Download or read book Reading s Big League Exhibition Games written by Brian C. Engelhardt and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2015-08-10 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While Reading may be known today for the Fightin' Phils, it has also been the site of 72 games played by 17 major-league franchises and barnstorming teams since 1874. Among the teams that have played in these exhibition games are the Philadelphia Phillies, Philadelphia Athletics, Pittsburgh Pirates, New York Giants, and St. Louis Cardinals, along with appearances by baseball greats Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Mike Schmidt, Ernie Banks, and Rogers Hornsby. Reading fans have looked on as both the 1906 Phillies and A's tried to catch a bunny on the field mid-game, cheered for Christy Mathewson's shutouts, sang "Happy Birthday" to Pete Rose, and watched "Shoeless" Joe Jackson hit a home run.
Download or read book Baseball Barnstorming and Exhibition Games 1901 1962 written by Thomas Barthel and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2007-04-04 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Until 1947, professional ball players were paid only from opening day to season's end. Even during the season, a lot of their expenses came out of their own pockets. Even the best-paid players had trouble making ends meet. One answer to their money woes was barnstorming--tours out of season. Cities lacking their own major league teams were happy to host big-league players for such events, as well as for special exhibition games whose proceeds sometimes went to local charities. Here is a history of barnstorming and exhibition games from 1901 (when both of the two current major leagues began operating) through 1962 (when a team led by Willie Mays was unsuccessful in its attempt at a tour, signaling an end to true barnstorming). Decade by decade, it covers the teams, the games, and the players for a detailed look at how barnstorming and exhibition brought big-league baseball to the backyard ballparks of America.
Download or read book Last Time Out written by John Nogowski and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2022-07-01 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most sports fans know that Ted Williams ended his major league career with style, swatting a home run in his final at bat. But what about Babe Ruth? Ty Cobb? Joe DiMaggio? Willie Mays? How did some of baseball's greatest players bow out of The Game? Last Time Out answers that question as it examines how the greatest players in baseball history left the game they once ruled. The stories of these men and how they finished their careers, never collected anywhere before now, show another side of the men whose achievements on the field made them legends. After hours and hours of research, through biographies, microfilm, magazines, and memories, award-winning sportswriter John Nogowski culled the stories of the final games of 25 of The Game's greatest athletes-Babe Ruth, Christy Mathewson, Ty Cobb, Jackie Robinson, Dizzy Dean, Satchel Paige, Carlton Fisk, Bob Feller, Joe Morgan, and Carl Yastrzemski are among those featured. This impressive work recounts the circumstances surrounding these final games and puts you in a box seat to witness and sense the moment as these glorious careers ceased, most often with little fanfare. Whether it be Shoeless Joe Jackson, Lou Gehrig, Pete Rose, or Cal Ripken, Jr., Last Time Out beautifully captures in words and photographs the essence of these players' last time in uniform and celebrates the magic of the game these famed players mastered and loved.
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 Home Game written by Bret Boone and published by Crown Archetype. This book was released on 2016-05-10 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the first third-generation player in Major League history, a sometimes moving, always candid inside look at his family’s seventy years in baseball A five-foot-ten fireball questioned by scouts because of his small stature, supposed lack of power, and cocky attitude, Bret Boone didn’t care about family legacy as he fought his way to the Major Leagues in 1992; he wanted to make his own way. He did just that, building a career that featured three All-Star appearances, four Gold Gloves, a bout with alcoholism, and the mixed blessing of being traded three times. But now that he’s coaching minor leaguers half his age—and his fifteen-year-old son has the potential to be the first fourth-generation Major Leaguer—Bret has a new perspective on his remarkable family, with its ten All-Star appearances, 634 home runs, 3,139 RBIs, and countless kitchen-table debates about the game’s greatest players. For the first time, he’s ready to share his adventures as part of the sport’s First Family. Infused with Bret’s candor and deep love of the game, Home Game traces baseball’s evolution—on the field and behind the scenes—from his grandfather Ray’s era in the 1950s to his father Bob’s in the ’70s and ’80s to the one he shared with his brother Aaron in the ’90s and 2000s—sometimes called the PED era—when players made millions, dined on lobster in the clubhouse, and, in some cases, indulged in performance-enhancing drugs. Along the way, his book also touches on Boone family lore, from Ray playing with his hero Ted Williams and Bob winning a World Series with the 1980 Phillies to Bret’s flop in a nationally televised home-run derby and Aaron’s historic home run in the 2003 playoffs. Blending nostalgia, close analysis of the game, insight into baseball’s unwritten codes, and controversial thoughts on its future as a sport and a business, Bret Boone offers a one-of-a-kind look at the national pastime—from the colorful, quotable scion of a family whose business is baseball.
