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“I believe in rules. Sure I do. If there weren't any rules, how could you break them?” The history of baseball is rife with colorful characters. But for sheer cantankerousness, fighting moxie, and will to win, very few have come close to Leo “the Lip” Durocher. Following a five-decade career as a player and manager for baseball’s most storied franchises, Durocher teamed up with veteran sportswriter Ed Linn to tell the story of his life in the game. The resulting book, Nice Guys Finish Last, is baseball at its best, brimming with personality and full of all the fights and feuds, triumphs and tricks that made Durocher such a success—and an outsized celebrity. Durocher began his car...
1996 marked the 125th season of the oldest continuously operating professional sports franchise in America: the Atlanta Braves. This comprehensive reference begins with the team's birth in 1871 as the Boston Red Stockings, and follows them to Milwaukee in 1953 and to Atlanta in 1966, playing under such a variety of names as Beaneaters, Doves, Rustlers, Braves, Bees, and back to the Braves. Because of this transient past, much of the franchise's history has been misplaced over the years—until now. Beloved not only by their tomahawk-chopping local fans but by baseball fans everywhere, the Braves have become one of today's most successful sports organizations. The Braves Encyclopedia brings i...
"You talk about destiny, well, you can't rule that out. We were hard-nosed and that showed up in 1957." -- Braves catcher Del Crandall to editor Gregory H. Wolf Few teams in baseball history have captured the hearts of their fans like the Milwaukee Braves of the 19505. During the Braves' 13-year tenure in Milwaukee (1953-1965), they had a winning record every season, won two consecutive NL pennants (1957 and 1958), lost two more in the final week of the season (1956 and 1959), and set big-league attendance records along the way. This book celebrates the Milwaukee Braves' historic 1957 World Series championship season. Led by the bats of National League Most Valuable Player Henry Aaron and sl...
Many in baseball consider the scout to be the most important figure in any organization: It is the scout's work in the high school and college bleachers that unearths future legends. Few have achieved more--and in such grand style--than George Genovese. In a game that values numbers, Genovese's are staggering. No other scout has been responsible for more players in a single lineup, more home runs by players signed or more All-Star and World Series highlights than Genovese. Genovese's eye for talent is unmatched, his advocacy for the players he discovers is unrivaled, and the investment he makes toward their success is a difference maker. This autobiography is the story of his seven decades in baseball as a player, manager and scout.
Once They Were Angels details the baseball team's rich 44-year history through fresh perspectives from the players who defined the franchise: Bo Belinsky, Jim Fregosi, Nolan Ryan, Rod Carew, Don Baylor, Reggie Jackson, Jim Abbott and many others. The book ends where it begins ? with Scott Spiezio reliving his dramatic home run in the seventh inning of Game Six of the 2002 World Series. Like any great franchise worth remembering, Once They Were Angels will form an indelible stamp in the hearts and minds of Angels fans both young and old.
In 1903, a small league in California defied Organized Baseball by adding teams in Portland and Seattle to become the strongest minor league of the twentieth century. Calling itself the Pacific Coast League, this outlaw association frequently outdrew its major league counterparts and continued to challenge the authority of Organized Baseball until the majors expanded into California in 1958. The Pacific Coast League introduced the world to Joe, Vince and Dom DiMaggio, Paul and Lloyd Waner, Ted Williams, Tony Lazzeri, Lefty O'Doul, Mickey Cochrane, Bobby Doerr, and many other baseball stars, all of whom originally signed with PCL teams. This thorough history of the Pacific Coast League chronicles its foremost personalities, governance, and contentious relationship with the majors, proving that the history of the game involves far more than the happenings in the American and National leagues.
The Hollywood Stars were the most inventive team in baseball history, known for their celebrity ownership and movie star following during the Golden Age of Hollywood. In Lights, Camera, Fastball: How the Hollywood Stars Changed Baseball, Dan Taylor delivers a fascinating look at the Hollywood Stars and their glorious twenty-year run in the Pacific Coast League. Led by Bob Cobb, owner of the heralded Brown Derby restaurant and known more famously as the creator of the Cobb salad, the Hollywood Stars took professional baseball to a new and innovative level. The team played in short pants, instigated rule changes, employed cheerleaders and movie-star beauty queens, pioneered baseball on televis...
Few would dispute the pitching greatness of Sandy Koufax--but was Paul Pettit better? Jim Baxes was once compared to the great Pie Traynor yet few baseball fans have ever heard of him. John Elway was undeniably one of the greatest quarterbacks in pro football history but could he have been an even better baseball player? For most fans greatness is measured in trophies and awards and confirmed by consistency over time. During his 70 years in baseball, renowned scout George Genovese witnessed some of the most talented players ever to play the game--some of them unknown to fans. He recalls the careers of unsung greats like Nestor Chavez, Matt Harrington and Derek Tatsuno, who never gained lasting fame despite unrivaled talent.
The book chronicles almost 300 in-season changes of managers in the major leagues since 1900. It elaborates on the circumstances that led to the change, whether it was a firing or a resignation and includes, in many cases, remarks of the dismissed manager, the manager who replaced him, and the executive (owner or general manager) who orchestrated the change. It then examines how the team fared under the new manager. The central purpose of the book is to study the effects of the changes: how many had a positive impact, how many had a negative impact, and how many had little if any impact on the team's won-lost record.
During the mid-1950s, an unlikely star stood alongside baseball standouts Mickey Mantle, Henry Aaron and Willie Mays--a slugger with a funny name and muscles so bulging that he had to cut the sleeves off his uniform to swing freely. Ted Kluszewski played little baseball in his youth, making a name for himself instead as a hard-hitting football player at Indiana University before showing potential on the diamond and being signed by the Cincinnati Reds. Between 1953 and 1956, no other player in major league baseball hit more home runs than Kluszewski. If not for a back injury, he might have gone down in major league history as one its greatest players. With detailed statistics from both his football and baseball careers, this biography chronicles the unusual odyssey that took Kluszewski to the big leagues and ultimately made him a ballgame icon in the 1950s.