02-28 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the five-year period from 1995 through 1999, revenues in baseball as a whole had doubled. But the revenue growth was disproportionately higher among large market teams and teams that had recently opened new ballparks. In baseball's salary cap-less economic structure, massive gaps in player payroll between high revenue and low revenue clubs resulted in competitive balance issues. Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig and the team owners decided after the 2001 season that the best way to combat this issue was to eliminate it's two lowest revenue clubs, the Montreal Expos and the Minnesota Twins. This strategy wouldn't go as smoothly as baseball had anticipated. Poor planning from the onset coupled with a lawsuit in Minnesota and a three-owner franchise swap between the Expos, Florida Marlins, and Boston Red Sox orchestrated by Commissioner Selig doomed contraction. This is a story of greed and failure in one of North America's major sports leagues.
Download or read book Dalko The Untold Story of Baseball s Fastest Pitcher written by Bill A. Dembski and published by Influence Publishers. This book was released on 2020-10-27 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gripping and tragic, Dalko is the definitive story of Steve “White Lightning” Dalkowski, baseball’s fastest pitcher ever. Dalko explores one man’s unmatched talent on the mound and the forces that kept ultimate greatness always just beyond his reach. For the first time, Dalko: The Untold Story of Baseball’s Fastest Pitcher unites all of the eyewitness accounts from the coaches, analysts, teammates, and professionals who witnessed the game’s fastest pitcher in action. In doing so, it puts readers on the fields and at the plate to hear the buzzing fastball of a pitcher fighting to achieve his major league ambitions. Just three days after his high school graduation in 1957, Steve Dalkowski signed into the Baltimore Orioles system. Poised for greatness, he might have risen to be one of the stars in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Instead, he spent his entire career toiling away in the minor leagues. An inspiration for the character Nuke LaLoosh in the classic baseball film Bull Durham, Dalko’s life and story were as fast and wild as the pitches he threw. The late Orioles manager Earl Weaver, who saw baseball greats Nolan Ryan and Sandy Koufax pitch, said “Dalko threw harder than all of ‘em.” Cal Ripken Sr., Dalkowski’s catcher for several years, said the same. Bull Durham screenwriter Ron Shelton, who played with Dalkowski in the minor leagues, said “They called him “Dalko” and guys liked to hang with him and women wanted to take care of him and if he walked in a room in those days he was probably drunk.” This force on the field that could break chicken wire backstops and wooden fences with his heat but racked up almost as many walks as strikeouts in his career, spent years of drinking all night and showing up on the field the next day, just in time to show his wild heat again. What the Washington Post called “baseball’s greatest what-If story” is one of a superhuman, once-in-a-generation gift, a near-mythical talent that refused to be tamed. Steve Dalkowski will forever be remembered for his remarkable arm. Said Shelton, “In his sport, he had the equivalent of Michaelangelo’s gift but could never finish a painting.” Dalko is the story of the fastest pitching that baseball has ever seen, an explosive but uncontrolled arm.
Download or read book Five Seasons written by Roger Angell and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2013-02-05 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A chronicle of our national pastime’s most unforgettable era from the bestselling author of The Summer Game—“No one writes better about baseball” (The Boston Globe). Classic New Yorker sportswriter Roger Angell calls 1972 to 1976 “the most important half-decade in the history of the game.” The early to mid-1970s brought unprecedented changes to America’s ancient pastime: astounding performances by Nolan Ryan and Hank Aaron; the intensity of the “best-ever” 1975 World Series between the Cincinnati Reds and the Boston Red Sox; the changes growing from bitter and extended labor strikes and lockouts; and the vast new influence of network television on the game. Angell, always a fan as well as a writer, casts a knowing but noncynical eye on these events, offering a fresh perspective to baseball’s continuing appeal during this brilliant and transformative era.
