Download or read book The Baseball Codes written by Jason Turbow and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2011-03-22 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An insider’s look at baseball’s unwritten rules, explained with examples from the game’s most fascinating characters and wildest historical moments. Everyone knows that baseball is a game of intricate regulations, but it turns out to be even more complicated than we realize. All aspects of baseball—hitting, pitching, and baserunning—are affected by the Code, a set of unwritten rules that governs the Major League game. Some of these rules are openly discussed (don’t steal a base with a big lead late in the game), while others are known only to a minority of players (don’t cross between the catcher and the pitcher on the way to the batter’s box). In The Baseball Codes, old-timers and all-time greats share their insights into the game’s most hallowed—and least known—traditions. For the learned and the casual baseball fan alike, the result is illuminating and thoroughly entertaining. At the heart of this book are incredible and often hilarious stories involving national heroes (like Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays) and notorious headhunters (like Bob Gibson and Don Drysdale) in a century-long series of confrontations over respect, honor, and the soul of the game. With The Baseball Codes, we see for the first time the game as it’s actually played, through the eyes of the players on the field. With rollicking stories from the past and new perspectives on baseball’s informal rulebook, The Baseball Codes is a must for every fan.

Download or read book Dynastic Bombastic Fantastic written by Jason Turbow and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-03-07 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An exciting and engrossing book. . . . will engage fans of Charlie O. Finley and the Oakland Athletics, along with anyone captivated by baseball history.” —Library Journal, starred review The Oakland A’s of the early 1970s: Never before had an entire organization so collectively traumatized baseball’s establishment with its outlandish behavior and business decisions. The high drama that played out on the field—five straight division titles and three straight championships—was exceeded only by the drama in the clubhouse and front office. Under the visionary leadership of owner Charles O. Finley, the team assembled such luminary figures as Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter, Rollie Fingers, and Vida Blue, and with garish uniforms and revolutionary facial hair, knocked baseball into the modern age. Finley’s need for control—he was his own general manager and dictated everything from the ballpark organist’s playlist to the menu for the media lounge—made him ill-suited for the advent of free agency. Within two years, his dynasty was lost. A history of one of the game’s most unforgettable teams, Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic is a paean to the sport’s most turbulent, magical team, during one of major league baseball’s most turbulent, magical times. “Masterfully recounts a thrilling period in Oakland A’s history.” —Billy Beane, executive vice president of baseball operations, Oakland A’s “Not to be believed, and yet 100 percent true.” —Steve Fainaru, senior writer for ESPN and author of League of Denial “A must-read for any fan of the sport.” —Chris Ballard, Sports Illustrated senior writer and author of One Shot at Forever “Carefully researched and often hilarious.” —San Francisco Chronicle “A chance to relive a period of outlandish moments in America’s pastime.” —Publishers Weekly

Download or read book Oakland Athletics written by Dennis St. Sauver and published by ABDO. This book was released on 2018-12-15 with total page 35 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Students will love learning about the Oakland Athletics in this high-interest title! Text covers the team's history, memorable wins, star players, and important coaches. Features include table of contents, fun facts, team stats, timeline, glossary, and index. Aligned to Common Core standards and correlated to state standards. Big Buddy Books is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.

Download or read book If These Walls Could Talk Oakland A s written by Ken Korach and published by Triumph Books. This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout their history, the Oakland Athletics have been one of the most audacious and individual franchises in all of baseball. As the longtime radio voice of the A's, Ken Korach has called countless improbable, unforgettable moments. As the San Francisco Chronicle's veteran beat reporter, Susan Slusser has become the preeminent scribe of the A's modern era. Both have witnessed more than their share of team history up close and personal. In If These Walls Could Talk: Oakland A's, Korach and Slusser provide insight into the A's inner sanctum as only they can. Readers will gain the perspective of players, coaches, and front office executives in times of greatness as well as defeat, making for a keepsake no fan will want to miss.

