Download or read book Baseball as a Road to God written by John Sexton and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-03-07 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The president of New York University offers a love letter to America’s most beloved sport and a tribute to its underlying spirituality. For more than a decade, John Sexton has taught a wildly popular New York University course about two seemingly very different things: religion and baseball. Yet Sexton argues that one is actually a pathway to the other. Baseball as a Road to God is about touching that something that lies beyond logical understanding. Sexton illuminates the surprisingly large number of mutual concepts shared between baseball and religion: faith, doubt, conversion, miracles, and even sacredness among many others. Structured like a game and filled with riveting accounts of baseball’s most historic moments, Baseball as Road to God will enthrall baseball fans whatever their religious beliefs may be. In thought-provoking, beautifully rendered prose, Sexton elegantly demonstrates that baseball is more than a game, or even a national pastime: It can be a road to enlightenment.
Download or read book Home Games written by Bobbie Bouton and published by St Martins Press. This book was released on 1983-01-01 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a series of letters the authors candidly describe their personal experiences as the wives of professional baseball players
Download or read book K A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches written by Tyler Kepner and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From The New York Times baseball columnist, an enchanting, enthralling history of the national pastime as told through the craft of pitching, based on years of archival research and interviews with more than three hundred people from Hall of Famers to the stars of today. The baseball is an amazing plaything. We can grip it and hold it so many different ways, and even the slightest calibration can turn an ordinary pitch into a weapon to thwart the greatest hitters in the world. Each pitch has its own history, evolving through the decades as the masters pass it down to the next generation. From the earliest days of the game, when Candy Cummings dreamed up the curveball while flinging clamshells on a Brooklyn beach, pitchers have never stopped innovating. In K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches, Tyler Kepner traces the colorful stories and fascinating folklore behind the ten major pitches. Each chapter highlights a different pitch, from the blazing fastball to the fluttering knuckleball to the slippery spitball. Infusing every page with infectious passion for the game, Kepner brings readers inside the minds of combatants sixty feet, six inches apart. Filled with priceless insights from many of the best pitchers in baseball history--from Bob Gibson, Steve Carlton, and Nolan Ryan to Greg Maddux, Mariano Rivera, and Clayton Kershaw--K will be the definitive book on pitching and join such works as The Glory of Their Times and Moneyball as a classic of the genre.
Download or read book Speaking of Baseball written by David Plaut and published by Running PressBook Pub. This book was released on 1993 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of quotations from players, fans, managers, coaches, umpires, sports journalists, broadcasters, and others comments on the rituals, rivalries, heartaches, and joys of America's national pastime.
Download or read book The Big Book of Jewish Baseball written by Peter S. Horvitz and published by SP Books. This book was released on 2001 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first comprehensive, encyclopaedic work devoted exclusively to every Jewish contributor, large and small, to Major League Baseball. Its packed with: Rare photographs of players on and off the field; Full player statistics; Rare memorabilia; Exclusive original interviews. Jews who impacted upon the Great American Pastime extend far beyond the record strikeouts and round trippers of the legendary Sandy Koufax and Hank Greenberg. And there are scores of ballplayers like Lipman Pike, Shawn Green, Cal Abrams and Eddie Zosky whose little-known Baseball stories will touch or amuse readers of any background. Beyond life-time batting averages, there are intriguing players like catcher Moe Berg who served his country as a secret agent during WWII. While the tragic life of Bruce Gardner may bring tears to readers eyes, the exploits of 'Clown Princes' Al Schact and Max Patkin will have fans rolling with laughter. Nowhere else will one read tributes to great Jewish baseball executives and owners whose vision built some of historys most successful teams. Al Rosen may have gone from the All-Star team to the front-office Hall of Fame, but some of the most famous self-made success stories of this century honed their competitive spirit on the stickball courts of Jewish ghettos. This one-of-a-kind book will be much-in-demand by both baseball and Judaica book buyers.
Download or read book How to Speak Baseball written by James Charlton and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2014-02-25 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An elegantly designed little book . . . capturing the colorful, frequently fanciful vocabulary that describes the world of baseball.” —The Litchfield County Times This handsome guide to the language of baseball decodes the amusing, clever phrases that pepper commentary about the sport. Packed with witty explanations of everything from “duster” and “rubber arm” to “up the elevator,” this ballpark lexicon plays on a nostalgic love for the national pastime while covering ground from baseball’s beginnings to today. This humorous mix of definitions and anecdotes is the perfect gift for both lifelong baseball fans and rookies “working up the ranks.” “If you happen to be watching or listening to a game, do you wonder what the announcer means by ‘the neighborhood play,’ ‘can of corn’ or ‘golden sombrero?’ How to Speak Baseball: An Illustrated Guide to Ballpark Banter, by James Charlton and Sally Cook, is an informative, entertaining read. The authors have compiled a list of obscure, old and newer baseball terms from ‘ace’ to ‘you can’t walk off the island.’” —Daily Pilot
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 Shut Out written by Howard Bryant and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-11 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shut Out is the compelling story of Boston's racial divide viewed through the lens of one of the city's greatest institutions - its baseball team, and told from the perspective of Boston native and noted sports writer Howard Bryant. This well written and poignant work contains striking interviews in which blacks who played for the Red Sox speak for the first time about their experiences in Boston, as well as groundbreaking chapter that details Jackie Robinson's ill-fated tryout with the Boston Red Sox and the humiliation that followed.