Download or read book Stadium For Rent written by Bob Andelman and published by Mr. Media Books. This book was released on 2015-02-16 with total page 609 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the true, complicated story of the decades-long battle to bring a baseball team to Florida's West Coast. Back in print for the first time in two decades, Bob Andelman's detailed investigation has been enhanced with hundreds of political cartoons and photos that illustrate the community's sometimes brutal campaign, as well as an all-new introduction by best-selling sportswriter Peter Golenbock and an afterword by award-winning Tampa Bay Times sports columnist Gary Shelton. Plus, interviews with original Tampa Bay Devil Rays franchise owner Vincent J. Naimoli and the man to whom he sold managing interest in the team, Stuart Sternberg. No baseball, business, or community development bookshelf should be without this unique story. PRAISE FOR STADIUM FOR RENT (First Edition) “Journalist Bob Andelman tells in painful detail how close (Tampa Bay) came to winning... Recommended for serious sports collection.” – Morey Berger, Library Journal “Andelman points a finger not at the bay area’s civic leaders but at the panjandrums of baseball. He provides an impeccably researched play-by-play of every inning of this high-stakes game in which the home team has been shut out... The story is compelling, and in Andelman’s hands, it’s masterfully organized and written.” – Tom Chase, Spitball: The Literary Baseball Magazine “A phenomenal read. The guy did his research... I became so engrossed, I couldn’t put it down.. a superb job on how he put it together.” – Erica Stuart, associate producer, 60 Minutes, CBS-TV “Andelman put it in perspective.” – Tom McEwen, “The Morning After,” Tampa Tribune “Andelman tells the bittersweet, folly-filled tale of Tampa Bay’s courtship of a major league franchise—the Florida White Sox, perhaps, or the St. Petersburg Marlins. St. Petersburg, in particular, just couldn’t take no for an answer and built a beautiful stadium, despite a lack of encouragement from Major League Baseball. As it was probably always destined to do, the franchise went to Miami, and St. Petersburg’s stadium is the elaborate home to tractor-pulls.” – John Mort, Booklist “A work that could cause an iceberg to boil. It has everything but a happy ending, rattling off the aggravation we’ve endured here in the clinical manner of an autopsy.” – Joe Henderson, Tampa Tribune "Awesome." – Tedd Webb, 970 WFLA Radio “In Stadium For Rent, Bob Andelman details St. Petersburg's journey from stalking horse to major league market with great skill and attention to detail. It's impossible to fully grasp the impact of the worst-to-first AL pennant winners of 2008 without learning how they came into existence.” – Jonah Keri, author of The Extra 2%: How Wall Street Strategies Took a Major League Baseball Team from Worst to First “A home run... If you think there was a lot of public game-playing (if you’ll pardon the pun) going on while the City of St. Petersburg kept getting the short shrift, you should read the book to see what really went on.” – John J. Tischner, Pinellas County Review “A finely detailed account of this region’s dubious distinction for taking brush-back pitch after brush-back pitch from the denizens of the diamond... It isn’t a pretty story. It isn’t even ugly. Just pathetic. Stadium For Rent is a good, albeit frustrating read.” – Dan Ruth, Tampa Tribune “The best parts of the book are Andelman’s portrayals of personalities who led the baseball effort. Among them: Jack Lake, the cantankerous newspaper manager obsessed with getting baseball; Frank Morsani, the remarkably baseball-naive car dealer; and Rick Dodge, the steel-willed assistant city manager who bounced back after each defeat only to become embroiled in yet another plan.” – E.A. Torriero, San Jose Mercury News
Download or read book One Day at Fenway written by Steve Kettmann and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2004-08-31 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Saturday, August 30, 2003 -- Yankees versus Red Sox, Fenway Park. Not just a special day in a great rivalry but also a unique one in the long tradition of baseball writing. For on that day, Steve Kettmann worked with a team of top reporters to chronicle everything that happened, from the point of view of everyone involved. So here are Red Sox owner John Henry and CEO Larry Lucchino, privately second-guessing Grady Little's managing moves during the game; here is Joe Torre, the Yankees skipper, worrying on the bench about his closer, Mariano Rivera, who can't find home plate; here's Theo Epstein, Red Sox General Manager, playing guitar until his fingers bleed the night before the game; here's Hideki Matsui, Yankees slugger, surprised that no Japanese reporters turn up to greet him at the ballpark; and here's Bill Mueller, Red Sox third baseman, driving to the game, hoping he can get a hit to help Boston win. But it's not just the famous voices we hear. Let One Day at Fenway introduce you to Theo Gordon, who's told his girlfriend, Jane Baxter, forty-five lies, and watch as Marty Martin does what all good Red Sox fans should do, only to find himself thrown out of the ballpark. Taken together, these and a myriad of other voices reveal a day in the life of baseball unlike ever before, showing in this unique project the human side to America's pastime.
