Download or read book Play Ball written by Jorge Posada and published by Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books. This book was released on 2010-02-23 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jorge loved the feel of the ball in his glove, the bat in his hand, and the game of baseball. Day and night he would play with his sister, his father, and his friends. At night he dreamed of baseball. When he and his mother visit New York and he sees Yankee Stadium for the first time, he knows there is only one way to get there: work hard and play ball. Based on the childhood of New York Yankees catcher Jorge Posada, this is the story of a boy from Puerto Rico who grew up to be a champion.

Download or read book Valentine s Way written by Bobby Valentine and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-11-30 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A frank and often hilarious account of the baseball life from one of the game’s great iconoclasts. “…the most entertaining baseball book of the year!” —Baseball Almanac From his first year in Rookie ball, when Tommy Lasorda ordered him to send a letter to the Dodgers’ starting shortstop informing him that he should retire early to make way for the young phenom, to appearing in disguise in the Mets’ dugout following an ejection, Bobby Valentine was a lightning rod for mischievous controversy, grabbing headlines wherever he went. Mavericks are seldom welcomed to upset the status quo, and Major League Baseball was no exception. In astonishing detail, Bobby Valentine reflects on the many remarkable moments that comprised his playing and managerial careers. From his wild times as a player in the early seventies, to his transition to coaching with the Mets after a catastrophic injury derailed his playing days; from managing the Texas Rangers in 1985, where he employed sabermetrics and witnessed the beginning of the steroid era, to his iconic stretch at Shea Stadium, when he led the Mets to the 2000 World Series while battling a dysfunctional front office and ownership; from his beloved time in Japan managing the Chiba Lotte Marines, who won the Japan Series, to the absolute disaster of a season in Boston, where he was greeted by a toxic clubhouse and fractured organization. Readers will be intrigued by his off-the-field exploits as well, from his early years as an international ballroom dancing champion to his post-playing days where he may have invented the wrap sandwich and the modern sports bar. Valentine has consistently overcome adversity and reinvented himself, regardless of the playing field. Along the way, he shares stories and insights on memorable moments and iconic personalities, including Nolan Ryan, Ichiro Suzuki, Gary Carter, Mike Piazza, Tom Seaver, Joe Torre, George Steinbrenner, Dustin Pedroia, and David Ortiz. Valentine’s Way is a riveting look back on forty years of baseball, written with a novelist’s mind and a journalist’s memory, and in collaboration with legendary baseball author Peter Golenbock. A once-in-a-generation book that leaves no great story untold, this is an invaluable document for anyone wondering what it’s really like to play and work in the rarified world of Major League Baseball.

Download or read book Becoming Mr October written by Reggie Jackson and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2014-09-23 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A soul-baring, brutally candid, and highly colorful memoir of the two years--1977 and 1978--when Reggie Jackson went from being an outcast to a Yankee legend. In the spring of 1977 Reggie Jackson should have been on top of the world. The best player on the Oakland A's dynasty teams, he was the first big-money free agent wooed by George Steinbrenner into coming to the New York Yankees. But, as Reggie writes in this vivid and surprising memoir, until his initial experience with the Yankees, "I didn't know what alone meant." Persevering against an alcoholic manager, ostracism from teammates, and negative stereotypes in the New York City press, Jackson fought against the odds to become "Mr. October." Filled with revealing anecdotes about the notorious "Bronx Zoo" Yankees of the late 1970s, bluntly honest portrayals of his teammates and competitors, and especially of manager Billy Martin, Becoming Mr. October is a revelatory self-portrait of a baseball icon at the height of his public fame and private anguish.

Download or read book Damn Yankees written by Rob Fleder and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2012-04-03 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winners of twenty-seven World Series titles, the New York Yankees are the quintessential sports dynasty. Love them or hate them, they cannot be ignored by anyone who professes to be a fan of the great game of baseball. With Damn Yankees, Rob Fleder, former Executive Editor for Sports Illustrated magazine, offers a timeless collection of original essays by some of the most prominent contemporary writers in America—from Pete Dexter to Jane Leavy, from Roy Blount Jr. to Colum McCann—each piece focusing on one uniquely colorful subject: the fanatically adored/resoundingly despised “Bronx Bombers.” Funny, moving, provocative, insightful appreciations and detractions—from Babe Ruth to Mickey Mantle to Derek Jeter—Damn Yankees offers twenty-four fascinating takes on the most storied franchise of baseball’s Major Leagues.

