This volume, formatted to current ebook standards and with an active table of contents, contains three complete books that provide an inside view of early baseball. Two of the authors are members of the Baseball Hall of Fame.Works included are:“Pitching in a Pinch,” by Christy Mathewson“A Ball Player’s Career,” by Adrian C. (Cap) Anson”Base-Ball: How to Become a Player,” by John Montgomery Ward

Bryce Harper's unprecedented ascent to the major leagues, from a 17-year-old first overall draft pick to a headline-creating, 19-year-old rookie center fielder for the Washington Nationals, dropped him into the middle of the best season of D.C. baseball since the Great Depression. Washington Post sports reporters chronicled each moment on and off the field, from his first press conference in Washington, to watching him wash dishes after dinner at his parents' house, to his debut at Dodger ...

Today the baseball catcher is a familiar but uninspiring figure. Decked out in the so-called tools of ignorance, he stolidly goes about his duty without attracting much attention. But it wasn't always that way, as Peter Morris shows in this lively and original study. In baseball's early days, catchers stood a safe distance behind the batter. Then the introduction of the curveball in the 1870s led them to move up directly behind home plate, even though they still wore no gloves or protectiv...

The man Newsweek once called "the guru of baseball" offers profiles of top managers, sidebars, statistics, and snapshots of each decade.Widely considered to be one of the greatest minds in the history of the game, Bill James has changed the way we think about the sport of baseball. In this chronicle of field generals, strategists, and occasional cannon fodder, James writes with piercing insight about the men who hold what may be the most important spot in ...

Funny, moving, and each one a diamond in the rough of the American consciousness, the essays in this book are the ultimate baseball conversation that pays homage to the perfect sport, in this perfect companion for all our personal baseball journeys.For some people baseball means a memory-of a certain dusty ball field on a certain summer day, or the first time they walked into a major league park and saw the perfect emerald playing field. For some, baseball means on...

Love ’em or hate ’em, the New York Yankees have long been a dominating presence on the baseball diamond for decades. And everyone has something to say about them, especially some of the franchise’s own sages, like Casey Stengel, who “couldn’t have done it without my players.” Or the inimitable Yogi Berra, quoted so often that he felt compelled to say, “I didn’t really say everything I said.” From Stengel and Berra and Babe Ruth to Mickey Mantle, Lou Gehrig, and Reggie Jackson, the Yankees ...

THE MAN WHO BATTED A THOUSAND A spectacular major-league debut—then obscurity. On the final day of the 1963 major-league baseball season, Houston Colt .45s teen sensation John Paciorek—in his one and only big-league game—went three-for-three, giving him a career batting average of 1.000. He also notched three RBI and scored four times. In the outfield John played magnificently, cleanly fielding all four balls hit to him. His was, truly, a perfect game—the most ...

From its winners to its sinners, two bestselling sportswriters chronicle a dizzying trip through more than a century of baseball lore and legend.Some of the stories are celebrated—from Ruth's called shot to DiMaggio's streak to Mays's catch. Some of the men are titans of the game—Mantle, Williams, Koufax. But alongside those stories passed from generation to generation, Daniel Okrent and Steve Wulf have assembled tales both hard-to-believe and a pleasure to read. F...

The closer is the ace reliever who specializes in closing out the game without surrendering the lead. Facing a power hitter in the ninth inning with a man on base and no outs takes nerves of steel. The pressure on the mound is intense. It takes a special breed to hold it together in these situations. Legendary manager Tony LaRusso said "Sure, games can get away from you in the seventh and eighth, but those last three outs in the ninth are the toughest."It wasn't until the creation ...

Casey Award Winner for Best Baseball Book of the Year: "Deep knowledge and punchy prose . . . a treat for dedicated fans." — Publishers WeeklyOn September 8, 2017, the Oakland A's faced off against the Houston Astros in a game that would signal the passing of the Moneyball mantle. Though it was only one regular-season game, the match-up demonstrated how Major League Baseball had changed since the early days of Athletics general manager Billy Beane and the p...

The inside story of Hank Aaron's chase for the home run record, repackaged and with a foreword by Bob Costas and new material from the Plimpton Archives.In One For the Record, George Plimpton recounts Hank Aaron's thrilling race to become the new home run champion. Amidst media frenzy and death threats, Aaron sought to beat Babe Ruth's record. In 1974, he finally succeeded.A fascinating examination of the psychology of baseball players, One For t...

Everything seemed to be going the Phillies’ way. Up by 6 1/2 games with just 12 left to play in the 1964 season, they appeared to have clinched their first pennant in more than a decade. Outfielder Johnny Callison narrowly missed being the National League MVP. Third baseman Richie Allen was Rookie of the Year. But the "Fightin’ Phils" didn’t make it to the postseason—they lost 10 straight and finished a game behind the St. Louis Cardinals. Besides engineering the greatest collapse of any t...