Sports Softball

This memoir shares the unique coming of age story of a young college student, utterly devoid of confidence, until he is "recruited" as a semi-professional mascot for a junior hockey team. After a year on the ice, a new opportunity draws him into the world of Minor League Baseball. As the unexpectedly humorous, heartwarming, and (at times) hazardous experiences unfold, the young man finds himself sitting in the hospital with his future wife, weighing the risks of one more season against the potential of one day going pro.

Roger Kahn's first major league hit was a grand slam: The Boys of Summer, his runaway best seller that immortalized the 1950s Brooklyn Dodgers. Now Kahn does the same for players whose moment in the sun has not yet arrived. Good Enough to Dream is the story of his year as owner of the Class A, very minor league, Utica Blue Sox. Most of the Blue Sox will never make it to the majors, but they all share the dream that links the small child in the sandlot with the bonus baby who has just smacked one out of the stadium.

In 1884, Providence Grays pitcher Charles "Old Hoss" Radbourn won an astounding 59 games - more than anyone in major-league history ever had before, or has since. He then went on to win all three games of baseball's first World Series. Fifty-nine in '84 tells the dramatic story not only of that amazing feat of grit but also of big-league baseball two decades after the Civil War - a brutal, bloody sport played barehanded, the profession of uneducated, hard-drinking men who thought little of cheating outrageously or maiming an opponent to win.

Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Gibson has always been one of baseball's most uncompromising stars. Gibson's no-holds-barred autobiography recounts the story of his life, from barnstorming around the segregated South with Willie Mays' black all-stars to his astonishing later career as a three-time World Series winner and one of the game's all-time greatest players.

An intimate portrait of a tortured player, this biography culls interviews, letters, and the personal account of baseball legend Willie Mays Aikens. Touted from a young age as the next Reggie Jackson, Aikens' promising career quickly turned disastrous when he fell into drug abuse and was ultimately sentenced to the longest prison sentence ever given to a professional athlete in a drug case.

When the Boston Red Sox defeated the Colorado Rockies in the 2007 World Series, they did more than win their second world championship in four seasons - they changed forever the identity of a franchise once defined by its spectacular failures. If winning the 2004 World Series permanently buried Boston’s tragic past, the team’s 2007 championship reinforced its promising future while changing the culture, mentality, and mind-set of the Red Sox and their followers.

On October 3, 1951, Bobby Thomson's "shot heard around the world" ended one of the most dramatic pennant races ever. Interviews, contemporary newspaper articles, and memoirs of participants are used to describe the intense rivalry and provide a day-by-day look at the Giants' pennant run, including a fascinating examination of the strategy of the final game.

The classic Hall of Shame series returns from Bruce Nash and Allan Zullo in a kooky collection of all-true bloopers and outrageously funny moments from more than 100 years of baseball history that just aren't found anywhere else. It's been a generation since the last edition, and the wait was well worth it, as the authors have stored up amazing new discoveries and mind-boggling modern moments in a laugh-filled journey that reminds us, "It's okay to screw up - look at these big-leaguers who did!"

The seventh game of the World Series is about to be played, and more than the world championship is at stake. A man’s destiny is on the line. Johnny Longboat, one of baseball’s greatest pitchers, is taking the mound for the New York Mohawks in what may be his final game. With millions of eyes upon him, only he is aware of the conflicts tormenting him. At 41, Johnny is a man trying to make sense of his past while fearing what the future could bring when his playing career ends.

Considered to be "as monumental -- and enigmatic -- a legend as American sport has ever seen" ( Sports Illustrated), 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.

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.

This is the untold tale of the Yankees' break-out 1923 season: when they first played on their own field, when Babe Ruth broke out of his slump, and when the Bronx Bombers finally won their first world series against their cross-town rivals the New York Giants.

In the aftermath of the global conflict of World War II, few events in the United States were as eagerly awaited as baseball's spring training. But the national pastime was as unsettled as the rest of the country. Had some of the stars seen their careers ended by their service? How would wartime players fare against returning veterans?

Acclaimed baseball writer Roger Kahn gives us a memoir of his Brooklyn childhood, a recollection of a life in journalism, and a record of personal acquaintance with the greatest ballplayers of several eras. His father had a passion for the Dodgers; his mother’s passion was for poetry. Somehow, young Roger managed to blend both loves in a career that encompassed writing about sports for the New York Herald Tribune, Sports Illustrated, the Saturday Evening Post, Esquire, and Time.

Reviled in New York and beloved in Los Angeles, O'Malley is one of the most controversial owners in the history of American sports. He remade major league baseball and altered the course of history in both Brooklyn and Los Angeles when he moved the Dodgers to California. But while many New York critics attacked him, O'Malley looked to the future, declining to argue his case. As a result, fans across the nation have been unable to stop arguing about him - until now.

Lifelong baseball fanatic and former college ball player Abe Streep had long since grown disillusioned with the slick spectacle of modern major-league baseball when he discovered the Santa Fe Fuego, a scrappy upstart team struggling through its first season in an independent professional league that few baseball fans had even heard of. The Fuego players were paid barely fifty dollars a week.

An engaging blend of business and baseball that inspires and entertains, Small Ball Big Results is about the little things that add up to the big wins in baseball, business, and life. Leaders and team players alike will draw vital lessons from stories that transport you from the baseball field to the board room revealing what it takes to build an unbeatable culture. Emmy Award-winning sports broadcaster Joel Goldberg shares tales of perseverance, patience, grit, and gratitude from soldiers, executives, entrepreneurs, baseball players, and many more.

It may be America's game, but no one seems to know how or when baseball really started. Theories abound, myths proliferate, but reliable information has been in short supply - until now, when Baseball before We Knew It brings fresh new evidence of baseball's origins into play. David Block looks into the early history of the game and of the 150-year-old debate about its beginnings.

The 15 major-league managers interviewed in The Man in the Dugout represent six decades of baseball - men like Joe McCarthy of the New York Yankees and Walter Alston of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Each oral history, steeped in nostalgia and confidentiality, is a record of the triumphs and defeats of the man carrying the prime responsibility of a multimillion-dollar franchise. Here the manager is revealed as a strategist, tactician, peacemaker, politician, ego-soother, and builder of self-confidence.

野村克也・長嶋茂雄・落合博満・桑田真澄・イチロー・大谷翔平……