Download or read book All My Octobers written by Mickey Mantle and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2006-06-13 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To everyone who truly loves the game, Mickey Mantle epitomizes the golden age of baseball, when the mighty New York Yankees indisputably ruled, appearing in an unprecedented twelve World Series in fourteen years! In this intimate memoir, Mantle recounts the joys and trials of his rise from rural Oklahoma youngster to the pinnacle of baseball greatness. In All My Octobers, the one and only Mick relives every one of his World Series appearances -- from the 1951 battle when he played alongside an aging Joe DiMaggio to his three-home-run performance in the 1964 showdown. In addition to the on-field heroics, Mantle talks candidly about the injuries, the alcohol, the parties and celebrations, and the terrible toll they can take on a young athlete's life. But most of all, it is a remembrance of October greatness, of postseason pyrotechnics . . . and a loving appreciation of a team of titans that achieved something marvelous and unequaled to this day.

Download or read book New York Times Story of the Yankees written by The New York Times and published by Black Dog & Leventhal. This book was released on 2021-03-16 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experience a century of the pride, power, and pinstripes of the Yankees, Major League Baseball's most successful team, as told through the stories of their hometown newspaper, The New York Times. The New York Yankees are the most storied franchise in baseball history. They consistently draw the largest home and away crowds of any team, command the largest broadcast audiences in baseball, draw the greatest number of on-line followers, and routinely sell more copies of books and magazines than any other professional sports team. The New York Times Story of the Yankees includes more than 350 articles chronicling the team's most famous milestones—as well as the best writing about the ball club. Each article is hand-selected from The Times by the peerless sportswriter Dave Anderson, creating the most complete and compelling history to date about the Yankees. Organized by era, the book covers the biggest stories and events in Yankee history, such as the purchase of Babe Ruth, Roger Maris's 61st home run, and David Cone's perfect game. It chronicles the team's 27 World Series championships and 40 American League pennants; its rivalries with the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Boston Red Sox; controversial owners, players, and managers; and more. The articles span the years from 1903—when the team was known as the New York Highlanders—to the present, and include stories from well-known and beloved Times reporters such as Arthur Daley, John Kieran, Leonard Koppett, Red Smith, Tyler Kepner, Ira Berkow, Richard Sandomir, Jim Roach, and George Vecsey. Hundreds of black-and-white photographs throughout capture every era. A foreword by die-hard Yankees fan, Alec Baldwin, completes the celebration of baseball's greatest team.

Download or read book The Cloudbuster Nine written by Anne R. Keene and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-04-06 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1943, while the New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals were winning pennants and meeting in that year's World Series, Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky, and Johnny Sain practiced on a skinned-out college field in the heart of North Carolina. They and other past and future stars formed one of the greatest baseball teams of all time. They were among a cadre of fighter-pilot cadets who wore the Cloudbuster Nine baseball jersey at an elite Navy training school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As a child, Anne Keene's father, Jim Raugh, suited up as the team batboy and mascot. He got to know his baseball heroes personally, watching players hit the road on cramped, tin-can buses, dazzling factory workers, kids, and service members at dozens of games, including a war-bond exhibition with Babe Ruth at Yankee Stadium. Jimmy followed his baseball dreams as a college All-American but was crushed later in life by a failed major-league bid with the Detroit Tigers. He would have carried this story to his grave had Anne not discovered his scrapbook from a Navy school that shaped America's greatest heroes including George H. W. Bush, Gerald Ford, John Glenn, and Paul "Bear" Bryant. With the help of rare images and insights from World War II baseball veterans such as Dr. Bobby Brown and Eddie Robinson, the story of this remarkable team is brought to life for the first time in The Cloudbuster Nine: The Untold Story of Ted Williams and the Baseball Team That Helped Win World War II.