Download or read book Becoming Big League written by Bill (William) Mullins and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2013-06-18 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Becoming Big League is the story of Seattle's relationship with major league baseball from the 1962 World's Fair to the completion of the Kingdome in 1976 and beyond. Bill Mullins focuses on the acquisition and loss, after only one year, of the Seattle Pilots and documents their on-the-field exploits in lively play-by-play sections. The Pilots' underfunded ownership, led by Seattle's Dewey and Max Soriano and William Daley of Cleveland, struggled to make the team a success. They were savvy baseball men, but they made mistakes and wrangled with the city. By the end of the first season, the team was in bankruptcy. The Pilots were sold to a contingent from Milwaukee led by Bud Selig, who moved the franchise to Wisconsin and rechristened the team the Brewers. Becoming Big League describes the character of Seattle in the 1960s and 1970s, explains how the operation of a major league baseball franchise fits into the life of a city, charts Seattle's long history of fraught stadium politics, and examines the business of baseball. Watch the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hwhl5sLoQs&list=UUge4MONgLFncQ1w1C_BnHcw&index=1&feature=plcp
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 461 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 Uncle John s Fully Loaded 25th Anniversary Bathroom Reader written by Bathroom Readers' Institute and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-11-01 with total page 554 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Take a seat and settle in—it’s a gigantic treasury of trivia and humor for our twenty-fifth (is that porcelain?) anniversary! IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award Gold Winner in Humor ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year Awards, Honorable Mention in Humor “Fully Loaded” is putting it mildly. This behemoth of a book is overflowing with incredible stories, surprising facts, weird news, little-known origins, forgotten history, fun wordplay, and everything else that millions of loyal fans have come to expect from the world’s best-selling bathroom reading series. As always, it’s divided by length: quickies for the reader on the go, medium-sized articles for those with a few minutes to spare, and extra-long pieces for those truly leg-numbing experiences. Here are just a few of the hundreds of topics loaded into this edition of America’s favorite source of fascinating information: * Forgotten Firsts * Dumb Crooks: Stoner Edition * Bizarre Japanese Video Games * The Kamikaze Instruction Manual * Our Lady of the Little Green Men * The Worst Fire in American History * The World’s Worst Business Decision * The New Year’s Eve Opossum Drop * Do Blondes Really Have More Fun? * Failed Doomsday Predictions * When Toilets Explode * and much, much more!
Download or read book The Yankees Baseball Reader written by Adam Brunner and published by . This book was released on 2011-04-15 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Yankees Baseball Reader brings together the best works of journalism and literature to tell the story of this legendary franchise.
Download or read book Henry Aaron s Dream written by Matt Tavares and published by Candlewick Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A picture book biography of African-American baseball player Hank Aaron.