Download or read book Fenway Park written by John Powers and published by Running Press Adult. This book was released on 2012-03-06 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fenway Park. The name evokes a team and a sport that have become more synonymous with a city's identity than any stadium or arena in the country. Since opening in the same week of 1912 that the Titanic sank, the park's instantly recognizable confines have seen some of the most dramatic happenings in baseball history, including Carlton Fisk's "Is it fair?" home run in the 1975 World Series and Ted Williams's perfectly scripted long ball in his final at-bat. For 100 years, the Fenway faithful have been tested. They have known triumph and heartbreak, miracles and curses -- well, one curse in particular -- to such a degree that an entire nation of fans heaved a collective sigh of relief when Dave Roberts stole a base by a fingertip in 2004, triggering the most amazing comeback in the game's annals. To sit and watch a game at Fenway is to recognize that the pitcher is standing on the same mound where Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, and Babe Ruth pitched, that a hitter is in the same batter's box where Ty Cobb and Hank Aaron and Shoeless Joe Jackson dug in to take their swings. This is a ballpark that has embraced its odd construction quirks, including the bizarre triangle out in center field and the Green Monster that looms above the left fielder, and today -- for better and for worse -- it remains largely unchanged from the day it opened. In its long history, Fenway has hosted football, hockey, soccer, boxing, and so much more. It has provided a backdrop to hundreds of historic events having nothing to do with sports, including concerts, religious gatherings, and political rallies. It was the site of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's final campaign address, as well as visits by music luminaries from Stevie Wonder to Bruce Springsteen to the Rolling Stones. Through it all, the Boston Globe has been the consistent, respected chronicler of every important moment in park history. In fact, the newspaper played a remarkable role in Fenway's creation and evolution: the Taylor family -- founders and longtime owners of the Globe -- owned the ballclub in 1912, helped finance the new stadium, and renamed the team the "Red Sox". It is the Globe's insider perspective, combined with more than a century of exemplary journalism, that makes this book the definitive narrative history of both park and team, and a centennial collectors' item unlike any other. Its pages offer a level of detail that is unmatched, with exceptional writing and hundreds of rarely seen photographs and illustrations. This is Fenway Park, the complete story, unfiltered and expertly told.
Download or read book The House That Ruth Built written by Robert Weintraub and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2011-04-04 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The untold story of Babe Ruth's Yankees, John McGraw's Giants, and the extraordinary baseball season of 1923. Before the 27 World Series titles -- before Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Derek Jeter -- the Yankees were New York's shadow franchise. They hadn't won a championship, and they didn't even have their own field, renting the Polo Grounds from their cross-town rivals the New York Giants. In 1921 and 1922, they lost to the Giants when it mattered most: in October. But in 1923, the Yankees played their first season on their own field, the newly-built, state of the art baseball palace in the Bronx called "the Yankee Stadium." The stadium was a gamble, erected in relative outerborough obscurity, and Babe Ruth was coming off the most disappointing season of his career, a season that saw his struggles on and off the field threaten his standing as a bona fide superstar. It only took Ruth two at-bats to signal a new era. He stepped up to the plate in the 1923 season opener and cracked a home run to deep right field, the first homer in his park, and a sign of what lay ahead. It was the initial blow in a season that saw the new stadium christened "The House That Ruth Built," signaled the triumph of the power game, and established the Yankees as New York's -- and the sport's -- team to beat. From that first home run of 1923 to the storybook World Series matchup that pitted the Yankees against their nemesis from across the Harlem River -- one so acrimonious that John McGraw forced his Giants to get to the Bronx in uniform rather than suit up at the Stadium -- Robert Weintraub vividly illuminates the singular year that built a classic stadium, catalyzed a franchise, cemented Ruth's legend, and forever changed the sport of baseball.
Download or read book The Cooperstown Casebook written by Jay Jaffe and published by Thomas Dunne Books. This book was released on 2017-07-25 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cooperstown Casebook by Jay Jaffe provides a definitive guide to the greatest players in baseball history, and the Hall of Fame.
