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No baseball team has captured America's imagination like the Mets. Alternately the "Lovable Losers" and the "Miracle Mets," New York's other team offers fascinating fodder for writer Richard Grossinger in this thoughtful collection. The New York Mets is a series of probing essays on the best and most interesting years of the team, particularly 1969, 1973, 1986, and last year's abbreviated run. A pivotal essay chronicles the lives of a professional athlete and a die-hard fan to create a well-argued, deeply felt meditation on the ways in which franchise baseball has come to fail not only the fans but the players. This centerpiece presents a poignant narrative of Mets pitcher Terry Leach and author Grossinger's own experiences playing and tracking the sport. Taken together, these powerful essays alternately take the poet's, the alchemist's, and the player's perspective to paint a composite portrait that brings all the stunning highs and dispiriting lows together to show the ways in which America's favorite pastime has changed. Grossinger reflects on the salad days when teams were happily homegrown and laments the current money-ball scenario some call baseball today.
Chronicles the life and career of baseball pitcher Terry Leach.
The New York Mets Encyclopedia provides the full and exciting story of modern-era baseball’s most popular expansion-age franchise. From those lovable losers of 1962 and 1963, to the Miracle Mets of 1969 and 1973, and on to year-in and year-out contenders of the 1980s and 1990s, New York’s National League Mets have written some of the most exciting and colorful pages in Major League history. This is the team that captured the hearts of fans everywhere with its often-laughable antics under colorful and celebrated manager Casey Stengel. Only half a dozen years later, the Mets reached baseball’s pinnacle under gifted manager Gil Hodges. This colorful volume combines detailed narrative hist...
Honolulu homicide detective Kimo Kanapa’aka can’t say no when the chair of the House Defense Appropriations Committee asks him to investigate her father’s death. The case may be as cold as the top of Mauna Kea—over fifty years old—but Representative Stacey O’Brien controls the purse strings for the eleven military bases in Hawai’i. And she’s a mentor to Kimo’s baby mama, Sandra Guarino, who’s in her first time in the House in DC. The eleventh full novel in the series, Soldier Down requires Kimo to use everything he knows, as well as his family connections, to disturb a series of crimes the military has tried to cover up. At the same time, he and his partner Mike Riccardi are dealing with the perils of fatherhood as their eight-year-old twins start to question their family situation. Would they really be better off moving between a pair of mom-dad couples? Because that’s not something the adults can manage. Soldier Down explores the ongoing nature of parent-child relationships while Kimo tracks a killer through the lush paradise of the Aloha State.
Doc, Donnie, the Kid, and Billy Brawl focuses on the 1985 New York baseball season, a season like no other since the Mets came to town in 1962. Never before had both the Yankees and the Mets been in contention for the playoffs so late in the same season. For months New York fans dreamed of the first Subway Series in nearly thirty years, and the Mets and the Yankees vied for their hearts. Despite their nearly identical records, the two teams were drastically different in performance and clubhouse atmosphere. The Mets were filled with young, homegrown talent led by outfielder Darryl Strawberry and pitcher Dwight Gooden. They were complemented by veterans including Keith Hernandez, Gary Carter,...
Manager Al Lopez’ 1959 pennant-winning squad included 3 Hall of Famers, speed, pitching, and fielding. This was the first time in 40 years the franchise was World Series-bound. The 1960s brought exploding scoreboards, and razor-close finishes in 1964 and 1967. In the 1970s, a Sox finally had a HR champ; another became the AL MVP after the Sox made a trade with the LA Dodgers; then for 1 day only, Sox uniforms included wide collar shirts and shorts. In 1977, Bill Veeck’s club “rented” 2 HR hitters; in 1979, future Hall of Fame manager Tony LaRussa took the helm. The 1980s included 1983 post season play, 2 Rookies of the Year, a Cy Young Award winner, and 2 future Hall of Famers - one ...
If you’ve followed the White Sox at all, you might be familiar with the “Hitless Wonders,” the 1919 Black Sox scandal, the 1950s Go-Go club, South Side Hit Men (1977), Winning Ugly (1983), the 2005 World Series Champions to Pedro Grifol's current club. Check out Ed Walsh, the Sox’ 40-game winner in 1908; or the four 20-game winners in 1920 (one entered the Hall of Fame, whereas another was banned from baseball). How about the Sox rookie that pitched a perfect game in the early 1920s; “Old Aches and Pains” playing shortstop; and the GM who traded for Nellie Fox, Billy Pierce, Minnie Minoso, among others. Then there’s Little Luis - the 1st of 6 Sox’ Rookies of the Year; Early W...
Start in 1983? Okay! Tony LaRussa’s 1st place squad won a club-record 99 games, featured a Cy Young pitcher, a Rookie of the Year, a Hall of Fame catcher, and speed on the bases. It was also the first time in 24 years a Chicago team entered post-season play. The club signed a Hall of Fame pitcher the following year, and in 1985 a charismatic rookie from Venezuela took over shortstop and won Rookie of the Year honors. Comiskey Park I (the 1910 version) was leveled – and with a push from Governor Thompson, Comiskey Park II was built. Then along came Frank Thomas, Robin Ventura, and more post-season play! But it took the mercurial Venezuelan, this time the club manager, to lead the club to ...
Some vols. include supplemental journals of "such proceedings of the sessions, as, during the time they were depending, were ordered to be kept secret, and respecting which the injunction of secrecy was afterwards taken off by the order of the House".