Download or read book Baseball s Last Dynasty written by Bruce Markusen and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the first half of the 1970's no team dominated major league baseball like the Oakland A's. Led by future Hall of Famers Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter and Rollie Fingers, the A's captured five consecutive division titles, three American League pennants and three World Series trophies from 1971 to 1975. Baseball's Last Dynasty recounts the history of those colorful, controversial, and highly successful teams. As only the second franchise in major league history to win three consecutive Wold Series, the A's Ruled baseball in the era prior to the advent of free agency. With the help of an astute team of scouts, owner Charlie Finely assembled a nucleus of home-grown future stars wearing Oakland's garish green and gold uniforms: Bert Campaneris, Sal Bando, Joe Rudi, Gene Tenace and Vida Blue in addition to Reggie, Rollie and Catfish. In spite of such talents, the A's struggled to surpass the level of mediocrity until the hiring of baseball's version of Vince Lombardi -- Dick Williams. A fiery disciplinarian and disciple of Branch Rickey, Williams led Oakland to a first place finish in 1971, followed by consecutive world championships in 1972 and 1973. In chronicling the team known as the "Mustache Gang" and the Swinging A's, Baseball's Last Dynasty details the many fights and arguments in the Oakland clubhouse, the many controversies as well as the departures of Williams and Hunter. In the nearly quarter of a century that has passed since the A's won their trio of titles, no team has managed to duplicate the feat. Given the instability created by free agency and the difficulty of keeping a championship team's payroll under control, no team may be able to match theaccomplishments of Charlie Finley's A's. Exhaustively researched and including recent interviews with many of the key players, Baseball's Last Dynasty brings the story of this extraordinary team to life.

Download or read book Moneyball The Art of Winning an Unfair Game written by Michael Lewis and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2004-03-17 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael Lewis’s instant classic may be “the most influential book on sports ever written” (People), but “you need know absolutely nothing about baseball to appreciate the wit, snap, economy and incisiveness of [Lewis’s] thoughts about it” (Janet Maslin, New York Times). One of GQ's 50 Best Books of Literary Journalism of the 21st Century Just before the 2002 season opens, the Oakland Athletics must relinquish its three most prominent (and expensive) players and is written off by just about everyone—but then comes roaring back to challenge the American League record for consecutive wins. How did one of the poorest teams in baseball win so many games? In a quest to discover the answer, Michael Lewis delivers not only “the single most influential baseball book ever” (Rob Neyer, Slate) but also what “may be the best book ever written on business” (Weekly Standard). Lewis first looks to all the logical places—the front offices of major league teams, the coaches, the minds of brilliant players—but discovers the real jackpot is a cache of numbers?numbers!?collected over the years by a strange brotherhood of amateur baseball enthusiasts: software engineers, statisticians, Wall Street analysts, lawyers, and physics professors. What these numbers prove is that the traditional yardsticks of success for players and teams are fatally flawed. Even the box score misleads us by ignoring the crucial importance of the humble base-on-balls. This information had been around for years, and nobody inside Major League Baseball paid it any mind. And then came Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland Athletics. He paid attention to those numbers?with the second-lowest payroll in baseball at his disposal he had to?to conduct an astonishing experiment in finding and fielding a team that nobody else wanted. In a narrative full of fabulous characters and brilliant excursions into the unexpected, Michael Lewis shows us how and why the new baseball knowledge works. He also sets up a sly and hilarious morality tale: Big Money, like Goliath, is always supposed to win . . . how can we not cheer for David?

Download or read book Oakland Athletics 2021 written by Baseball Prospectus, and published by Baseball Prospectus. This book was released on 2021-05-23 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The team edition based on The New York Times Bestselling Guide. This more portable team edition of the full 26th edition of the industry-leading baseball annual contains all of the important statistics, player projections, and insider-level commentary that readers have come to expect, but focused on your favorite organization. It also features detailed reports on the top prospects, data visualization, and deeper statistical profiles. Take it out to the ball game or wherever you follow your team!