Download or read book Core Four written by Phil Pepe and published by Triumph Books. This book was released on 2014-04-01 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tracing the careers of four instrumental players who turned around the Yankees ball club, this book shares behind-the-scenes stories from their early days together in the minors through the 2013 season, and follows them on their majestic ride to the top of the baseball world. At a time when the New York Yankees were in free fall, having failed to win a World Series in 17 years and had not played in one in 14 years—the Bronx Bombers' longest drought since before the days of Babe Ruth—along came four young players whose powerful impact returned the franchise to its former glory. They were a diverse group from different parts of the globe: Mariano Rivera, a right-handed pitcher from Panama, who was destined to become the all-time record holder in saves and baseball's greatest closer; Derek Jeter, a shortstop raised in Kalamazoo, Michigan, who would become the first Yankee to accumulate 3,000 hits; Jorge Posada, an infielder-turned-catcher from Puerto Rico, who would hit more home runs than any Yankees catcher except the legendary Hall of Famer Yogi Berra; and Andy Pettitte, a left-handed pitcher born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who would win more postseason games than any player in baseball history. Together they formed the “Core Four,” and would go on to play as teammates for 13 seasons during which time they would help the Yankees advance to the postseason 12 times, win the American League pennant seven times, and take home five World Series trophies. This book follows these phenoms from the minor leagues to the present, detailing their significant contributions to a winning major league franchise. This 2014 edition updates readers on Jeter's struggles with injuries and recovery, Rivera's final season, and Pettitte's and Jeter's plans moving forward.

Download or read book The Rifle written by Andrew Biggio and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It all started because of a rifle. The Rifle is an inspirational story and hero’s journey of a 28-year-old U.S. Marine, Andrew Biggio, who returned home from combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, full of questions about the price of war. He found answers from those who survived the costliest war of all -- WWII veterans. It began when Biggio bought a 1945 M1 Garand Rifle, the most common rifle used in WWII, to honor his great uncle, a U.S. Army soldier who died on the hills of the Italian countryside. When Biggio showed the gun to his neighbor, WWII veteran Corporal Joseph Drago, it unlocked memories Drago had kept unspoken for 50 years. On the spur of the moment, Biggio asked Drago to sign the rifle. Thus began this Marine’s mission to find as many WWII veterans as he could, get their signatures on the rifle, and document their stories. For two years, Biggio traveled across the country to interview America’s last-living WWII veterans. Each time he put the M1 Garand Rifle in their hands, their eyes lit up with memories triggered by holding the weapon that had been with them every step of the war. With each visit and every story told to Biggio, the veterans signed their names to the rifle. 96 signatures now cover that rifle, each a reminder of the price of war and the courage of our soldiers.

Download or read book Team Yankee written by Harold Coyle and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2016-09-09 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This revised and updated edition of the classic Cold War novel Team Yankee reminds us once again might have occurred had the United States and its Allies taken on the Russians in Europe, had cooler geopolitical heads not prevailed. For 45 years after World War II, East and West stood on the brink of war. When Nazi Germany was destroyed, it was evident that Russian tank armies had become supreme in Europe, but only in counterpart to US air power. In 1945 US and UK bombers sent a signal to the advancing Russians at Dresden to beware of what the Allies could do. Likewise when the Russians overran Berlin they sent a signal to the Allies what their land armies could accomplish. Thankfully the tense standoff continued on either side of the Iron Curtain for nearly half a century. During those years, however, the Allies beefed up their ground capability, while the Soviets increased their air capability, even as the new jet and missile age began (thanks much to captured German scientists on both sides). The focal point of conflict remained central Germany—specifically the flat plains of the Fulda Gap—through which the Russians could pour all the way to the Channel if the Allies proved unprepared (or unable) to stop them. Team Yankee posits a conflict that never happened, but which very well might have, and for which both sides prepared for decades. This former New York Times bestseller by Harold Coyle, now revised and expanded, presents a glimpse of what it would have been like for the Allied soldiers who would have had to meet a relentless onslaught of Soviet and Warsaw Pact divisions. It takes the view of a US tank commander, who is vastly outnumbered during the initial onslaught, as the Russians pull out all the cards learned in their successful war against Germany. Meantime Western Europe has to speculate behind its thin screen of armor whether the New World can once again assemble its main forces—or willpower—to rescue the bastions of democracy in time.

