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Tony Gwynn spent his entire professional baseball career with the San Diego Padres. He stands second only to Ty Cobb in batting titles and consecutive .300-plus seasons. As a coach, he preached the Gwynn gospel to his players: do it right, do it with class, and respect others and the game. An extrovert with an unforgettable laugh and wry sense of humor, he was often the center of attention. Yet during off-seasons he retreated to Indianapolis to avoid the glare of publicity. He overcame disparities in his personality with an intense focus on preparation and commitment to professionalism, and frequently contributed to community projects. This first full-length biography traces the remarkable career of a first-ballot Hall of Famer.
After Babe Ruth erased Buck Freeman's record in 1919, the new mark stood for 34 years before Maris bettered it, defying as he did an incredulous sporting public. And just as fans' anger grew old and Maris was grudgingly credited--or discredited--with an unrepeatable hot streak, along came Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, two goliaths who in 1998 and the years just after proved fans wrong again. But when in 2001, only three years after McGwire seemed to put the record beyond reach, Barry Bonds topped him by three. This time fans were staunch in their disbelief, and while many celebrated Bonds' achievement, others questioned its significance. This revised edition of Bill McNeil's Ruth, Maris, McGwire, and Sosa ("libraries especially will want this"--Library Journal) reviews the careers of each home run titan, with special attention to the record-breaking seasons. The cultural and social changes that may have affected both the players' season totals and fan reception are also considered.
In this collection of interviews, baseball players, coaches, and managers speak candidly about their most memorable moments and experiences in baseball's big leagues. Their recollections of the former big leaguers often come from their early years spent learning the game, their first time stepping on the field as a big leaguer, their first strikeout as a pitcher, or their first hit as a batter--to the more disappointing moments such as a first trade, a World Series loss, or a release signaling the end of a career. Bob Friend, Bobby Thomson, Johnny Pesky, Jim Kaat, Frank Malzone, Dale Berra, Larry Bowa, Gil McDougald, Gene Garber, Billy Sample, Nellie Briles, Jon Matlack, Catfish Hunter, Fred Patek, Vern Law, Clem Labine, Virgil Trucks, Frank Tanana, Jimmy Greengrass, Bill Virdon, Sparky Anderson, Dick Williams, Hector Lopez, and Ralph Houk are the interviewees.
Pitching duels are the essence of baseball competition--they require great measures of patience and fundamentals, and take the best one pitcher has to offer and give him a loss he does not deserve. They do not happen often, but when two good pitchers alternately take the mound and remove the game from the batters hands, spectators are on the edges of their seats. Those rare games and pitchers get all the attention in this work, as the author provides commentary on the greatest pitching duels of all time. It covers 35 of them, beginning with that of May 5, 1904, between Rube Waddell and Cy Young and ending with the May 28, 2000, opposition of Pedro Martinez and Roger Clemens. Other highlighted games include those pitting Christy Matthewson against Chief Bender, Sherry Smith against Babe Ruth, Bill Wright against Satchel Paige, Warren Spahn against Juan Marichal, Bob Gibson against Don Drysdale, Steve Carlton against Phil Niekro, and Greg Maddux against Pedro Martinez, just to name a few.
Baseball followers have been perpetuating, debating, and debunking myths for nearly two centuries, producing a treasury of baseball stories and “facts.” Yet never before have these elements of baseball history been carefully scrutinized and compiled into one comprehensive work—until now. In Baseball Myths: Debating, Debunking, and Disproving Tales from the Diamond, award-winning researcher Bill Deane examines baseball legends—old and new. This book covers such legendary players as Shoeless Joe Jackson, Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Jackie Robinson, Pete Rose, and Derek Jeter, while also looking at lesser-known figures like Dummy Hoy, Grover Land, Wally Pipp, and Babe Herman—not...
Who was the best baseball team of all time? This timeless question can most effectively be answered through comprehensive analysis of baseball statistics. Over the course of a season, winning teams tend to score more runs while allowing fewer than their opponents. The greater the difference in runs per game, the more a team can be expected to win. Comparing this data for the top five percent of Major League nines from 1901 through 2014, this book argues that runs above league average is the best statistic for ranking teams. The author sorts 220 teams by era, franchise and skills--hitting, fielding, baserunning, pitching--evaluates their strengths and weaknesses and assigns numerical values to each player's skills to demonstrate how they contributed to team performance.
Many of the most powerful trends in baseball today have their roots in the 1970s. Baseball entered that decade seriously behind the times in race relations, attitudes toward conformity versus individuality, and the manager-player relationship. In a sense, much of the wrenching change that American society as a whole experienced in the 1960s was played out in baseball in the following decade. Additionally, the game itself was rapidly evolving, with the inauguration of the designated hitter rule in the American League, the evolution of the closer, the development of the five-man starting rotation, the acceptance of strikeout lions like Dave Kingman and Bobby Bonds and the proliferation of stol...