This comprehensive, historical tribute to America's favorite pastime highlights baseball's compelling dramas, legendary heroes, its cultural impact throughout the years, and more. The game is chronicled decade-by-decade, with over 500 pages packed with: - Full-color photographs - At-a-glance, important facts on each playing season - Detailed information about legendary players, important records, and more. A remarkable and informative salute to America's favorite pastime. 650 4.
Since the first pitch was thrown, MLB has tracked the performance of every team and player, documented every hit and measured every home run. And while some plays are part of the everyday game, there are moments in baseball when a player's performance reaches a new level of greatness and new records are made. The Major League Baseball Ultimate Book of Records catalogs the game's most remarkable achievements, as well as some of the less traditional and quirky stats that all play a part in the game. MLB's team of in-house writers, researchers and historians have scoured the history of the game and written the most accurate, complete and definitive record of baseball stats and achievements. Major League Baseball Ultimate Book of Records documents the absolute best of the best and packs each achievement into this lavishly illustrated book where fans will be treated to never-before-seen photographs of their favourite players. Double-page spreads will show Henderson racing to second base to claim the stolen base record, while another full color spread celebrates Bond's crushing hit that set a new threshold for most home-runs. All the records are here, each with an account of events and spectacular photographs that make this truly the most spectacular baseball book ever published.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Winner of the CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year “An instant sports classic.” —New York Post * “Stellar.” —The Wall Street Journal * “A true masterwork…880 pages of sheer baseball bliss.” —BookPage (starred review) * “This is a remarkable achievement.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) A magnum opus from acclaimed baseball writer Joe Posnanski, The Baseball 100 is an audacious, singular, and masterly book that took a lifetime to write. The entire story of baseball rings through a countdown of the 100 greatest players in history, with a foreword by George Will. Longer than Moby-Dick and nearly as ambitious,? The Baseball 100 is a one-of-a-kind work by award-winning sportswriter and lifelong student of the game Joe Posnanski. In the book’s introduction, Pulitzer Prize–winning commentator George F. Will marvels, “Posnanski must already have lived more than two hundred years. How else could he have acquired such a stock of illuminating facts and entertaining stories about the rich history of this endlessly fascinating sport?” Baseball’s legends come alive in these pages, which are not merely rankings but vibrant profiles of the game’s all-time greats. Posnanski dives into the biographies of iconic Hall of Famers, unfairly forgotten All-Stars, talents of today, and more. He doesn’t rely just on records and statistics—he lovingly retraces players’ origins, illuminates their characters, and places their accomplishments in the context of baseball’s past and present. Just how good a pitcher is Clayton Kershaw in the 21st-century game compared to Greg Maddux dueling with the juiced hitters of the nineties? How do the career and influence of Hank Aaron compare to Babe Ruth’s? Which player in the top ten most deserves to be resurrected from history? No compendium of baseball’s legendary geniuses could be complete without the players of the segregated Negro Leagues, men whose extraordinary careers were largely overlooked by sportswriters at the time and unjustly lost to history. Posnanski writes about the efforts of former Negro Leaguers to restore sidelined Black athletes to their due honor and draws upon the deep troves of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and extensive interviews with the likes of Buck O’Neil to illuminate the accomplishments of players such as pitchers Satchel Paige and Smokey Joe Williams; outfielders Oscar Charleston, Monte Irvin, and Cool Papa Bell; first baseman Buck Leonard; shortstop Pop Lloyd; catcher Josh Gibson; and many, many more. The Baseball 100 treats readers to the whole rich pageant of baseball history in a single volume. Engrossing, surprising, and heartfelt, it is a magisterial tribute to the game of baseball and the stars who have played it.
Photographs and essays help chronicle one hundred years of history for the New York Yankees professional baseball team, profiling key players, coaches, and moments in the team's history.
From when the Phillies franchise was established in 1883 and a rookie manager led the team to its first National League pennant in 1915 to the World Series titles in 1980 and 2008, Larry Shenk, a longtime Phillies executive, provides insight into a potpourri of faces, places, events, and personalities in Phillies history. He takes readers through every no-hitter thrown by a Phillies pitcher and an incredible season by a relief pitcher who became the Most Valuable Player. Read about Mike Schmidt’s most dramatic home run, the youngest pitcher to ever win a game in the big leagues, the greatest one-game performance in World Series history, the most unbreakable records in franchise history, and why the Phillies held spring training in Pennsylvania during the 1940s.
Baseball in the 1950s comes to life through the words of 92 players from the fifties. In their conversations with author Gene Fehler, they tell, in more than a thousand stories and comments, of memorable moments, their dealings with umpires and managers, injuries and trades that affected their careers, regrets and joys that still remain with them so many years later. Players spoken to include Hall of Famers, All Stars, journeymen, and a few who were in the big leagues for the proverbial cup of coffee. Regardless of stature, they all have wonderful stories to tell about big league life in the 1950s, high and low, and moments with other players.
From sandlots to major league stands, two fans set out to recapture their love of the game. For most of their lives together Dale Jacobs and Heidi LM Jacobs couldn’t imagine a spring without baseball. Their season tickets renewal package always seemed to arrive on the bleakest day of winter, offering reassurance that sunnier times were around the corner. Baseball was woven into the fabric of their lives, connecting them not only to each other but also to their families and histories. But by 2017 it was obvious something was amiss: the allure of another Sunday watching their Detroit Tigers had devolved to obligation. Not entirely sure what they were missing, they did have an idea on where it might be found: in their own backyard. Drawing a radius of one hundred miles around their home in Windsor, Ontario, Dale and Heidi set a goal of seeing fifty games at all levels of competition over the following summer. From bleachers behind high schools, to manicured university turf, to the steep concrete stands of major league parks, 100 Miles of Baseball tells the story of how two fans rediscovered their love of the game—and with it their relationships and the region they call home.
This comprehensive survey of major league baseball looks at the national pastime’s legendary figures, major innovations, and pivotal moments, from the beginning of the twentieth century through World War II. In America's Game: A History of Major League Baseball through World War II, Bryan Soderholm-Difatte provides a comprehensive narrative of the major developments and key figures in Major League Baseball, during a time when the sport was still truly the national pastime. Soderholm-Difatte details pivotal moments—including the founding of the American League, the 1919 Black Sox scandal, and navigating the Great Depression and two World Wars—and concludes with a chapter examining the exclusion of black ballplayers from the major leagues. Central personalities covered in this book include baseball executives Judge Landis and Branch Rickey, managers John McGraw and Joe McCarthy, and iconic players such as Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb. America’s Game isn’t simply about celebrating the exploits of great players and teams; it is just as much about the history of Major League Baseball as an institution and the evolution of the game itself. With significant changes taking place in baseball in recent times, this book will remind baseball fans young and old of the rich history of the game.