Download or read book Throwback written by Jason Kendall and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2014-05-13 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throwback offers an informative and irreverent look at the inner mechanics, strategies, secret signals, and customs of major league baseball. Ever Wonder What's Being Said at Home Plate? How a Team Silently Communicates? What Goes on in the Clubhouse Behind Closed Doors? America's pastime has always left fans and amateur players alike yearning for the answers to questions about how pros play the game. Jason Kendall is a former All-Star catcher who has seen just about everything during his years with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Oakland Athletics, Chicago Cubs, Milwaukee Brewers, and Kansas City Royals. A player's player, a guy with true grit--a throwback to another time with a unique view on the game that so many love. Jason Kendall and sportswriter Lee Judge team up to bring you the fan, player, coach, or curious statistician an insider's view of the game from a player's perspective. This is a book about pre-game rituals, what to look for when a pitcher warms up between innings, the signs a catcher uses to communicate with the pitcher, and so much more. Some of baseball wisdom you will find inside: * What to look for during batting practice. * The right way to hit a batter. * Who's a tough guy and who's just posing. * How to spot a dirty slide. * Why you don't look at the umpire while you're arguing. Based on Kendall's 15 years of professional MLB experience, Throwback is an informative, hilarious, and illuminating look into the world of professional baseball-and in a way that no one has ever seen before.
Download or read book For the Good of the Game written by Bud Selig and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-07-09 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times bestseller Foreword by Doris Kearns Goodwin The longtime Commissioner of Major League Baseball provides an unprecedented look inside professional baseball today, focusing on how he helped bring the game into the modern age and revealing his interactions with players, managers, fellow owners, and fans nationwide. More than a century old, the game of baseball is resistant to change—owners, managers, players, and fans all hate it. Yet, now more than ever, baseball needs to evolve—to compete with other professional sports, stay relevant, and remain America’s Pastime it must adapt. Perhaps no one knows this better than Bud Selig who, as the head of MLB for more than twenty years, ushered in some of the most important, and controversial, changes in the game’s history—modernizing a sport that had remained unchanged since the 1960s. In this enlightening and surprising book, Selig goes inside the most difficult decisions and moments of his career, looking at how he worked to balance baseball’s storied history with the pressures of the twenty-first century to ensure its future. Part baseball story, part business saga, and part memoir, For the Good of the Game chronicles Selig’s career, takes fans inside locker rooms and board rooms, and offers an intimate, fascinating account of the frequently messy process involved in transforming an American institution. Featuring an all-star lineup of the biggest names from the last forty years of baseball, Selig recalls the vital games, private moments, and tense conversations he’s shared with Hall of Fame players and managers and the contentious calls he’s made. He also speaks candidly about hot-button issues the steroid scandal that threatened to destroy the game, telling his side of the story in full and for the first time. As he looks back and forward, Selig outlines the stakes for baseball’s continued transformation—and why the changes he helped usher in must only be the beginning. Illustrated with sixteen pages of photographs.
Download or read book Uncle John s Bathroom Reader Plunges into History Again written by Bathroom Readers' Institute and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-06-01 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History repeats itself as Uncle John presents another volume of funny stories and fascinating facts about the past! For our historical trivia collection number two, we dug ever deeper into our bottomless vaults to bring you more of history’s most colorful characters, cultural milestones, funniest mishaps, and earth-shattering events. More than 500 pages of great stories, fascinating facts, and fun quizzes await you. Read about . . . * Philosophers who fought with fireplace pokers * “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this Wall!” * Where are they now—the Goths * The golden age of wife-selling * History’s most horrible dentist award * The French monks who invented tennis * What William the Conqueror was called before he conquered * Where are they now—the Neanderthals * Women of the Gold Rush * and much, much more!
Download or read book Frank Home Run Baker written by Barry Sparks and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2005-10-31 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the decades before baseball fans became enamored of sluggers like Babe Ruth and Jimmie Foxx, very few players were identified with the long ball. Instead, the game was dominated by men like Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner, players who sprayed the ball around the park, stole bases and mastered the hit and run. In fact, only one player entered the baseball mythology for his slugging: Frank "Home Run" Baker. Born in Trappe, Maryland, in 1886, Baker earned his moniker by hitting two game-changing homers in the 1911 World Series. That was the also the first year he led the American League in home runs, with the grand total of 11. Altogether, he led for four consecutive years (1911-1914), though he never hit more than 12 dingers in a single season. Playing third base for the Philadelphia Athletics and the New York Yankees, Baker led the way for the more Ruthian totals to come in the Roaring '20s. His is the story of a young player who at the height of his career risked throwing it all away in a contract dispute with the legendary Connie Mack. It is the story of the deadball era and the transition to the game we know today.
