Download or read book Where Nobody Knows Your Name written by John Feinstein and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2015-03-17 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Minor league baseball is quintessentially American: small towns, small stadiums, $5 tickets, $2 hot dogs, the never-ending possibility of making it big. But looming above it all is always the real deal: Major League Baseball. John Feinstein takes the reader behind the curtain into the guarded world of the minor leagues, like no other writer can. Where Nobody Knows Your Name explores the trials and travails of the inhabitants of Triple-A, focusing on nine men, including players, managers and umpires, among many colorful characters, living on the cusp of the dream. The book tells the stories of former World Series hero Scott Podsednik, giving it one more shot; Durham Bulls manager Charlie Montoya, shepherding generations across the line; and designated hitter Jon Lindsey, a lifelong minor leaguer, waiting for his day to come. From Raleigh to Pawtucket, from Lehigh Valley to Indianapolis and beyond, this is an intimate and exciting look at life in the minor leagues, where you’re either waiting for the call or just passing through.
Download or read book Out Of My League A Rookie 39 s Survival in the Bigs written by Dirk Hayhurst and published by Citadel Press. This book was released on 2012-02 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a follow up to "The Bullpen Gospels," the author details his major league rookie season, revealing that for him, it isn't just about the game, but about the people and events in it.
Download or read book Odd Man Out written by Matt McCarthy and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009-02-19 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A hilairious inside baseball account of year in the minor leagues Odd Man Out captures the gritty essence of our national pastime as it is played outside the spotlight. Matt McCarthy, a decent left-handed starting pitcher on one of the worst squads in Yale history, earned a ticket to spring training as the twenty-sixth-round draft pick of the 2002 Anaheim Angels. This is the hilarious inside story of his year with the Provo Angels, Anaheim's minor league affiliate in the heart of Mormon country, as McCarthy navigates the ups and downs of an antic, grueling season, filled with cross-country bus trips, bizarre rivalries, and wild locker-room hijinks.
Download or read book Up from the Minor Leagues written by Donald Honig and published by . This book was released on 1970 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seven major league baseball players relate the trials and rewards of their minor league experiences that culminated in the thrill of being called to the majors.
Download or read book Gateway to the Majors Williamsport and Minor League Baseball written by and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although many people know Williamsport as the "birthplace of Little League Baseball, " it is also a city with a rich professional baseball tradition. Since the earliest days of the Pennsylvania State Association, professional minor league baseball has flourished in Williamsport, and hundreds of players and managers have passed through historic Bowman Field on their way to the major leagues, including Jim Bunning, Ferguson Jenkins, and Nolan Ryan. Gateway to the Majors is a comprehensive history of professional minor league baseball in Williamsport from the earliest days up to the present.The accompanying appendix of former Williamsport players who played in the Major Leagues is a valuable reference tool for baseball historians. In addition, this book illustrates how the city's relationship with baseball forged a distinct civic identity and national reputation as "Baseball Town, USA."
Download or read book Bluegrass Baseball written by Katya Cengel and published by University of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2012-07-15 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Forget the steroid-addled, overpaid, and unmotivated players: America’s pastime is still alive and well, and is still the heartfelt sport it’s always been—in the Minor Leagues. And nowhere is this truer than in Kentucky, whose rich baseball history continues to play out in the four teams profiled in this book. Following these teams through the 2010 season—the triumphs, struggles, and big league hopes and dreams—the book tells the larger story of baseball in America’s smaller venues, where the game in its purest form is still valued and warmly embraced. The story begins before the season with national-anthem singing tryouts in Lexington, then tags along with players, staffs, and fans at home, in the office, and on the field, offering a rare glimpse of the unglamorous reality of Minor League ball. From the front-office staff in Bowling Green planning kooky promotions, to a trainer grocery shopping for a team on forty dollars a day, to a new wife coming to terms with her husband’s transitory lifestyle, to a father struggling to make it back to the Majors and a Cuban defector blowing everyone away with a 100-mph-plus fastball these are the people who live to make baseball happen, in all its nitty-gritty glory. Purchase the audio edition.
Download or read book On the Way Up written by Dave Klein and published by Julian Messner. This book was released on 1977 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Depicts the life of ten onetime minor league baseball players who conquered the odds and became major league stars.
