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"If this isn't the best analysis of the professional sports business ever written, I'd like to see the book that beats it. . . . Should be read by every sports fan or -- for that matter -- social critic." --From a five-star review, West Coast Review of Books. "Explores its subject so thoroughly and demolishes so many commonly held assumptions that after reading it even the most knowledgeable fans (and some journalists) should feel like drunks who have suddenly been forced to sober up." -- Chicago Tribune "Required reading for anyone who calls himself a fan." -- Chicago Sun-Times "An invaluable contribution to sports literature." -- Howard Cosell
Baseball's greatest asset is the richness of its lore, and Leonard Koppett has made the entire treasure of the game's history accessible in one enjoyable volume. In his lively narratives on the shape and significance of each season from baseball's nineteenth-century beginnings to the updated and expanded sections on the last decade, Koppett explains the changes in baseball-the-game and baseball-the-business that forged the major leagues we know today. Each chapter recounts trends, players, and events during different eras; offers succinct seasonal recaps, and summarizes how the consequences of that particular baseball era set the stage for the next. On the origins and evolution of on-the-fie...
Beyond the highly publicized heroics and foibles of players and teams, when the grandstands are empty and the scoreboards dark, there is a world of sport about which little is known by even the most ardent fan. It is the business world of sport; it is characterized by a thirst for power and money, and its players are just as active as those on the professional teams they oversee. In this collection, some of the best scholars in the field use examples from baseball, football, basketball, and hockey to illuminate the significant economic, legal, social, and historic aspects of the business of professional sports. Contributors: Dennis A. Ahlburg, Rob B. Beamish, Joan M. Chandler, James B. Dworkin, Lawrence M. Kahn, Charles P. Korr, John J. MacAloon, David Mills, Roger G. Noll, Steven A. Reiss, Gary R. Roberts, Stephen F. Ross, Peter D. Sherer, Leigh Steinberg, and David G. Voigt,
This book is a personal memoir from Leonard Koppett, a man widely considered to be the dean of American sports writers.
The 1994 Major League Baseball season promised to be memorable. Long-standing batting and pitching standards were threatened, including the revered single-season home run record. The Montreal Expos and New York Yankees were delivering remarkable campaigns. In August, acting commissioner Bud Selig called a halt to the season amid the League's latest labor dispute. The shutdown led to a lockout as well as cancellation of more than 900 regular season games, the scheduled expanded rounds of playoffs, and that year's World Series. Like all labor struggles, it was fundamentally about control--of salaries, of players' ability to decide their own fates, and of the game itself. This book chronicles Major League Baseball's turbulent '94 season and its ripple effects. It highlights earlier labor struggles and the roles performed by individuals from John Montgomery Ward, David Fultz and Robert Murphy to Marvin Miller, Andy Messersmith, Jim "Catfish" Hunter and Donald Fehr. Also examined are the ballplayers' own organizations, from the Players League of the early 1890s to the still potent Major League Baseball Players Association doing battle with team owners and their representatives.
Examines the history of All-Star baseball, providing play-by-plays, rosters, and box scores of each game; and discusses how All-Star games have been influenced by racial integration, expansion teams, and the designated hitter.
Ford Frick is best known as the baseball commissioner who put the "asterisk" next to Roger Maris's record. But his tenure as commissioner carried the game through pivotal changes--television, continued integration, West Coast expansion and labor unrest. During those 14 years, and 17 more as National League president, he witnessed baseball history from the perspective of a man who began as a sportswriter. This biography of Frick, whose tenure sparked lively debate about the commissioner's role, provides a detailed narrative of his career and the events and characters of mid-20th century baseball.
Many assume incorrectly that confrontations between baseball's players and management began in the 1960s when the Major League Baseball Players Association started showing signs of becoming a union to be reckoned with. (The tensions of the 1960s prompted the owners to form the Player Relations Committee to deal with them and in February 1968, the two groups negotiated the game's first Basic Agreement.) The struggles between players and management to gain the upper hand did not, however, start there--the two groups have had numerous clashes since baseball began (as well as since the 1968 agreement). There have been various periods of conflict and peace throughout the century and before. This work traces the history of the relationship between players and management from baseball's early years to the new challenges and developing tensions that led to spring training lockouts instigated by the owners and to player strikes in 1972, 1981, 1985, and 1994. An important agreement in 1996 brought labor peace once again. The future of player-management relations is also covered.