Download or read book Uncle John s Bathroom Reader Takes a Swing at Baseball written by Bathroom Readers' Institute and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-07-15 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Strange-but-true stories, colorful characters, and big-league bizarreness for fans of America’s pastime! Why is baseball such a great subject for a Bathroom Reader? Because it’s steeped in history and tradition, it’s rife with scandals and controversy, and most of the men that dedicate their life to it are just a little bit . . . weird. Uncle John’s spirited take on the game takes you deep into that history to paint a detailed picture of where the game came from and where it may be going. You’ll go behind the scenes at spring training, listen in on pitcher’s mound conferences, and meet the players, coaches, fans, and broadcasters who make this the greatest game in the world! Swing for the fences as you read about . . . * Minor league mishaps * The violent history of umpiring * The true story of Lou Gehrig’s heroic rise and tragic fall * The man who pitched a no-hitter while tripping on LSD * The origins of gloves, baseballs, bats, uniforms, helmets, and more * Baseball’s most famous call and how it was saved for posterity * The best and worst teams of all time * Animals in the outfield * The birth of Little League * The Abner Doubleday myth * and much, much more!
Download or read book Growing the Game written by Alan M. Klein and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2006-09-18 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sociologist and anthropologist scientifically examines the worldwide growth of MLB and America’s favorite pastime. Baseball fans understand the game has become increasingly international. Major league rosters include players from no fewer than fourteen countries, and more than one-fourth of all players are foreign born. Here, Alan Klein offers the first full-length study of a sport in the process of globalizing. Looking at the international activities of big-market and small-market baseball teams, as well as the Commissioner’s Office, he examines the ways in which Major League Baseball operates on a world stage that reaches from the Dominican Republic to South Africa to Japan. The origins of baseball’s efforts to globalize are complex, stemming as much from decreasing opportunities at home as from promise abroad. Klein chronicles attempts to develop the game outside the United States, the strategies that teams such as the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Kansas City Royals have devised to recruit international talent, and the ways baseball has been growing in other countries. He concludes with an assessment of the obstacles that may inhibit or promote baseball’s progress toward globalization, offering thoughtful proposals to ensure the health and growth of the game in the United States and abroad. “A superb inside look at how the national pastime has reinvented itself . . . Klein’s writing is engaging, and his research is top-notch.” —Tim Wendel, author of The New Face of Baseball: The One-Hundred-Year Rise and Triumph of Latinos in America’s Favorite Sport “A timely contribution to our understanding of baseball in our contemporary age.” —Michael L. Butterworth, Sociology of Sport Journal
Download or read book The Grand Old Man of Baseball written by Norman L. Macht and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2015-10-01 with total page 573 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Grand Old Man of Baseball, Norman L. Macht chronicles Connie Mack's tumultuous final two decades in baseball. After Mack had built one of baseball's greatest teams, the 1929-31 Philadelphia Athletics, the Depression that followed the stock market crash fundamentally reshaped Mack's legacy as his team struggled on the field and at the gate. Among the challenges Mack faced: a sharp drop in attendance that forced him to sell his star players; the rise of the farm system, which he was slow to adopt; the opposition of other owners to night games, which he favored; the postwar integration of baseball, which he initially opposed; a split between the team's heirs (Mack's sons Roy and Earle on one side, their half brother Connie Jr. on the other) that tore apart the family and forced Mack to choose--unwisely--between them; and, finally, the disastrous 1951-54 seasons in which Roy and Earle ran the club to the brink of bankruptcy. By now aged and mentally infirm, Mack watched in bewilderment as the business he had built fell apart. Broke and in debt, Roy and Earle feuded over the sale of the team. In a never-before-revealed series of maneuvers, Roy double-crossed his father and brother and the team was sold and moved to Kansas City in 1954. In Macht's third volume of his trilogy on Mack, he describes the physical, mental, and financial decline of Mack's final years, which unfortunately became a classic American tragedy.
