For twenty-five years, Ken Kaiser was the most colorful umpire in the major leagues. Planet of the Umps is his sidesplitting tale of life behind the plate."Two things nobody wants to grow up to be are an umpire and broke. Thanks to my career in baseball, I got both."After calling balls, strikes, and outs for thirty-six baseball seasons and more than three thousand major-league games, umpire Ken Kaiser finally called it a career. From the first day ...

An insider’s look at baseball’s unwritten rules, explained with examples from the game’s most fascinating characters and wildest historical moments.Everyone knows that baseball is a game of intricate regulations, but it turns out to be even more complicated than we realize. All aspects of baseball—hitting, pitching, and baserunning—are affected by the Code, a set of unwritten rules that governs the Major League game. Some of these rules are openly discussed (don’t steal a ...

The Toronto Blue Jays pitcher recounts his fateful season of injury, rehab, and reinvention in a memoir by “the best writer in a baseball uniform” (Tyler Kepner, The New York Times).After nearly a decade in the minors, Dirk Hayhurst defied the odds to climb onto the pitcher's mound for the Toronto Blue Jays. Newly married, with a big league paycheck and a brand new house, Hayhurst was ready for a great season in the Bigs.Then fate delivered a crush...

Zack Hample's bestselling, smart, and funny fan’s guide to baseball explains the ins and outs of pitching, hitting, running, and fielding, while offering insider trivia and anecdotes that will appeal to anyone—whether you're a major league couch potato, life-long season ticket-holder, or a beginner.• What is the difference between a slider and a curveball?• At which stadium did “The Wave” first make an appearance?

From beanballs to basebrawls, the most important rules governing the game of baseball have never been officially written down—until now.They have no sanction from the Commissioner, appear nowhere in any official publication, and are generally not posted on any clubhouse wall. They represent a set of time-honored customs, rituals, and good manners that show a respect for the game, one's teammates, and one's opponents. Sometimes they contradict the official rulebook. The fans general...

From the humble heights of a Class-A pitcher's mound to the deflating lows of sleeping on his gun-toting grandmother's air mattress, veteran reliever Dirk Hayhurst steps out of the bullpen to deliver the best pitch of his career--a raw, unflinching and surprisingly moving account of his life in the minors.I enjoyed the visualizations, maybe a little too much, and would stop only when I felt I'd centered myself. . .or after one of my teammates hit me in the nuts with the rosin b...

From one of Canada's top baseball writers and radio hosts: a retrospective of the Toronto Blue Jays on the 20th anniversary of Joe Carter's World Series-winning home run--and a look ahead to what promises to be their most successful season since. A must-have for all Blue Jays fans, and a great read for Toronto and Canadian sports fans in general.In Full Count, Jeff Blair takes us back to the days when the Toronto Blue Jays were "the Cadillac of franchises," and shows us ex...

The return of a sports classic with a new foreword by the authorFinally back in print after many years, here is Bill Lee’s classic tale of his renegade life on and off the mound. Whether walking out on the Montreal Expos to protest the release of a valued teammate or telling sportswriters eager for candid and offbeat comments more about the game than his bosses wanted anyone to know, pitcher Bill “Spaceman” Lee became celebrated as much for his rebellious personality as for his rem...

St. Louis Cardinals manager Mike Matheny's New York Times bestselling manifesto about what parents, coaches, and athletes get wrong about sports; what we can do better; and how sports can teach eight keys to success in sports and life.Mike Matheny was just forty-one, without professional managerial experience and looking for a next step after a successful career as a Major League catcher, when he succeeded the legendary Tony La Russa as manager of the St. ...

The decline and fall of the Montreal Expos. In 1969 the Montreal Expos played their first game. Thirty-two years later the team that once boasted baseball’s best farm system is nearly dead. In this book former Expos president Claude Brochu gets to the bottom of the Expos’ story. From his successful marketing career at Seagram’s Claude Brochu was thrust into the role of Expos president in 1986. Back then the Expos were a team with terrific potential. But as the years went by attendance bega...

There are very few major personalities in the world of sports who have so much to say about our National Pastime. And even fewer who are as well respected as Bill White.Bill White, who's now in his mid 70s, was an All-Star first baseman for many years with the New York Giants, St.Louis Cardinals and Philadelphia Phillies before launching a stellar broadcasting career with the New York Yankees for 18 years. He left the broadcast booth to become the President of the National League f...

"John's Book looks at Baseball, and its two most precious elements of Batting and Throwing, from the multiple standpoints of the 'superficially' physical and mental; from the 'meta-physically' scientific; and from the 'all-inclusiveness' of Spirituality. Therefore, Baseball's most enduring and endearing attributes can be perceived on multiple levels of conscious awareness, and thus arouse the 'dormant understanding' of all enthusiastic fanfare to more than just the mundane interests of the...