Baseball Life

From his first day at boarding school, Toyo Shimada sees how upperclassmen make a sport out of terrorizing the first-years. Still, he's taken aback when the seniors keep him from trying out for the baseball team, especially after he sees their current shortstop. Toyo isn't afraid to prove himself; He's more troubled by his uncle's recent suicide. Although Uncle Koji's defiant death was supposedly heroic, it has made Toyo question many things about his family's samurai background.

When baseball fans voted on the top twenty-five players of the twentieth century in 1999, Stan Musial didn’t make the cut. This glaring omission—later rectified by a panel of experts—raised an important question: How could a first-ballot Hall of Famer, widely considered one of the greatest hitters in baseball history, still rank as the most underrated athlete of all time?

Eclipsing the traditional sports memoir, House of Nails, by former world champion, multimillionaire entrepreneur, and imprisoned felon Lenny Dykstra, spins a tragicomic tale of Shakespearean proportions - a relentlessly entertaining American epic that careens between the heights and the abyss. Nicknamed "Nails" for his hustle and grit, Lenny approached the game of baseball - and life - with mythic intensity.

Low broke Cage’s heart by getting with Marcus in Because of Low. Cage went into a tailspin that ended in a DUI. In order to salvage his baseball scholarship - the one thing he truly valued besides Low - Cage must take a summer job. At a farm. Away from Sea Breeze. With lots of cows, but no hot girls. Maybe that’s what Cage needs to get back on track. But wait - there’s that hostile daughter of the farm boss. She’s pretty and occasionally sweet, and there seems to be a lot of sadness and mystery behind her anger.

Jon Peters had it all: record-breaking high school baseball pitcher, on the cover of Sports Illustrated, a beautiful girlfriend. He was going to play professional baseball. He was going to have everything he'd ever wanted. Until a shoulder injury and four surgeries changed his life. With dreams shattered, Jon struggled to find value and happiness. After years of searching vainly to make sense of it all, alcohol, a suicide attempt, deep-seated anger, and a failed marriage made him feel even more desperate.

When Sylvester Coddmyer III meets a mysterious character named George Baruth, he goes from being a terrible hitter to the boy who only hits homers! But how will he answer some of the difficult questions that people start asking about his amazing new talent?

The only Major League ballplayer whose baseball card is on display at the headquarters of the CIA, Moe Berg has the singular distinction of having both a 15-year career as a catcher for such teams as the New York Robins and the Chicago White Sox and that of a spy for the OSS during World War II. Here, Dawidoff provides "a careful and sympathetic biography" ( Chicago Sun-Times) of this enigmatic man.

Instead of relying on hand-holding by costly medical or performance professionals, Dr. David Meyer PT, DPT, tells you how to save you time, money, agony, and, most importantly, to empower you to utilize a seemingly negative physical challenge as a massive opportunity to retrain your mind, body, and spirit to achieve your fullest potential both on and off the field. Working from the belief that you can learn what he has by taking the time to understand it, Dr. Meyer PT, DPT, offers you his extensive academic training and experience working in Major League Baseball.

In his third book on baseball, John Ritter takes the reader to Dillontown where, through a series of events, the fate of the town rests on the outcome of a baseball game. Tom and a newcomer, Cruz, convince a former Major-League Baseball player to coach the team. The team prepares for the big day by using unorthodox training methods. While the team wins the game, it still takes an unusual set of circumstances to save the town.

In this inventive, fast-paced novel, New York Times bestselling and Printz Award-winning author Paolo Bacigalupi takes on hard-hitting themes - from food safety to racism and immigration - and creates a zany, grand-slam adventure that will get kids thinking about where their food comes from. The zombie apocalypse begins on the day Rabi, Miguel, and Joe are practicing baseball near their town's local meatpacking plant and nearly get knocked out by a really big stink.

Along the way, listeners learn of a man once consumed by rage who learned, through time and practice, as well as the influence of several important mentors, to rein in his anger and use it to change the world. Though born in a sharecropper’s cabin, he corresponded with presidents. Growing up in the shadow of an Olympian older brother, he found his own place in the sun, and, more importantly, Jackie Robinson smoothed the journey to success for countless others.

They said it was the "Curse of the Bambino". They said "the bad guys won". Now one of baseball’s all-time good guys, New York Mets legend Mookie Wilson, tells his side of the story - from the ground ball through Bill Buckner’s legs that capped the miraculous 1986 World Series Game Six rally against the Boston Red Sox to the rise and fall of a team that boasted such outsize personalities as Darryl Strawberry, Keith Hernandez, Dwight Gooden, Gary Carter, Lenny Dykstra, and Davey Johnson.

In this first book in the semi-autobiographical middle grade series from MLB pitcher Marcus Stroman, a young baseball player learns that perfect games only come with a lot of practice—and some strikeouts. Young Marcus Stroman is determined to make it to the highest playing level he can, despite every coach telling him he’s not tall enough to become a “real” pitcher. He’ll show them…with some struggling and a whole lot of learning.

There's nothing like playing under a bright blue sky on a softball diamond. Find out everything you need to know for hitting one out of the park and turning double plays.

Ethan Bryan played and wrote about baseball for years. Then his daughters challenged him to set out on a yearlong experiment: to play catch with someone every day. This experience led him across 10 states and 12,000 miles on a quest both quixotic and inspiring. Taking you from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to the home of the Daytona Tortugas in Florida, Bryan played ball and swapped stories with public school teachers, veterans, journalists, nurses, musicians, entertainers, entrepreneurs, athletes from every level, and members of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.

The superbly researched, spellbindingly told story of athlete, showman, philosopher, and boundary breaker Leroy “Satchel” Paige. Few reliable records or news reports survive about players in the Negro Leagues. Through dogged detective work, award-winning author and journalist Larry Tye has tracked down the truth about this majestic and enigmatic pitcher, interviewing more than 200 Negro Leaguers and Major Leaguers, talking to family and friends who had never told their stories before, and retracing Paige’s steps across the continent.

In the 34 years since his retirement, Henry Aaron’s reputation has only grown in magnitude: He broke existing records (rbis, total bases, extra-base hits) and set new ones (hitting at least 30 home runs per season 15 times, becoming the first player in history to hammer 500 home runs and three thousand hits). But his influence extends beyond statistics, and at long last here is the first definitive biography of one of baseball’s immortal figures.

This journey, a four-part chronicle beginning with my freshman year and culminating with senior year, offers an insider's view into the life of a college athlete. As I share my experiences on the baseball diamond, in the classroom, and up in the dorm room, the entire college baseball experience comes to life.

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 crushing hit. Hayhurst blew out his pitching shoulder in an insane off-season workout program. After surgery, rehab, and more rehab, his major-league dreams seemed more distant than ever.

Willie Mays is arguably the greatest player in baseball history, still revered for the passion he brought to the game. He began as a teenager in the Negro Leagues, became a cult hero in New York, and was the headliner in Major League Baseball's bold expansion to California. He was a blend of power, speed, and stylistic bravado that enraptured fans for more than two decades. Now, James Hirsch reveals the man behind the player.