Download or read book Infinite Baseball written by Alva Noë and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-01 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Baseball is a strange sport: it consists of long periods in which little seems to be happening, punctuated by high-energy outbursts of rapid fire activity. Because of this, despite ever greater profits, Major League Baseball is bent on finding ways to shorten games, and to tailor baseball to today's shorter attention spans. But for the true fan, baseball is always compelling to watch -and intellectually fascinating. It's superficially slow-pace is an opportunity to participate in the distinctive thinking practice that defines the game. If baseball is boring, it's boring the way philosophy is boring: not because there isn't a lot going on, but because the challenge baseball poses is making sense of it all. In this deeply entertaining book, philosopher and baseball fan Alva Noë explores the many unexpected ways in which baseball is truly a philosophical kind of game. For example, he ponders how observers of baseball are less interested in what happens, than in who is responsible for what happens; every action receives praise or blame. To put it another way, in baseball - as in the law - we decide what happened based on who is responsible for what happened. Noe also explains the curious activity of keeping score: a score card is not merely a record of the game, like a video recording; it is an account of the game. Baseball requires that true fans try to tell the story of the game, in real time, as it unfolds, and thus actively participate in its creation. Some argue that baseball is fundamentally a game about numbers. Noe's wide-ranging, thoughtful observations show that, to the contrary, baseball is not only a window on language, culture, and the nature of human action, but is intertwined with deep and fundamental human truths. The book ranges from the nature of umpiring and the role of instant replay, to the nature of the strike zone, from the rampant use of surgery to controversy surrounding performance enhancing drugs. Throughout, Noe's observations are surprising and provocative. Infinite Baseball is a book for the true baseball fan.
Download or read book Outsider Baseball written by Scott Simkus and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2014-03-01 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Outsider Baseball is the story of a forgotten world, where independent professional ball clubs zig-zagged across America, plying their trade in big cities and small villages alike. Included among the former and future major leaguers were mercenaries, scalawags, and outcasts. This is where Babe Ruth, Rube Waddell, and John McGraw crossed bats with the Cuban Stars, Tokyo Giants, Brooklyn Bushwicks, dozens of famous Negro league teams, and novelty acts such as the House of David and Bloomer Girls. Legends emerged in this alternate baseball universe and author Scott Simkus sets out to share their stories and use a critical lens to separate fact from fiction. Written in a gritty prose style, Outsider Baseball combines meticulous research with modern analytics, opening the door to an unforgettable funhouse of baseball history. Scott Simkus is the founder and editor of the Outsider Baseball Bulletin. He is the winner of a research award from the Society of American Baseball Research for his work on the Negro League Database.
Download or read book How to Talk Baseball written by Mike Whiteford and published by Galahad Books. This book was released on 1996-04 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How to Talk Baseball hits a home run with fans who enjoy playing, watching, and talking our national game. The fascinating profiles of baseball's most famous stars will delight all aficionados, and the hilarious terms defined here will add pepper to anyone's game-watching.Beginning with a superlative line-up of people who have enriched America's favorite pastime, the first part of the book draws lively portraits of baseball's superstars and super characters, including Pete Rose, Dizzy Dean, Dennis Eckersley, Red Barber, Red Smith, Yogi Berra (It ain't over till it's over), and Casey Stengel. Find out who was the first to say Can he hit, hit with power, run, throw and field?, now the five dimensions of measuring a baseball player; How sweet it is; and Can't anybody here play this game? How to Talk Baseball's illustrated lexicon tells the origin and meaning of baseball's unique language--seventh-inning stretches, southpaws, spitballs, ohfers, hit-and-runs, foot in the bucket, beanballs, circus catches, Baltimore chops--terms indigenous to baseball, brought together in a comprehensive glossary. You'll learn whether a player is a bad-ball hitter, a bench jockey, a bonus baby or a clubhouse lawyer, and how to tell the difference. Even a novice fan can sound like a network sportscaster, describing how ducks on the pond are waiting for their MVP to dial 8 to a shutout. How to Talk Baseball is a fun read and will help readers warm up their vocal cords and get ready to talk their best game.
