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In the words of former American League umpire Nestor Chylak, umpires are expected to "be perfect on the first day of the season and then get better every day." Forced to deal with sullen managers and explosive players, they often take the blame for the failures of both. But let's face it--umpires are only human. For well over a century, the fortunes of Major League teams--and the fabric of baseball history itself--have been dramatically affected by the flawed decisions of officials. While the use of video replay in recent decades has reduced the number of bitter disputes, many situations remain exempt from review and are subject to swirling controversy. In the heat of the moment mistakes are often made, sometimes with monumental consequences. This book details some of these more controversial calls and the men who made them.
In the summer of 1932, at the beginning of the turbulent decade that would remake America, baseball fans were treated to one of the most thrilling seasons in the history of the sport. As the nation drifted deeper into the Great Depression and reeled from social unrest, baseball was a diversion for a troubled country—and yet the world of baseball was marked by the same edginess that pervaded the national scene. On-the-field fights were as common as double plays. Amid the National League pennant race, Cubs’ shortstop Billy Jurges was shot by showgirl Violet Popovich in a Chicago hotel room. When the regular season ended, the Cubs and Yankees clashed in what would be Babe Ruth’s last appe...
On June 28, 2002, over six hundred members of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) descended on Fenway Park for an interleague contest between the hometown Boston Red Sox and their National League rivals, the former Boston—-now Atlanta—-Braves. Sixty-four of these avid fans, historians, statisticians, and game enthusiasts recorded their experiences for this book. Some wrote from privileged views such as inside the Green Monster’s manual scoreboard, the Braves clubhouse, and the broad- cast booth, while others took in the essence of Fenway from the grandstand or bleachers. The result is a fascinating look at Major League Baseball, the Red Sox and their colorful history, the...
If you love baseball and the venerable stadiums its played in, you need this definitive history and guide to Major League ballparks of the past, present, and future. With a tear-out checklist to mark ballparks you’ve visited and those on your bucket list, Ballparks takes you inside the histories of every park in the Major Leagues, with hundreds of photos, stories, and stats about: Storied parks like Wrigley Field, Fenway Park, and Dodger Stadium Fan favorites AT&T Park, Camden Yards, PNC Park, Safeco Field, and so much more Forgotten treasures like Shibe Park in Philadelphia, Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis, and all five parks of the Detroit Tigers New stadiums like the Atlanta Braves’ SunTrust Park, the Minneapolis Twins’ Target Field, and New York’s Yankee Stadium and Citifield More than 40 other major league parks that tell the story of the national pastime through the lens of the fields the players call home No baseball fan's collection is complete without this up-to-date tome.
The team now known as the Boston Red Sox played its first season in 1901. The city of Boston had a well-established National League team, known at the time as the Beaneaters, but the founders of the American League knew that Boston was a strong baseball market and when they launched the league as a new major league in 1901, they went head-to-head with the N.L. in Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston. Chicago won the American League pennant and Boston finished second, just four games behind. The Boston Americans played in a new ballpark — the Huntington Avenue Grounds — literally on the other side of the railroad tracks from the Beaneaters and they out-drew the Beaneaters by more than 2-1, i...
Revised edition of Ballparks then & now (2005), with significant changes and updates to the text, as well as new photographs.
This is a comprehensive history of League Park, primary home field for Major League Baseball in Cleveland from 1891 to 1946, but with a significant history that includes the National Football League, Negro League baseball, college football and boxing, and an uncanny multitude of amazing events and people. This chronicle allows for these grounds to take their place among the more heralded parks of baseball's past and present. The site has survived to this day as a baseball grounds; a groundbreaking for renovations took place in October 2012.
The first complete biography of an important Negro League baseball player from Austin, Texas. Willie Wells was arguably the best shortstop of his generation. As Monte Irvin, a teammate and fellow Hall of Fame player, writes in his foreword, “Wells really could do it all. He was one of the slickest fielding shortstops ever to come along. He had speed on the bases. He hit with power and consistency. He was among the most durable players I’ve ever known.” Yet few people have heard of the feisty ballplayer nicknamed “El Diablo.” Willie Wells was black, and he played long before Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier. Bob Luke has sifted through the spotty statistics, intervie...
For nearly fifteen years NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture has been a leading scholarly journal of baseball history. Covering the cultural and historical implications of America's national pastime, NINE has explored baseball from the earliest matches and little-known players of the 1800s to the modern billion-dollar industry and its superstars of today. Here, gathered for the first time, are the best essays from NINE that center on the complex and multifaceted topic of African Americans in baseball.
Many histories of the New York Yankees only skim the early years in their rush to pick up with the 1919 season when Babe Ruth joined the team and go on to celebrate the careers of Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Whitey Ford, and the team's World Series titles. But what about the Yankees before these big names? The early Yankees, who spent their first 12 years known as the Highlanders and were occasionally known as the Americans and the Invaders, get the attention they deserve in this work. It tells the story up until the sale of the Yankees in December 1914, beginning with 1903 when the team was formed from the remnants of the Baltimore Orioles. Led by future Hall of Famers "Wee" Willie Keeler, Jack Chesbro, and Clark Griffith, they were the most expensive major league team ever assembled--but they are remembered primarily for their terrible failures, which included losing a club-low 103 games in 1908 and finishing 55 games out of first place in 1912. Yes, the Yankees.