Adult

SAYONARA HOME RUN! introduces curious fans to Japan's national pastime through the lens of the country's playfully beautiful baseball cards. A fascinating text traces the roots and cross-cultural history of the Japanese game, while hundreds of illustrations showcase gorgeous vintage cards. Woven throughout are profiles of key Japanese players, features on important U.S. team tours of Japan (with Japanese cards of players such as Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio), and insights into the social history of the cards.

Riveting, wise, and illuminating, CLEARING THE BASES is a hall of famer's look at how Major League Baseball has lost its way and how it can head back home.

In BROOKLYN REMEMBERED: The 1955 Days of the Dodgers, Allen has captured the emotion, the drama and the sweet reverie of what many baseball people and fans consider the greatest sports triumph ever, the 1955 Brooklyn Series win over the Yankees. It was the one and only Brooklyn championship for the team filled with Hall of Famers like Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Roy Campanella, Duke Snider, Sandy Koufax and even fringe lefty Tommy Lasorda. Two years after the title the team moved from Brooklyn’s cozy Ebbets Field to laconic Los Angeles.

Every once in a while a book provides a certain view of America, and whether it is THE GREATEST GENERATION, BIG RUSS & ME, or WAIT TILL NEXT YEAR, these works strike a chord with readers everywhere. PRAYING FOR GIL HODGES is such a book. Written with power and clarity, this is a brilliant work capturing the majesty of baseball, the issue of race in America, and the love that one young boy, his parents, and the borough of Brooklyn had for their team.

In CALL THE YANKEES MY DADDY, sportswriter Cecil Harris reminisces on his years spent covering baseball’s most storied team. In his position as the first full-time black beat reporter to cover the New York Yankees, Cecil Harris had an up-close perspective of the team that he’d followed as a fan ever since the 1960s.

THE MIND OF BILL JAMES tells the story of how someone who never pitched a ball, held a bat, or managed a team fundamentally changed the way baseball is interpreted, analyzed and even played.

Michael Kun and Howard Bloom offer a sound rebuke to anyone who thinks a baseball book can’t be smart, funny and informative all at the same time.

In A WELL-PAID SLAVE, the first extended treatment of Flood and his lawsuit, Brad Snyder examines this long-misunderstood case and its impact on professional sports. He reveals the twisted logic and behind-the-scenes vote switching behind the court’s decision and explains Flood’s decision to sue in the context of his experiences during the civil rights movement. Astutely and dramatically told, A WELL-PAID SLAVE will appeal broadly to fans of sports history, legal affairs, and American culture.

In the winter of 1956, Phillip Hoose was a gawky, uncoordinated 9-year-old boy just moved to a new town --- Speedway, Indiana --- and trying to fit into a new school and circle of friends. Baseball was his passion, even though he was terrible at it and constantly shamed by his lack of ability. But he had one thing going for him that his classmates could never have --- his second cousin was a pitcher for the New York Yankees. Don Larsen wasn't a star, but he was in the Yankees' rotation. And on October 8, 1956, he pitched perhaps the greatest game that has ever been pitched: a perfect game (27 batters up, 27 out) against the Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series.