Download or read book The Greatest Minor League written by Dennis Snelling and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2011-10-14 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1903, a small league in California defied Organized Baseball by adding teams in Portland and Seattle to become the strongest minor league of the twentieth century. Calling itself the Pacific Coast League, this outlaw association frequently outdrew its major league counterparts and continued to challenge the authority of Organized Baseball until the majors expanded into California in 1958. The Pacific Coast League introduced the world to Joe, Vince and Dom DiMaggio, Paul and Lloyd Waner, Ted Williams, Tony Lazzeri, Lefty O'Doul, Mickey Cochrane, Bobby Doerr, and many other baseball stars, all of whom originally signed with PCL teams. This thorough history of the Pacific Coast League chronicles its foremost personalities, governance, and contentious relationship with the majors, proving that the history of the game involves far more than the happenings in the American and National leagues.
Download or read book Brushing Back Jim Crow written by Bruce Adelson and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Adelson interviews dozens of athletes, managers, and sportswriters to chronicle the social plight of the presence of African-American ballplayers in the minor leagues. 20 illustrations.
Download or read book The Call Up to the Majors written by Thomas A. Rhoads and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-03-28 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the unique relationships between professional baseball teams and the unique ways professional baseball leagues are organized in North America with a primary focus on how proximity can and does impact consumer demand. Perhaps more than any other matter that arises in the business of baseball, proximity to other professional baseball teams is a concern that has uniquely shaped professional baseball leagues in North America. It is this particular component in how professional baseball leagues are organized that suggests building a proximity-based approach to studying the economics of minor league baseball. This book opens up new ways to study minor league baseball, specifically, and sports leagues more generally. So even as advanced technology has eliminated some of the need for fans to be in close proximity to the teams they love to follow, there is still a need to understand more completely how proximity matters can impact the way professional baseball leagues are structured and how that structure can ultimately impact the quality of the games that entertain sports fans everywhere. This book will be of interest to both sports economists and practitioners.
Download or read book I Should Have Quit This Morning written by Kathy Diekroeger and published by . This book was released on 2019-04-08 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The road to Major League baseball goes through the minor leagues. Every year there are over 5,500 players trying to work their way to the top of the tiered minor league system. Very few people know what life is really like for these aspiring players -- until now. This collection of stories from actual minor league players is a hilarious, heartbreaking and honest account of the struggle to make it to the big leagues. In this book, you will learn: * How it feels to be the first pick in the MLB draft ("everyone started screaming") and how it feels for a player to not hear his name called at all ("Three days came and went and I didn't get picked.") * Why some players don't sign a minor league contract ("It was an unbelievably tough decision.") * Who the players meet when they show up as a rookie on day one ("It's a very rude awakening.") * Where players go in the off season ("You can make some serious dough in the Dominican and Venezuelan leagues.") *What Spring Training is like for minor leaguers ("The difference between big league camp and minor league camp is night and day.") * Where players live and how they eat ("I became a pro at cooking in the 'kitchen bathroom' in the hotel.") * Which minor league ballpark promotions the players enjoy the most ("It's time for Cowboy Monkey Rodeo!") * What really happens during road trips ("It was straight out of a horror movie.") * Why crazy things happen on the field ("Our manager stormed out there and just started unloading on the umpire.") * What it's like to get promoted, demoted and traded ("It was the first time I actually cried when someone got moved or traded.") * How players get released and how they make the decision to retire ("I remember everything about that last game.") * What it's like when players get the ultimate call up to the Major Leagues ("It was still during the game and everyone was like, 'Dude, go call your parents or something.")And so much more! Kathy Diekroeger has watched her three sons play over 2,100 baseball games. She stopped counting when two of them made it to professional baseball. After hearing stories about minor league life for four years, she felt compelled to document and share those experiences with anyone who considers themselves a fan of baseball. This is her first book
Download or read book Wild and Outside written by Stefan Fatsis and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2009-05-28 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At a time of despair about our national pastime, the Northern League of Professional Baseball is a beacon of hope - an independent league, unaffiliated with the majors, where the games are for the fans and not between the owners and players. In his memorable debut book, Stefan Fatsis takes you inside the Northern League, and in the process discovers how very much baseball still means to America. Commentator Peter Gammons calls the Northern League "the past and future of grassroots baseball in America." Revived in 1993 by a group of minor league executives fed up with the politics of their sport, it has restored baseball to six communities in the upper Midwest and Canada, which have embraced their teams with a fervor any major league team would envy. More than that, the league has breathed new life into a game that, at the major league level, has lost its way and abandoned its fans. The Northern League's startling success has inspired a movement that could, in time, change the face of baseball, as other independent leagues are forming rapidly in its wake. Wild and Outside tells the Northern League's story, from the events that created it through its tumultuous and triumphant second season. Fatsis writes with the authority of a trusted insider, having closely followed the league since its inception. The result is a book as rich in insights into baseball's problems as it is full of indelible portraits of the people who make the Northern League special; a book that blends the texture and history of grassroots baseball with the many dramas of the league's 1994 season.