Download or read book Oakland Athletics 2020 written by Baseball Prospectus, and published by Baseball Prospectus. This book was released on 2020-04-27 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The team edition based on The New York Times Bestselling Guide. This more portable team edition of the full 25th edition of the industry-leading baseball annual contains all of the important statistics, player projections and insider-level commentary that readers have come to expect, but focused on your favorite organization. It also features detailed reports on the top prospects, including fantasy values and commentary. Take it out to the ball game or wherever you follow your team!

Download or read book It s Outta Here written by Matt Doeden and published by Millbrook Press TM. This book was released on 2022-01-01 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Audisee® eBooks with Audio combine professional narration and sentence highlighting for an engaging read aloud experience! In 1921, New York Yankees slugger Babe Ruth smashed a home run that sailed 575 feet (175 m), the longest homer ever hit in a Major League Baseball game. Ruth's home runs thrilled fans and revolutionized the game. One hundred years later, the home run is still the most exciting play in baseball. Read about the longest, strangest, and most important home runs in baseball history. See how the game's superstars hit the ball so far, and learn about the ways players have cheated to hit home runs, from performance-enhancing drugs to corked bats and stolen signs. Take a high-flying journey from baseball's early days to today's biggest sluggers.

Download or read book The MVP Machine written by Ben Lindbergh and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Move over, Moneyball -- this New York Times bestseller examines major league baseball's next cutting-edge revolution: the high-tech quest to build better players. As bestselling authors Ben Lindbergh and Travis Sawchik reveal in The MVP Machine, the Moneyball era is over. Fifteen years after Michael Lewis brought the Oakland Athletics' groundbreaking team-building strategies to light, every front office takes a data-driven approach to evaluating players, and the league's smarter teams no longer have a huge advantage in valuing past performance. Lindbergh and Sawchik's behind-the-scenes reporting reveals: How undersized afterthoughts José Altuve and Mookie Betts became big sluggers and MVPs How polarizing pitcher Trevor Bauer made himself a Cy Young contender How new analytical tools have overturned traditional pitching and hitting techniques How a wave of young talent is making MLB both better than ever and arguably worse to watch Instead of out-drafting, out-signing, and out-trading their rivals, baseball's best minds have turned to out-developing opponents, gaining greater edges than ever by perfecting prospects and eking extra runs out of older athletes who were once written off. Lindbergh and Sawchik take us inside the transformation of former fringe hitters into home-run kings, show how washed-up pitchers have emerged as aces, and document how coaching and scouting are being turned upside down. The MVP Machine charts the future of a sport and offers a lesson that goes beyond baseball: Success stems not from focusing on finished products, but from making the most of untapped potential.

Download or read book Curveball written by Barry Zito and published by HarperChristian + ORM. This book was released on 2019-09-17 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The painfully honest and personal story of one of baseball’s most intriguing players. In Curveball, Zito shares his story with honesty and transparency. The ups and the downs. The wins and losses. By sharing his experiences as a man who had everything except happiness, Zito offers readers a path through adversity and toward a life defined by true success. Despite achieving the kind of fame and fortune that most people only dream about, Barry Zito was plagued by both internal forces and external circumstances that robbed him of any sense of peace—until he finally found a purpose worth living for. Barry explores the twists and turns of his own journey, including: his dad’s constant push and pursuit for excellence, which translated into a toxic father-son relationship, how achieving superstardom in the major leagues created crippling fear, the personal destruction brought on by fame and fortune, and the disastrous seasons with the San Francisco Giants, including being benched for the 2010 playoffs and World Series. Zito comes face-to-face with the destructiveness of his own ego—his need to be viewed as the best. He also comes face-to-face with God and with the truth that he was loved no matter what he achieved.

