When Rube Foster was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981, his rightful place alongside baseball's greatest black heroes was at last firmly established. A world-class pitcher, a formidable manager, and a brilliant administrator, Rube Foster was arguably more influential in breaking down the color barrier in major league baseball than the venerable Jackie Robinson.Born in 1879, Rube Foster pitched for the legendary black baseball teamsthe Cuban X-Giants and the Ph...

The definitive account of the life and tragic death of baseball legend Lou Gehrig.Lou Gehrig was a baseball legend—the Iron Horse, the stoic New York Yankee who was the greatest first baseman in history, a man whose consecutive-games streak was ended by a horrible disease that now bears his name. But as this definitive new biography makes clear, Gehrig’s life was more complicated—and, perhaps, even more heroic—than anyone really knew.Drawing on new intervie...

A first-person account of the 1975 Major League Baseball season—the last year before free agency took over and changed the national pastime forever."One of the funniest baseball books I've ever read—who knew that a baseball beat writer could be so funny and clever!" —Bill Madden, New York Daily NewsIn The Last Real Season, Mike Shropshire captures the essence of a different time and place in baseball, whe...

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 ...

Casey Award Winner: "Follows seven Dodgers, including Sandy Koufax, through the 1960s, telling a story about baseball and about larger cultural changes." — The New York Times Book ReviewWinner, Casey Award for Best Baseball Book of the YearFinalist, PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports WritingMaury Wills, Sandy Koufax, Wes Parker, Jeff Torborg, Dick Tracewski, and Tommy Davis encapsulated 1960s America: white and black, Jewish ...

As part of the acclaimed Sports Virtues series, Lou Gehrig: Appreciation discusses the struggles and triumphs of Lou Gehrig's life. As with each story in the Sports Virtues series, this book assigns a virtue to a celebrated athlete or coach, and uses that person's story to help the reader achieve that virtue for him or herself.What emerges after reading these stories is not only a greater understanding and appreciation of the virtues that these icons needed to get through ...

A first-hand account of the golden era of baseball from Jackie Robinson’s friend, former teammate and featured player in the 2013 biopic "42."Ralph Branca is best known for throwing the pitch that resulted in Bobby Thomson’s “Shot Heard ’Round the World,” the historic home run that capped an incredible comeback and won the pennant for the New York Giants in 1951. Branca was on the losing end of what many consider to be baseball’s most thrilling moment, but that not...

In Juicing the Game, award-winning journalist Howard Bryant offers the only big-picture look at the insidious manner in which performance-enhancing drugs infested baseball as the game’s leaders stood idly by, reaping the rewards.Combining hard-hitting investigative journalism with interviews with baseball heavyweights such as Jason Giambi, Commissioner Bud Selig, union head Donald Fehr, and Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson among many others, Juicing the Game is the de...

Do you think you have what it takes to be a Major League umpire? Well, now you can test your knowledge of the game with Wayne Stewart’s You’re the Umpire.Divided into three sections, this unusual handbook offers Routine Calls, which deal with scenarios and rules that typically come up in games and deal with clear cut rules-fair and foul, strike zone questions, and the like. The next section, Basic Situations, deals with umpiring matters and rules that are just a bit more u...

It’s What’s Inside the Lines That Counts brings together ballplayers, managers, an umpire, and the first head of the players’ union to describe the momentous changes to the game that took place in the 1970s and 1980s. Former MLB commissioner Fay Vincent draws from his ongoing oral history of the game to celebrate the era that spans the Miracle Mets through free agency to Cal Ripken’s historic consecutive-games streak.Willie McCovey remembers meeting the Gi...

The only book of its kind to tell the history of baseball, from its inception to the present day, through 100 key objects that represent the major milestones, evolutionary events, and larger-than-life personalities that make up the gameA History of Baseball in 100 Objects is a visual and historical record of the game as told through essential documents, letters, photographs, equipment, memorabilia, food and drink, merchandise and media items, and relics of ...

" Field of Dreams was only superficially about baseball. It was really about life. So is The Baseball Whisperer . . . with the added advantage of being all true." —MLB.comFrom an award-winning journalist, this is the story of a legendary coach and the professional-caliber baseball program he built in America's heartland, where boys would come summer after summer to be molded into ballplayers—and men.Clarinda, Iowa, population 5,000, sits t...