When the South bombarded Fort Sumter in April 1861, the Ellithorpe family in rural New York answered President Lincoln’s call to defend the Union. For the next four years, the two Ellithorpe brothers and two of their brothers-in-law fought in some of the Civil War’s most storied regiments, on nearly every major battlefield in the East. In this utterly unique Civil War history/biography, John A. Simpson reconstructs the intertwined lives and wars of four Union soldiers, from Bull Run to Get...

A strong-armed devastating spitball pitcher from rural Tennessee who once won 16 games with the Boston Braves, Hub Perdue is better remembered today as one of the clown princes of the Deadball Era. Often compared with fellow player-comedians Germany Schaefer, Nick Altrock, and Rabbit Maranville, Perdue had a quick wit and a rebellious streak that amused teammates but sometimes led to conflicts with management and umpires. ("Mix 'em up!" manager George Stallings had told him, encouraging th...

Pete Rose holds more Major League Baseball records than any other player in history. He stands alone as baseball's hit king having shattered the previously "unbreakable" record held by Ty Cobb. He is a blue-collar hero with the kind of old-fashioned work ethic that turned great talent into legendary accomplishments.Pete Rose is also a lifelong gambler and a sufferer of oppositional defiant disorder. For the past 13 years, he has been banned from baseball and barred from his rightfu...

Acclaimed sportswriter Allen Barra exposes the uncanny parallels--and lifelong friendship--between two of the greatest baseball players ever to take the field.Culturally, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays were light-years apart. Yet they were nearly the same age and almost the same size, and they came to New York at the same time. They possessed virtually the same talents and played the same position. They were both products of generations of baseball-playing families,...

BLOOPER: BALL SQUIRTS THROUGH BILLY BUCKNER'S LEGS.BLUNDER: BILLY BUCKNER'S MANAGER LEFT HIM IN THE GAME.Baseball bloopers are fun; they're funny, even. A pitcher slips on the mound and his pitch sails over the backstop. An infielder camps under a pop-up...and the ball lands ten feet away. An outfielder tosses a souvenir to a fan...but that was just the second out, and runners are circling the bases (and laughing). Without these moments, the highlight reels wouldn't...

"Shoeless" Joe Jackson was one of baseball's greatest hitters and most colorful players. Born Joseph Jefferson Wofford Jackson on July 16, 1888, in Pickens County, South Carolina, Jackson went to work in a textile mill when he was around six years old, and got his start in baseball playing for the Brandon Mill team at the age of 13 earning 2.50 a game. He emerged as the star of the team and a favorite of fans with his hitting and throwing abilities, and moved up to play in the Ca...

The year was 1979 and the fifteen teenagers on the Crenshaw High Cougars were the most talented team in the history of high school baseball. They were pure ballplayers, sluggers and sweet fielders who played with unbridled joy and breathtaking skill.The national press converged on Crenshaw. So many scouts gravitated to their games that they took up most of the seats in the bleachers. Even the Crenshaw ballfield was a sight to behold -- groomed by the players themselves, picked clea...

Test your knowledge with these hardball questions about your favorite team—all the sluggers, hurlers, and greatest moments in Atlanta Braves history … 51 questions to challenge the diehard Braves fan.

“Gorgeous George” Sisler, a left-handed first baseman, began his major-league baseball career in 1915 with the St. Louis Browns. During his sixteen years in the majors, he played with such baseball luminaries as Ty Cobb (who once called Sisler “the nearest thing to a perfect ballplayer”), Babe Ruth, and Rogers Hornsby. He was considered by these stars of the sport to be their equal, and Branch Rickey, one of baseball’s foremost innovators and talent scouts, once said that in 1922 Sisler wa...

Napoleon Lajoie was the sixth player, and the first second baseman, to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. During his career, which lasted from 1896 to 1916, he was regularly called the "King of Ballplayers" and was widely regarded as the greatest baseball player of all time before Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth came along. Colorful, competitive, and often unpredictable, Lajoie was so popular that the Cleveland team was called the Naps in his honor while he played for them. He was a multiple b...

Eddie Robinson’s career lasted sixty-five years and spanned the era before and during World War II, integration, the organization of the players union, expansion, use of artificial turf, free agency, labor stoppages, and even the steroid era. He was a Minor League player, a Major League player, a coach, a farm director, a general manager, a scout, and a consultant. During his six and a half decades in baseball, he knew, played with or against, or worked for or with many of baseball’s great...

The New York Giants have sent more men to the Baseball Hall of Fame than any other team, a distinction that only begins to hint at the place this storied franchise holds in the long history of America�s national pastime. Between 1883 and 1957, a span of 75 summers, the Giants were one of professional sports� great dynasties. Aside from the17 National League pennants and 8 world pennants the team won during this period, there were the unique personalities and imperishable moments that remai...