Download or read book Talk Like a Baseball Player written by Ryan Nagelhout and published by Gareth Stevens Publishing LLLP. This book was released on 2016-12-15 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Baseball is a great sport full of weird words. Trying to play a game with friends might be hard if you dont know what anyone is saying! Readers will get a look in the dugout, and even learn why they call it a dugout in the first place. With color photos and other graphics explaining different terms and concepts like a double switch or ground rules, readers are sure to learn everything they need to talkand playlike a pro.
Download or read book A Year of Playing Catch written by Ethan D. Bryan and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Journey with prolific author and avid baseball fan Ethan Bryan on an exciting quest to play catch every day for a year, and discover the lessons he learned about the sacredness of play, finding connections, and being fully present to the human experience. Ethan Bryan played and wrote about baseball for years. Then his daughters challenged him to set out on a yearlong experiment: to play catch with someone every day. This experience led him across 10 states and 12,000 miles on a quest both quixotic and inspiring. Taking you from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to the home of the Daytona Tortugas in Florida, Bryan played ball and swapped stories with public school teachers, veterans, journalists, nurses, musicians, entertainers, entrepreneurs, athletes from every level--amateur to pro--and members of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Plus, he visited famous destinations such as the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, Miracle League fields, and the original "Field of Dreams" in Iowa. But throughout the book, Bryan reveals it's about much more than who he played catch with: it's what he learned from their vastly different stories. Lessons include: How play can reignite a fire within you and transform your life How to find joy in the simple things How one life can impact a whole community . . . and more. For baseball fans and everyone who loves a good story, A Year of Playing Catch is an inspiring journey about finding joy in the simple things, and the power of play to transform our lives.
Download or read book A Whole Different Ball Game written by Marvin Miller and published by Ivan R. Dee Publisher. This book was released on 2004 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marvin Miller became the first executive director of the newly formed Major League Baseball Players Association. He recounts his experience in dealing with club owners and his success in winning a new role for the players. He helped virtually end the system that bound an athlete to one team forever and thereby raised salaries enormously. formed
Download or read book Baseball written by Geoffrey C. Ward and published by Knopf. This book was released on 1994 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With more than 500 photographs -- Introduction by Roger Angell -- Essays by Thomas Boswell, Robert W. Creamer, Gerald Early, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Bill James, David Lamb, Daniel Okrent, John Thorn, George E Will -- And featuring an interview with Buck O'Neil
Download or read book The Empire Strikes Out written by Robert Elias and published by New Press, The. This book was released on 2010-01-19 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is the face of American baseball throughout the world that of goodwill ambassador or ugly American? Has baseball crafted its own image or instead been at the mercy of broader forces shaping our society and the globe? The Empire Strikes Out gives us the sweeping story of how baseball and America are intertwined in the export of “the American way.” From the Civil War to George W. Bush and the Iraq War, we see baseball's role in developing the American empire, first at home and then beyond our shores. And from Albert Spalding and baseball's first World Tour to Bud Selig and the World Baseball Classic, we witness the globalization of America's national pastime and baseball's role in spreading the American dream. Besides describing baseball's frequent and often surprising connections to America's presence around the world, Elias assesses the effects of this relationship both on our foreign policies and on the sport itself and asks whether baseball can play a positive role or rather only reinforce America's dominance around the globe. Like Franklin Foer in How Soccer Explains the World, Elias is driven by compelling stories, unusual events, and unique individuals. His seamless integration of original research and compelling analysis makes this a baseball book that's about more than just sports.
Download or read book Baseball Between the Numbers written by Jonah Keri and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2007-02-27 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the numbers-obsessed sport of baseball, statistics don't merely record what players, managers, and owners have done. Properly understood, they can tell us how the teams we root for could employ better strategies, put more effective players on the field, and win more games. The revolution in baseball statistics that began in the 1970s is a controversial subject that professionals and fans alike argue over without end. Despite this fundamental change in the way we watch and understand the sport, no one has written the book that reveals, across every area of strategy and management, how the best practitioners of statistical analysis in baseball-people like Bill James, Billy Beane, and Theo Epstein-think about numbers and the game. Baseball Between the Numbers is that book. In separate chapters covering every aspect of the game, from hitting, pitching, and fielding to roster construction and the scouting and drafting of players, the experts at Baseball Prospectus examine the subtle, hidden aspects of the game, bring them out into the open, and show us how our favorite teams could win more games. This is a book that every fan, every follower of sports radio, every fantasy player, every coach, and every player, at every level, can learn from and enjoy.
