Major league baseball's first Ambassador for Inclusion shares "a passionate memoir of the challenges [he] faced as a closeted gay athlete" ( Sports Illustrated).With a relentless work ethic, exceptional talent, and a quick left-handed swing, Billy Bean made it to the majors, where he played from 1987 to 1995—an outfielder for the Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Dodgers, and San Diego Padres. But as a gay man in the brutally homophobic world of professional bas...

This book tells the true story of how our family was torn apart by harassment from our next-door neighbors and their associates. The harassment included assaults, death threats, threats to burn down our house, false accusations to the police, and malicious communications, including allegations of paedophilia. It explores how such harassment can spread within a community when the police fail to address it early on. The book also details the intentional failure of our local police force to p...

Dale Scott’s career as a professional baseball umpire spanned nearly forty years, including thirty-three in the Major Leagues, from 1985 to 2017. He worked exactly a thousand games behind the plate, calling balls and strikes at the pinnacle of his profession, working in every Major League Baseball stadium, and interacting with dozens of other top-flight umpires, colorful managers, and hundreds of players, from future Hall of Famers to one-game wonders.Scott has enough stories about...

A Human, Then A Building, Now A Rising StockBy: Billy BeansA Human, Then a Building, Now a Rising Stock follows the author’s journey through turmoil following the loss of his brother. This account chronicles the far-reaching damage and suffering felt by him and his family. Repeatedly seeing the person he believed responsible for his brother’s death exacerbated a destructive path for the author, leading to alcohol addiction and criminal actions to deal with the anger and hur...

An autobiographical story of the too frequent lows and at times seemingly unachievable highs of surviving addiction.I was finally stabilized, it was time to leave my home in North Dakota and travel cross country. But the relapses kept hitting including in Alabama, Florida, and Las Vegas. Will stability be possible or will the history of addiction win?There are happy points in my journey: meeting previously unknown family, gainful employment, and revisiting a lost love. Howe...

Dale Scott's career as a professional baseball umpire spanned nearly forty years, including thirty-three in the Major Leagues, from 1985 to 2017. He worked exactly a thousand games behind the plate, calling balls and strikes at the pinnacle of his profession, working in every Major League Baseball stadium, and interacting with dozens of other top-flight umpires, colorful managers, and hundreds of players.What makes Scott's book truly different is his unique perspective as the only ...

The incredible inside story of power, money, and some of the most important moments in the history of baseball.In the fall of 1992, America's National Pastime is in crisis and already on the path to the unthinkable: cancelling a World Series for the first time in history. The owners are at war with each other, their decades-long battle with the players has turned America against both sides, and the players' growing addiction to steroids will threaten the game's ver...

The Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times– bestselling journalist "has given [Williams, Pesky, DiMaggio, and Doerr] a glorious, flaming autumnal epilogue" ( Time ).More than 6 years after his death David Halberstam remains one of this country's most respected journalists and revered authorities on American life and history in the years since WWII. A Pulitzer Prize-winner for his...

What happens when three financial industry whiz kids and certified baseball nuts take over an ailing major league franchise and implement the same strategies that fueled their success on Wall Street? In the case of the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays, an American League championship happens—the culmination of one of the greatest turnarounds in baseball history.In The Extra 2%, financial journalist and sportswriter Jonah Keri chronicles the remarkable story of one team’s Cinderella jou...

**Winner of The Saroyan International Prize for Writing, the John Burroughs Medal, and the National Outdoor Book Award in Natural History Literature“Brilliant.” —The New York Review of Books**“Exquisite.” —The Huffington Post“Magical.” —Minneapolis Star TribuneIn a work that beautifully demonstrates the rewards of closely observing nature, Elisabeth Tova Bailey shares an inspiring and intimate story of her encounter ...

Herman "Hank" Fins-Winston was a pro golfer destined for greatness. Now he lives in a condominium on the thirteenth fairway of one of heaven's glorious courses – a fact he finds surprising and amusing, since for one reason or another, a fair percentage of golfers never make it to paradise. Hank is having the time of his afterlife until he's summoned one idyllic morning to play a round with the Almighty. It seems that God is having some trouble with His game. As they play the heavenly cours...

"Brilliant . . . Larry Brown has slapped his own fresh tattoo on the big right arm of Southern Lit." — The Washington Post Book WorldNow a major motion picture starring Nicolas Cage, directed by David Gordon Green.Joe Ransom is a hard-drinking ex-con pushing fifty who just won't slow down--not in his pickup, not with a gun, and certainly not with women. Gary Jones estimates his own age to be about fifteen. Born luckless, he is the son of a hopeless,...