Download or read book The A s written by David M. Jordan and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-02-10 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a straightforward history of the Athletics franchise, from its Connie Mack years in Philadelphia with teams featuring Eddie Collins, Chief Bender, Jimmy Foxx, Mickey Cochrane and Lefty Grove, through its 13 years in Kansas City, under Arnold Johnson and Charles O. Finley, and on to its great years in Oakland--with the three World Series wins featuring Catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson, Sal Bando and Vida Blue, and the conflicts with Finley--as well as the less successful seasons that followed, then the Series sweep in 1989, and ending up with the unusual operation of the club by Billy Beane.

Download or read book Baseball Bits written by Dan Schlossberg and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ah, baseball . . . the great American pastime, the reason so many people of all ages sit glued to their televisions or brave the traffic every weekend-because they love the game. For those who are captivated by the game season after season, year after year, Baseball Bitsis the quintessential little reference. Written and compiled by baseball expert Dan Schlossberg, this book is chock-full of the best trivia, information, and fun facts about the game. Featuring interviews with players, managers, and other baseball professionals, as well as never-before-told baseball stories, Baseball Bitsis sure to be a "hit" with just about anyone who's interested in the game. But that's not all, because beyond the stories and trivia, the die-hard fan also wants the most recent information that affects this season. What are the latest trades, and how will they affect his favourite teams? What are the best players' current stats, and will anyone be breaking any major records soon? That's where the second component of the book comes in-a companion website. Readers will find the essential information they seek on player stats and team developments on Dan Schlossberg's special website, offered just for readers of Baseball Bits. Inside each book is a password that lets readers log onto the site for up-to-the-minute information only available there. The site is guaranteed to be updated at least once a month-more frequently during the season-to provide readers with everything they need to know about the current season.

Download or read book 100 Things A s Fans Should Know Do Before They Die written by Susan Slusser and published by Triumph Books. This book was released on 2015-06-01 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With traditions, records, and team lore, this lively, detailed book explores the personalities, events, and facts every Athletics fan should know. This guide to all things A's covers the team's amazing history including the Connie Mack and Charlie O. Finley dynasties, the "Earthquake Series," and all of their World Series titles. Author Susan Slusser has collected every essential piece of A's knowledge and trivia, including Billy Beane and Moneyball, Catfish Hunter, Stomper, and the "Bash Brothers," as well as must-do activities, and ranks them from 1 to 100, providing an entertaining and easy-to-follow checklist for fans of all ages.

Download or read book Big Time Baseball Records written by Bruce Berglund and published by Capstone. This book was released on 2021-08 with total page 65 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: CRACK! Few things beat the drama of a player smacking a big homerun at the ballpark--except when that big homer sets a new record! Behind every big-time baseball record is a dramatic story of how a player or team achieved greatness on the field. With legendary players at the plate, on the mound, and in the field, here are the record-setting moments that will keep baseball fans turning the page for more.

Download or read book Finley Ball written by Nancy Finley and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-03-29 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the story of a losing baseball team that became a 1970s dynasty, thanks to the unorthodox strategies and stunts of two very colorful men. When Charlie Finley bought the A's in 1960, he was an outsider to the game—a insurance businessman with a larger-than-life personality. He brought his cousin Carl on as his right-hand man, moved the team from Kansas City to Oakland, and pioneered a new way to put together a winning team. With legendary players like Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter, and Vida Blue, the Finleys' Oakland A's won three straight World Series and riveted the nation. Now Carl Finley's daughter Nancy reveals the whole story behind her family's winning legacy—how her father and uncle developed their scouting strategy, why they employed odd gimmicks like orange baseballs and "mustache bonuses," and how the success of the '70s Oakland A's changed the game of baseball.

Download or read book Save Baseball written by Larry Hausner and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2024-01-29 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Major League Baseball has been in crisis in recent years. Game attendance is down by millions and fan interest is in free fall. The future of the game is in jeopardy. While the League acknowledges the issues, many are stumped as to how to address them. This book explores in detail the critical challenges facing MLB, and their ramifications, along with some potential solutions. Interviews with baseball insiders, players to executives, give a perspective on baseball's struggle to reinvent itself for future generations.