Sports Softball

Everyone knows that baseball is a game of intricate regulations, but it turns out to be even more complicated than we realize. What truly governs the Major League game is a set of unwritten rules, some of which are openly discussed (don’t steal a base with a big lead late in the game), and some of which only a minority of players are even aware of (don’t cross between the catcher and the pitcher on the way to the batter’s box).

Did a major-league pitcher really hit a bird with a fastball in the middle of a game? What did a goat have to do with the Chicago Cubs not winning a championship for more than 70 years? Did Babe Ruth really point toward center field just before hitting a big home run in the 1932 World Series? Prepare to uncover the real stories behind these and other great baseball myths and legends!

Join more than 145,000 players and coaches who have found playing heads-up baseball helps them overcome the failure, frustration, and fear the game throws at you each day and instead play with confidence, consistency, and composure under pressure. Talent, strength, and great mechanics don't matter if you can't compete in games. Developed by working with elite players and coaches over the past 40 years, the strategies and tools in this audiobook (an "upgrade" to the classic 1994 edition) arm you with the approach you need to find out how good you can be at baseball.

On and off the field, Jackie Robinson never backed down from a challenge. The baseball legend broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier in 1947, changing the sport forever. It was eight years later that a photo of him stealing home during the 1955 World Series became one of the most famous images from his historic career. The iconic photo of his daring base running seemed to sum up the way Robinson lived his life. He acted on his own, doing what he thought was right. He took risks. He used his talents the best way he knew how. And he made baseball - and the world - a better place.

Pete Rose is a legend. A baseball god. He compiled more hits than anyone in the history of baseball, a record he set decades ago that still stands today. He was a working-class white guy from Cincinnati who made it; less talented than tough, and rough around the edges. He was everything that America wanted and needed him to be, the American dream personified, until he wasn’t. Charlie Hustle tells the full story of one of America’s most epic tragedies—the rise and fall of Pete Rose.

The Oakland A's of the early 1970s were the most transformative team in baseball history. Never before had an entire organization so collectively traumatized baseball's establishment with its outlandish behavior and business decisions - or with its indisputable winning record: five straight division titles and three straight championships. The high drama that played out on the field was exceeded only by the drama in the clubhouse and front office.

The authors of the acclaimed and best-selling The Civil War, Jazz, and The War turn to another uniquely American phenomenon: baseball. Geoffrey C. Ward's and Ken Burns’s moving and fascinating history of the game goes beyond stolen bases, double plays, and home runs to demonstrate how baseball has been influenced by, and has in turn influenced, American life.

Baseball is “the New York game” because New York is where the diamond was first laid out, where the bunt and the curveball were invented, and where the home run was hit. It’s where the game’s first stars were born, and where everyone came to play or watch the game. With nuance and depth, historian Kevin Baker brings this all vividly back to life: the still-controversial, indelible moments—Did the Babe call his shot? Was Merkle out? Did they fix the 1919 World Series? Here are all the legendary players, managers, and owners, in all their vivid, complicated humanity, on and off the field.

A dramatic and revelatory account of Joe Torre’s 12 years as manager of the New York Yankees. Joe Torre is the most successful - and most respected - baseball manager of the modern era, steering the Yankees to six American League pennants and four World Series championships. When he left the team in 2007, it was front-page news around the country. Famously diplomatic during his tenure with the Yankees, Torre finally speaks out about what it was like building and managing the dynasty during those 12 glorious and tumultuous years.

How do you pick baseball’s GOATs? Is Sandy Koufax the greatest pitcher to take the mound? Is Ted Williams the greatest pure hitter the game has seen? It comes down to stats, history, and hunches.

Dating back to the Gas House Gang of the 1930s and up to the club’s most recent World Championship in 2006, being a Cardinal has meant a style of play, a level of dedication, and a pride in being a member of a special group. This newly updated edition of Game of My Life: St. Louis Cardinals exhibits not always the best game of someone’s career, but rather, the moment that stands out the most.

Step up to the plate as Detroit legends share their greatest stories—newly updated!The Detroit Tigers Old English "D" is one of the most recognized symbols in sports. Now fans of this indomitable franchise can relive the passion and excitement that has come to define the Tigers in this newly updated edition of Tales from the Detroit Tigers Dugout. Veteran sportswriter Jack Ebling brings to life four World Championships, five other World Series appearances, and so much more.

A Magic Summer tells of that remarkable season by chronicling the major events as viewed twenty years later. Interviews conducted twenty years after with members of the team - Seaver, Ryan, McGraw, and others - provide immediacy and, with that, fascinating updates and insights. This is a unique record and celebration of a season that Mets fans - and all baseball fans - will not soon forget.

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.

Yahoo's lead baseball columnist offers an in-depth look at the most valuable commodity in sports - the pitching arm - and how its vulnerability to injury is hurting players and the game, from Little League to the majors.

Ty Cobb is baseball royalty, maybe even the greatest player who ever lived. His lifetime batting average is still the highest of all time, and when he retired in 1928, after twenty-one years with the Detroit Tigers and two with the Philadelphia Athletics, he held more than ninety records. But the numbers don't tell half of Cobb's tale. The Georgia Peach was by far the most thrilling player of the era: "Ty Cobb could cause more excitement with a base on balls than Babe Ruth could with a grand slam," one columnist wrote.

After hitting his 60th home run in September 1927, Ruth embarked on the mother of all barnstorming tours, a three-week victory lap across America, accompanied by Yankee teammate Lou Gehrig. In The Big Fella, acclaimed biographer Jane Leavy recreates that 21-day circus and in so doing captures the romp and the pathos that defined Ruth’s life and times. Drawing from more than 250 interviews, a trove of previously untapped documents, and Ruth family records, Leavy breaks through the mythology that has obscured the legend and delivers the man.

Mariano Rivera, the man who intimidated thousands of batters merely by opening a bullpen door, began his incredible journey as the son of a poor Panamanian fisherman. When first scouted by the Yankees, he didn't even own his own glove. He thought he might make a good mechanic. When discovered, he had never flown in an airplane, had never heard of Babe Ruth, spoke no English, and couldn't imagine Tampa, the city where he was headed to begin a career that would become one of baseball's most iconic.

Stubble scruffed up their chins. Tobacco wads ballooned their cheeks. The 1993 Philadelphia Phillies had the look of a slow-pitch softball team itching to kick some serious butt. They did kick butt, too, on and off the field. “They lived the life of professional baseball players as fully as it can be done,” manager Jim Fregosi said. Though they weren’t a photogenic bunch, their mugs were everywhere, on Baseball Today, on David Letterman, and on Saturday Night Live.

A fuzzy, green creature is spotted dancing with fans on top of the Philadelphia Phillies’ dugout. Crew members chase after a wacky chicken on the San Diego Padres’ field. A mischievous seal is caught trying to steal the San Francisco Giants’ home plate—literally!