Sports Softball

It’s the summer of 1973, and Joe Castle is the boy wonder of baseball, the greatest rookie anyone has ever seen. The kid from Calico Rock, Arkansas, dazzles Chicago Cubs fans as he hits home run after home run, politely tipping his hat to the crowd as he shatters all rookie records.

In 1927, Babe Ruth stepped up to the plate and looked history in the eye. With each swing of the bat, his towering legacy grew larger. Ball after ball sailed into the seats and the race for 60 home runs was on. Join the Bambino as he swings for the fences, chasing down one of the greatest baseball records of all time.

In this groundbreaking book, Keith Law, the ESPN baseball writer and author of the acclaimed Smart Baseball, offers an era-spanning dissection of some of the best and worst decisions in modern baseball, explaining what motivated them, what can be learned from them, and how their legacy has shaped the game....

Has anyone ever told you that baseball is more than a game, that it's really a metaphor for life? Have you ever wondered what they meant? This story imagines the answer. A single mother moves to Kansas City with her young daughter and notices that everyone she meets - her new colleagues, neighbors, even the mailman - can't stop talking about baseball. "It's more than just a game," they tell the mother. "It's so much more. What you need is to come to a game and experience it."

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).

People come from all over the country and all over the world to seek success in New York City. A group that represents the success of the city is the American League baseball team, the New York Yankees. This team has more championships, more records and more star players than any other team in the history of baseball. However, the team that eventually became the "New York Yankees" was not always based in New York City.

In over 50 years of existence, the New York Mets have experienced almost every phase of success and failure that can be encountered by a major league team. Written by veteran baseball author Bruce Markusen, Tales from the New York Mets Dugout relives some of the favorite moments in Mets history while also telling an array of little-known stories about the players. Stand on the mound with Tom Seaver, watch from the dugout with Davey Johnson, and kneel in front of the umpire with Gary Carter.

For Stanley Cohen, baseball is the prism through which he views the events of the last 70 years. In The Man in the Crowd, Cohen chronicles America’s changing mood and lifestyle from the years of World War II through the silent generation of the 50s, the revolutionary turmoil of the 60s through the social decay of the 70s, the excess of the 80s through the technological transformation of the 90s, up through the sobering uncertainty of the post-9/11 present day.

Instead of out-drafting, out-signing, and out-trading their rivals, baseball's best minds have turned to out-developing opponents, gaining greater edges than ever by perfecting prospects and eking extra runs out of older athletes who were once written off. Lindbergh and Sawchik take us inside the transformation of former fringe hitters into home-run kings, show how washed-up pitchers have emerged as aces, and document how coaching and scouting are being turned upside down. The MVP Machine charts the future of a sport and offers a lesson that goes beyond baseball.

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.

Since their breakthrough championship season in 1923, when Yankee stadium opened, the New York Yankees have been baseball’s most successful, decorated, and colorful franchise. Home to Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Berra, Mantle, Jackson, and Mattingly; and later Torre, Jeter, Rivera, and Rodriguez, the team has been a fixture in our national consciousness.

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.

Pete Rose was a legend on the field. As baseball’s hit king, he shattered records that were thought to be unbreakable. And during the 1970s, he was the leader of the Big Red Machine, the Cincinnati Reds team that dominated the game. But he’s also the greatest player who may never enter the Hall of Fame because of his lifetime ban from the sport. Perhaps no other ballplayer’s story is so representative of the triumphs and tragedies of our national pastime.

Step onto the field of dreams with The Most Inspiring Baseball Stories for Kids. Inside this audiobook, you'll discover a treasure trove of 30 remarkable tales that will capture your heart. From when Babe Ruth's 714 was finally broken to the Black Sox scandal, these stories come in all shapes and sizes, just like the world of baseball.

Baseball statistics come to life. Listeners won't look at mathematics in the same way again.

This audiobook is the window into the underground world of cheating at the highest levels, which set off a frenzy of activity and hand-wringing in the offices of Major League Baseball and Congress. Through the authors' pursuit of sources and documents, they were able to open for public view a world in which elite athletes trade money and risk their health for the edge that will allow them to run faster, hit harder, and compete longer, and then cash in on the fame and wealth.

In baseball there are superstars and stars and everyday players and then there are the rest. Within the rest are role players and specialists and journeymen and then there are the backup catchers. The Tao of the Backup Catcher is about them, the backup catchers, who exist near the bottom of the roster and the end of the bench and between the numbers in a sport–and a society–increasingly driven by cold, hard analytics.

Provides a brief introduction to the game of softball as intended to be played by children.

Mike Matheny was just 41, 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. Louis Cardinals in 2012. While Matheny has enjoyed immediate success, leading the Cards to the postseason three times in his first three years, people have noticed something else about his life, something not measured in day-to-day results.

Of all the sports played across the globe, none has more curses, superstitions, or supernatural events like baseball, America's national pastime. While some of these can easily be explained, there are just as many that cannot. Field of Fantasies delves right into that superstition with short stories written by several key authors about baseball and the supernatural.