Adult

A celebration of the Golden Age of Baseball through the movie-house newsreels that once presented the game’s great plays and players to fans across the country.

THE BASEBALL BOOK commemorates the epic teams and characters, the crucial plays and classic games, the personalities and performances and artifacts that have kept baseball at the heart of American sports for more than a century.

In BASEBALL, one of the great bards of America’s Grand Old Game gives a rousing account of the sport, from its pre-Republic roots to the present day. George Vecsey casts a fresh eye on the game, illuminates its foibles and triumphs, and performs a marvelous feat: making a classic story seem refreshingly new.

Why do accomplished writers (and grown-ups) like Ron Carlson, Rick Bass and Michael Chabon (to name but a few of those represented here) still obsess over their baseball days? What is it about this green game of suspense that not only moves us but can also move us to flights of lyrical writing? In SCORING FROM SECOND: WRITERS ON BASEBALL some of the literary lights of our day answer these questions with essays, reminiscences and meditations on the sport that is America’s game but also a deeply personal experience for player, observer and fan alike.

Mike Stadler begins with the mind’s role in the game’s basic skills, explaining the anticipatory thinking that can make a hitter see a "rising fastball," the complex muscular coordination required to throw a major league heater and the intense spatial calculations the brain must perform in a split second in order for a fielder to catch a struck ball. Stadler then discusses the hidden nature of streaks and slumps, explaining why a "hot" hitter is most likely just getting lucky and why there’s no such thing as a clutch hitter and also looks at the psychological basis of the so-called "sophomore slump" and the effect that a big-money contract has on a player’s performance.

Does it help to lobby for balls and strikes? How would Babe Ruth perform in today's game? And who killed all the left handed catchers anyway? THE BASEBALL ECONOMIST has lucid powerful insights into all the old and new questions about the great game.Providing far more than a mere collection of numbers, Bradbury shines the light of his training in economic thinking on baseball exposing the powers of tradeoffs, competition and incentives. Statistics alone aren't enough anymore. Fans, fantasy buffs and players-as well as coaches at all levels-can use and enjoy Bradbury's new Sabernomic perspective comprehensively presented here for the first time.

Whether you’re a major league couch potato, life-long season ticket-holder, or teaching game to a beginner, WATCHING BASEBALL SMARTER leaves no territory uncovered. In this smart and funny fan’s guide Hample explains the ins and outs of pitching, hitting, running and fielding, while offering insider trivia and anecdotes that will surprise even the most informed viewers of our national pastime.

When Legendary Negro League player Buck O'Neil asked sports columnist Joe Posnanski how he fell in love with baseball, Posnanski had to think about it. From that question was born the idea behind BASEBALL AND JAZZ. Posnanski and the 94 year old O'Neil decided to spend the 2005 baseball season touring the country in hopes of stirring up the love that first drew them to the game. This book is just as much the story of Buck O'Neil as it is the story of baseball. In a time when disillusioned, steroid–shooting, money hungry athletes define the sport, Buck O'Neil stands out as a man that truly played for the love of the game.

Ever see Mike Piazza block the plate? Or Derek Jeter slide hard into second? Illegal. But it happens every game. Baseball’s rules, it seems, were made to be broken. And they are, by the players, the front office and even sometimes the fans. Like it or not, cheating has been an integral part of America’s favorite pastime since its inception. The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball will show you how cheating is really done. In this lively tour through baseball’s underhanded history, readers will learn how to cork a bat, steal signs, hurl a spitball, throw a World Series and win at any cost!

April 15, 1947, marked the most important opening day in baseball history. When Jackie Robinson stepped onto the diamond that afternoon at Ebbets Field, he became the first black man to break into major-league baseball in the twentieth century. Americans were beginning to press for justice on the home front-and Robinson had a chance to lead the way. His swing was far from graceful. And he was assigned to play first base, a position he had never tried before that season. But the biggest concern was his temper. Robinson was an angry man who played an aggressive style of ball. In order to succeed he would have to control himself in the face of what promised to be a brutal assault by opponents of integration.