Download or read book The Samurai Way of Baseball written by Robert Whiting and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2005-04-06 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ichiro...Nomo...Hasegawa...Hideki Matsui...one by one they have come to America and made their mark as incredibly gifted and popular ballplayers. But this new wave of athlete-led by the sensational Ichiro Suzuki, whom many refer to as the best all-around player-is just the tip of a fascinating iceberg. Illuminating a deep and very different tradition of baseball, Whiting shows why more Japanese players will be coming to America...and how they will forever transform the way our game is played. Grandly entertaining and deeply revealing, The Samurai Way of Baseball is a classic book about sports, business, and stardom-in a world that is changing before our eyes.

Download or read book The Cubs Way written by Tom Verducci and published by Crown. This book was released on 2018-04-03 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times Bestseller With inside access and reporting, Sports Illustrated senior baseball writer and FOX Sports analyst Tom Verducci reveals how Theo Epstein and Joe Maddon built, led, and inspired the Chicago Cubs team that broke the longest championship drought in sports, chronicling their epic journey to become World Series champions. It took 108 years, but it really happened. The Chicago Cubs are once again World Series champions. How did a team composed of unknown, young players and supposedly washed-up veterans come together to break the Curse of the Billy Goat? Tom Verducci, twice named National Sportswriter of the Year and co-writer of The Yankee Years with Joe Torre, will have full access to team president Theo Epstein, manager Joe Maddon, and the players to tell the story of the Cubs' transformation from perennial underachievers to the best team in baseball. Beginning with Epstein's first year with the team in 2011, Verducci will show how Epstein went beyond "Moneyball" thinking to turn around the franchise. Leading the organization with a manual called "The Cubs Way," he focused on the mental side of the game as much as the physical, emphasizing chemistry as well as statistics. To accomplish his goal, Epstein needed manager Joe Maddon, an eccentric innovator, as his counterweight on the Cubs' bench. A man who encourages themed road trips and late-arrival game days to loosen up his team, Maddon mixed New Age thinking with Old School leadership to help his players find their edge. The Cubs Way takes readers behind the scenes, chronicling how key players like Rizzo, Russell, Lester, and Arrieta were deftly brought into the organization by Epstein and coached by Maddon to outperform expectations. Together, Epstein and Maddon proved that clubhouse culture is as important as on-base-percentage, and that intangible components like personality, vibe, and positive energy are necessary for a team to perform to their fullest potential. Verducci chronicles the playoff run that culminated in an instant classic Game Seven. He takes a broader look at the history of baseball in Chicago and the almost supernatural element to the team's repeated loses that kept fans suffering, but also served to strengthen their loyalty. The Cubs Way is a celebration of an iconic team and its journey to a World Championship that fans and readers will cherish for years to come.

Download or read book Till the End written by CC Sabathia and published by Random House Large Print. This book was released on 2021-07-20 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A raw, compelling memoir of baseball, family, fame, addiction, and recovery, by one of the most beloved baseball players of his generation “Beautifully rendered . . . Readers and fans will be rooting for him to enter the Hall of Fame and rooting even harder for him to stay sober.”—The Wall Street Journal How does it feel to be born with enormous gifts, in a life shadowed by tragedy? What does it mean when the gift that opens the world for us is not enough to stop us from losing the things we love? And what new gifts do we find in that loss? Baseball had been CC Sabathia’s life since he was a kid in gritty, baseball-obsessed Vallejo, California. He was a star by the time he was a preteen and a professional athlete when he was still a teenager. Everything he knew about how to be a person—an adult, a husband and father, a leader—he learned in rhythm with the baseball season, the every-fifth-day high-intensity spotlight of a starting pitcher, all while dealing with one of the sport’s most turbulent eras: racism in a sport with diminishing Black presence; the era of performance-enhancing drugs; and the increasing tension between high-value contracts and sports owners who moved players around like game pieces. But his biggest struggle was with his own body and mind: Buoyed his whole life by talent and a fiery competitive spirit, CC found himself dealing with the steady and eventually alarming breakdown of his own body and his growing addiction in a world that encouraged and enabled it. Till the End is the thrilling memoir of one of the most beloved players in the game, a veteran star of the sport’s marquee team during its latest championship era. It’s also a book about baseball—about the ins and outs of its most important and technical position and its evolution in this volatile era. But woven within it is the moving, universal story of resilience and mortality and discovering what matters.

