“Allen Barra brings a legendary figure from the true golden age of baseball to life.”—Bob CostasYogi Berra is one of the most popular former athletes in American history, and the most quoted American since Abraham Lincoln. Part clown, part feisty competitor, Berra is also the winningest player (fourteen pennants, ten World Series, 3 MVPs) in baseball history. In this revelatory biography, Allen Barra presents Yogi’s remarkable life as never seen before with nearly ...

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,...

Sports expert Allen Barra's Clearing the Bases takes you to the heart of baseball's ultimate question in this, the ultimate baseball debate book, one guaranteed to spark thousands of heated arguments and supply the fuel for thousands more.Who was better, Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays? Who was the best right-hander of the '60s, Bob Gibson or Juan Marichal? Who is the greatest starting pitcher of all time? At his peak, who was more valuable, Joe DiMaggio or T...

The explosive biography of the greatest college football coach in history.When Paul William "Bear" Bryant died on January 26, 1983, it was the lead story on the all three networks' evening news. New York City newspapers reported his death on their front pages. Three days later, America watched in awe as an estimated quarter of a million mourners lined the fifty-five mile stretch from Tuscaloosa to a Birmingham cemetery to pay their respects as his three-mile long f...

The extraordinary social history of Rickwood Field becomes the story of baseball itself, gloriously evoked for the centennial of America’s oldest ballpark.While America has changed dramatically over the last hundred years, Rickwood Field, the pride of Birmingham, Alabama, has remained fixed in time. Best-selling baseball writer Allen Barra journeyed to his native Alabama to capture the glories of a century of baseball lore. In chronicling the history of Rickwood Fi...

In a follow-up to his Clearing the BasesùSports IllustratedÆs book of the year for 2002ùsyndicated columnist Allen Barra turns his eye from AmericaÆs pastime to AmericaÆs passion. In this collection of essays, Barra delves into the gridironÆs all-time greats, some of the sportÆs enduring controversies, and suggests new ways to think about the game that holds our attention from August through January, every year.Barra turns his aggressively intelligent writing to the ...

Allen Barra is a contributing editor of American Heritage magazine and a widely acclaimed sportswriter. In Mickey and Willie, Barra reveals the surprising commonalities of two of the most heralded baseball players of the 20th century. Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays had vastly different backgrounds. But when it came to baseball, they possessed surprisingly similar athletic abilities, played the same position, and shared a close friendship unknown to many.

Dramatic accounts of every University of Alabama National Championship football season recounted by noted sports writers, players, and Alabamians.Dating back to 1925, when Wallace Wade coached the Crimson Tide to an undefeated season and earned a spot in the Rose Bowl, the driving goal of every University of Alabama football season has been a national championship. A winning team surfaced that very next year, when Hoyt “Wu” Winslett’s squad sealed the national cham...