Download or read book Where Nobody Knows Your Name written by John Feinstein and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2014-02-25 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the acclaimed #1 bestselling author . . . a riveting journey through the world of minor-league baseball “No one grows up playing baseball pretending that they’re pitching or hitting in Triple-A.” —Chris Schwinden, Triple-A pitcher “If you don’t like it here, do a better job.” —Ron Johnson, Triple-A manager John Feinstein gave readers an unprecedented view of the PGA Tour in A Good Walk Spoiled. He opened the door to an NCAA basketball locker room in his explosive bestseller A Season on the Brink. Now, turning his eye to our national pastime, sports journalist John Feinstein explores the colorful and mysterious world of minor-league baseball—a gateway through which all major-league players pass in their careers . . . hoping never to return. Baseball’s minor leagues are a paradox. For some players, the minors are a glorious launching pad toward years of fame and fortune; for others, a crash-landing pad when injury or poor play forces a big leaguer back to a life of obscure ballparks and cramped buses instead of Fenway Park and plush charter planes. Focusing exclusively on the Triple-A level, one step beneath Major League Baseball, Feinstein introduces readers to nine unique men: three pitchers, three position players, two managers, and an umpire. Through their compelling stories, Feinstein pulls back the veil on a league that is chock-full of gifted baseball players, managers, and umpires who are all one moment away from getting called up—or back—to the majors. The stories are hard to believe: a first-round draft pick and pitching ace who rocketed to major-league success before finding himself suddenly out of the game, hatching a presumptuous plan to get one more shot at the mound; a home run–hitting former World Series hero who lived the dream, then bounced among six teams before facing the prospects of an unceremonious end to his career; a big-league All-Star who, in the span of five months, went from being completely out of baseball to becoming a star in the ALDS, then signing a $10 million contract; and a well-liked designated hitter who toiled for eighteen seasons in the minors—a record he never wanted to set—before facing his final, highly emotional chance for a call-up to the big leagues. From Raleigh to Pawtucket, from Lehigh Valley to Indianapolis and beyond, Where Nobody Knows Your Name gives readers an intimate look at a baseball world not normally seen by the fans. John Feinstein gets to the heart of the human stories in a uniquely compelling way, crafting a masterful book that stands alongside his very best works.
Download or read book Minor Moments Major Memories written by Mark Leinweaver and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Baseball is pure and hope springs eternal.
Download or read book Baseball s Great Experiment written by Jules Tygiel and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1997 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers a history of African American exclusion from baseball, and assesses the changing racial attitudes that led up to Jackie Robinson's acceptance by the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Download or read book The 26th Man written by Steve Fireovid and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 1996-07-28 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The average major league player currently earns more than half a million dollars a season. But, only 25 players make the big team's roster. The 26th Man details the season-long journey of Steve Fireovid of the Triple A Indianapolis Indians, as he deals with the realities and the heartbreak of playing a kid's games well into his thirties.
Download or read book The Grand Minor League written by Dick Dobbins and published by Woodford Publishing. This book was released on 1999 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At one time, during the great migration of American to the West Coast, baseball in the old Pacific Coast League was seen as every bit as good as the brand of ball at the major league level. This was particularly true in the post-WWII era. For decades the PCL fed the majors with a steady stream of awesome talent -- great players like Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio, now ensconsed in the Baseball Hall of Fame. For many years there was not a major league roster without at least three or four former PCL players. And the old PCL was nothing if not colorful and glamorous. Stadia, uniforms, promotional innovations -- you name it -- the PCL set the standard for all of baseball. Baseball fans of all ages will love all the historical pictures and be enthralled reading about the likes of the Hollywood Stars, Los Angeles Angels, San Diego Padres, Vancouver Mounties, San Francisco Seals, Oakland Oaks, Portland Beavers, Mission Reds Francsico) and Seattle Raniers. It was a league for the young at heart, for true baseball fans, for people who loved their booming towns. There has never been a minor league like it. Indeed, it was "The Grand Minor League".