Download or read book The Yogi Book written by Yogi Berra and published by Workman Publishing Company. This book was released on 2010-05-26 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Celebrate one of the greatest and most beloved baseball players who ever lived—and certainly the most quoted. The Yogi Book is the New York Times bestseller filled with Yogi Berra’s immortal sayings, plus photographs, a career timeline, and appreciations by some of his greatest fans, including Billy Crystal and Tim McCarver. Yogi Berra's gift for saying the smartest things in the funniest, most memorable ways has made him a legend. The Yogi Book brings all of his famous quotes together in one place—and even better, gives the story behind them. "It ain't over till it's over."—that’s Yogi's answer to a reporter when he was managing the Mets in July 1973, and they were nine games out of first place (not only quotable, but prophetic—they won the pennant). "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded."—Yogi's comment to Stan Musial and Joe Garagiola about Ruggeri's restaurant in St. Louis in 1959. "It gets late early out there."—Yogi describing how shadows crept across Yankee Stadium's left field during late autumn afternoons.

Download or read book Good Night Yankees written by Brad M. Epstein and published by . This book was released on 2014-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Good Night, Yankees follows in the long tradition of good night stories loved by children everywhere. Good Night, Yankees is an adorable illustrated bedtime story for every young Yankees fan. It's the day of the big game and "the Yankees are playing their biggest rival today, we'll be cheering for them to go all the way." Good Morning New York, good afternoon Yankees fans, good evening Yankees and good night everyone - the beautiful illustrations walk us through the big day until it's time to sleep, "good night to all the young Yankees fans too. All falling asleep dreaming of their Major League debut!". The illustrations are accurate to the team and stadium. Officially licensed by Major League Baseball.

Download or read book 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows written by Ai Weiwei and published by Crown. This book was released on 2022-09-13 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The “intimate and expansive” (Time) memoir of “one of the most important artists working in the world today” (Financial Times), telling a remarkable history of China over the last hundred years while also illuminating his artistic process “Poignant . . . An illuminating through-line emerges in the many parallels Ai traces between his life and his father’s.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time, BookPage, Booklist, Kirkus Reviews Once a close associate of Mao Zedong and the nation’s most celebrated poet, Ai Weiwei’s father, Ai Qing, was branded a rightist during the Cultural Revolution, and he and his family were banished to a desolate place known as “Little Siberia,” where Ai Qing was sentenced to hard labor cleaning public toilets. Ai Weiwei recounts his childhood in exile, and his difficult decision to leave his family to study art in America, where he befriended Allen Ginsberg and was inspired by Andy Warhol and the artworks of Marcel Duchamp. With candor and wit, he details his return to China and his rise from artistic unknown to art world superstar and international human rights activist—and how his work has been shaped by living under a totalitarian regime. Ai Weiwei’s sculptures and installations have been viewed by millions around the globe, and his architectural achievements include helping to design the iconic Bird’s Nest Olympic Stadium in Beijing. His political activism has long made him a target of the Chinese authorities, which culminated in months of secret detention without charge in 2011. Here, for the first time, Ai Weiwei explores the origins of his exceptional creativity and passionate political beliefs through his life story and that of his father, whose creativity was stifled. At once ambitious and intimate, Ai Weiwei’s 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows offers a deep understanding of the myriad forces that have shaped modern China, and serves as a timely reminder of the urgent need to protect freedom of expression.

Download or read book Pinstripe Empire written by Marty Appel and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2014-05-06 with total page 705 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive history of the world's greatest baseball team—with an all new afterword by the author.