Sports Baseball Biographies

Jim Morris is no stranger to big dreams. Since he was five years old, he passionately yearned to play baseball in the major leagues. However, despite all his hard work and determination, a series of unfortunate events and injuries scuttled his career before he was 25. Doctors told him he would never play again. Then at age 35 - after a string of highly implausible events and at an age when most players are retiring - Morris found himself on the mound as a relief pitcher for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

For his entire childhood, Jesse Cole dreamed of pitching in the Majors. Now, he has a life in baseball that only he could have imagined: he met the love of his life in the industry; they shaped Savannah, Georgia’s professional team into the league champion Savannah Bananas; and now the Bananas have restyled baseball itself into something all their own: Banana Ball.

Christy Mathewson was one of the most dominant pitchers ever to play baseball. Posthumously inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame as one of the “Five Immortals,” he was an unstoppable force on the mound, winning at least 22 games for 12 straight seasons and pitching three complete-game shutouts in the 1905 World Series. Pitching in a Pinch, his witty and digestible book of baseball insights, stories, and wisdom, was first published over a hundred years ago and presents listeners with Mathewson’s plainspoken perspective on the diamond of yore.

In this extraordinary autobiography, Felipe Alou tells of his real dream: to become a doctor. An uncle was funding his university education when an improbable turn of events intervened at the 1955 Pan American Games. There as a track and field athlete, Alou was pressed into service on the baseball field to replace a player sent home for disciplinary reasons. A scout noticed Alou and offered him two hundred pesos to sign a pro contract.

Like many American boys, Tony Barnette yearned to one day make it to “The Show,” playing baseball professionally. The Arizona State pitcher was drafted in 2006 by the in-state Diamondbacks. Gradually ascending the minor-league ladder, it looked like this was the beginning of a blessed life, where he could play the game he loved on the grandest of stages. But things don’t always work out the way we want. On the verge of achieving his lifelong dream after notching a league-high 14 wins in Triple A, Tony looked ahead to 2010 with optimism. That’s when Japan came calling.

As the next generation of baseball superstars cement themselves, Ohtani, who can pitch a 100mph fastball and was a Top 3 home run leader at the end of the season, stands out amongst them all. Major League Baseball has found the new face of the sport. In Sho-time, Jeff Fletcher examines the player’s path from his early days in Japan, his transition to the MLB, and a start-to-finish inside look at his historic 2021 MVP season.

Josh Hamilton was the first player chosen in the first round of the 1999 baseball draft. He was destined to be one of those rare "high-character" superstars. But in 2001, working his way from the minors to the majors, all of the plans for Josh went off the rails in a moment of weakness. What followed was a four-year nightmare of drugs and alcohol, estrangement from friends and family, and his eventual suspension from baseball.

Learn the inspiring story of the Seattle Mariners and Cincinnati Reds' legendary outfielder Ken Griffey Jr.! One of the many riveting listens in the Baseball Biography books series by Clayton Geoffreys. In Ken Griffey Jr.: The Inspiring Story of One of Baseball's Greatest Outfielders, you will learn the story of one of baseball's greatest outfielders, Ken Griffey Jr.

Dale Scott's career as a professional baseball umpire spanned nearly forty years, including thirty-three in the Major Leagues, from 1985 to 2017. He worked exactly a thousand games behind the plate, calling balls and strikes at the pinnacle of his profession, working in every Major League Baseball stadium, and interacting with dozens of other top-flight umpires, colorful managers, and hundreds of players. What makes Scott's book truly different is his unique perspective as the only umpire in the history of professional baseball to come out as gay during his career.

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.

An ex-Wall Street trader improved on Moneyball’s famed sabermetrics to place bets that would beat the Vegas odds on Major League Baseball games - with a 41 percent return in his first year. Trading Bases explains how he did it. After the fall of Lehman Brothers, Joe Peta was out of a job. He found a new one but lost that, too, when an ambulance mowed him down. In search of a way to cheer himself up while he recuperated, Peta started watching baseball again. That’s when inspiration hit: Why not apply his outstanding risk-analysis skills to improve on sabermetrics, the method made famous by Moneyball?

Weaving baseball history with personal memoir, this book is one that will make you thrill to victory, believe in hope, stand up to cheer for what is good in peoples' lives. It's a powerful story of redemption and faith that reminds us that God can work in our lives even when we think it's too late to change - and sometimes he sends us signs from heaven if we only have eyes to see.

> The Glass Castle meets Ball Four as Mets knuckleballer R. A. Dickey weaves searing honesty and baseball insight in this memoir about his unlikely journey to the big leagues. An English Lit major at the University of Tennessee, Dickey is as articulate and thoughtful as any professional athlete in any sport - and proves it page after page, as he provides fresh and honest insight into baseball and a career unlike any other.

Boston Globe sports columnist Dan Shaughnessy traces the bewitching story of the curse that has lain over the Red Sox since they sold Babe Ruth to the hated Yankees in 1920. He sheds light on classic Sox debacles, from Johnny Pesky's so-called hesitation throw to the horrifying dribbler that slithered between Bill Buckner's legs. Lively and filled with anecdotes, this is baseball folklore at its best.

Lou Gehrig was the Iron Horse, baseball's strongest and most determined superstar, struck down in his prime by a disease that now bears his name. But who was Lou Gehrig, really? Lou Gehrig is regarded as the greatest first baseman in baseball history. Shy and socially awkward, Gehrig was a misfit on a Yankee team that included drinkers and hell-raisers, most notably Babe Ruth.

Till the End is the thrilling memoir of one of the most beloved players in the game, a veteran star of the sport’s marquee team during its latest championship era. It’s also a book about baseball - about the ins and outs of its most important and technical position and its evolution in this volatile era. But woven within it is the moving, universal story of resilience and mortality and discovering what matters.

Outfielder Christian Yelich joined Little League when he was four and never stopped playing. From traveling teams when he was young to being drafted as a professional player, baseball was a priority for Yelich. He was named the National League’s MVP in 2018.

Drawing on more than 500 interviews with friends and family, teammates, and opponents, she delivers the definitive account of Mantle's life, mining the mythology of The Mick for the true story of a luminous and illustrious talent with an achingly damaged soul.

Learn the inspiring story of the Seattle Mariners' Legendary outfielder Ichiro Suzuki! In Ichiro Suzuki: The Inspiring Story of One of Baseball’s Greatest Outfielders, you will learn the story of one of baseball's greatest outfielders, Ichiro Suzuki. Suzuki accomplished a lot over the course of his career, playing the bulk of it for the Seattle Mariners before spending some time with the New York Yankees and the Miami Marlins and then retiring a Mariner. This baseball audiobook explores what makes Ichiro Suzuki great and what we can learn from his hard work.

Mookie Betts started playing baseball as a child and has never looked back. Betts made his major-league baseball debut in 2014. In 2018, he won the American League MVP award and helped lead the Red Sox to a World Series win.