John Thorn, America's foremost baseball historian -- named in March 2011 as the Official Historian for Major League Baseball® -- creates the first book for kids on how America's National Pastime was born. The story takes readers back in history to meet the men who gathered ideas from older games to create a uniquely American sport that has defined a century. Thorn himself made some of the key discoveries that have opened up the early history of the game to the light of truth. Using colourful artefacts and memorabilia, the book takes readers out to the ballpark to meet heroes old and new.
In baseball, as in much poetry, beauty comes from tension. Groundrules and boundaries confine those who would play, but the best find ways to exploit their strictures, and just as the daring base runner takes second on a fly to right, the practiced poet trips the sleepy reader with a surprise rhyme, bold line break, or a jarring reversal of foot. It's no surprise, then, that hardball has a larger body of literature than other sports, or that aficionados are more likely than others to quote lines of verse in support of the game they love. This is Tim Peeler's second book of poems from baseball. It contains some of his most moving and best-crafted poetry. Starting with time-honored themes--fathers and sons, baseball and time, memory and the nation, team and player and loyalty--the poet adapts the universal to the local and personal, proving that baseball, with its easy accommodation of reflection, remains a powerful tool for mining our individual and collective history.
Media guru and Emmy Award-winning correspondent Bill McGowan—coach to some of the biggest names in business and entertainment, including Eli Manning, Kelly Clarkson, Jack Welch, Thomas Keller and Kenneth Cole teaches you how to get your message across and get what you want with pitch perfect communication. He is also a trusted advisor in the C-suites of tech companies like, Facebook, Spotify, AirBnB, Dropbox and Salesforce.com. Saying the right thing the right way can make the difference between sealing the deal or losing the account, getting a promotion, or getting a pink slip. It’s essential to be pitch perfect—to get the right message across to the right person at the right time. In Pitch Perfect, Bill McGowan shows you how to craft the right message and deliver it using the right language—both verbal and nonverbal. Pitch Perfect teaches you how to overcome common communication pitfalls using McGowan’s simple Principles of Persuasion, which are highly effective and easy to learn, implement, and master. With Pitch Perfect you can harness the power of persuasion and have people not only listening closely to your every word but also remembering you long after you’ve left the room.
Be inspired to reach for your dreams! At the age of thirteen, Mo'ne Davis became the first female pitcher to win a game in the Little League World Series and the first Little Leaguer to be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated. A month later she earned a place in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. This inspiring memoir from a girl who learned to play baseball with the boys and rose to national stardom before beginning eighth grade will encourage young readers to reach for their dreams no matter the odds. Mo'ne's story is one of determination, hard work, and an incredible fastball. Mo'ne Davis is a multisport athlete who also plays basketball and soccer, and is an honor roll student at her school in Philadelphia. With an 8-page full-color photo insert, this memoir celebrates our fascination with baseball in a story of triumph to be shared with generations of young athletes to come.
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Nic Stone comes a challenging and heartwarming coming-of-age story about a softball player looking to prove herself on and off the field. Shenice Lockwood, captain of the Fulton Firebirds, is hyper-focused when she steps up to the plate. Nothing can stop her from leading her team to the U12 fast-pitch softball regional championship. But life has thrown some curveballs her way. Strike one: As the sole team of all-brown faces, Shenice and the Firebirds have to work twice as hard to prove that Black girls belong at bat. Strike two: Shenice’s focus gets shaken when her great-uncle Jack reveals that a career-ending—and family-name-ruining—crime may have been a setup. Strike three: Broken focus means mistakes on the field. And Shenice’s teammates are beginning to wonder if she’s captain-qualified. It's up to Shenice to discover the truth about her family’s past—and fast—before secrets take the Firebirds out of the game forever.
Gold Medal Winner--Tops Sales World's Best Sales and Marketing Book “Fast, fun and immensely practical.” —JOE SULLIVAN, Founder, Flextronics “Move over Neil Strauss and game theory. Pitch Anything reveals the next big thing in social dynamics: game for business.” —JOSH WHITFORD, Founder, Echelon Media “What do supermodels and venture capitalists have in common?They hear hundreds of pitches a year. Pitch Anything makes sure you get the nod (or wink) you deserve.” —RALPH CRAM, Investor “Pitch Anything offers a new method that will differentiate you from the rest of the pack.” —JASON JONES, Senior Vice President, Jones Lang LaSalle “If you want to pitch a product, raise money, or close a deal, read Pitch Anything and put its principles to work.” —STEVEN WALDMAN, Principal and Founder, Spectrum Capital “Pitch Anything opened my eyes to what I had been missing in my presentations and business interactions.” —LOUIE UCCIFERRI, President, Regent Capital Group “I use Oren’s unique strategies to sell deals, raise money, and handle tough situations.” —TAYLOR GARRETT, Vice President, White Cap “A counter-intuitive method that works.” —JAY GOYAL, CEO, SumOpti About the Book: When it comes to delivering a pitch, Oren Klaff has unparalleled credentials. Over the past 13 years, he has used his one-of-a- kind method to raise more than $400 million—and now, for the fi rst time, he describes his formula to help you deliver a winning pitch in any business situation. Whether you’re selling ideas to investors, pitching a client for new business, or even negotiating for a higher salary, Pitch Anything will transform the way you position your ideas. According to Klaff, creating and presenting a great pitch isn’t an art—it’s a simple science. Applying the latest findings in the field of neuroeconomics, while sharing eye-opening stories of his method in action, Klaff describes how the brain makes decisions and responds to pitches. With this information, you’ll remain in complete control of every stage of the pitch process. Pitch Anything introduces the exclusive STRONG method of pitching, which can be put to use immediately: Setting the Frame Telling the Story Revealing the Intrigue Offering the Prize Nailing the Hookpoint Getting a Decision One truly great pitch can improve your career, make you a lot of money—and even change your life. Success is dependent on the method you use, not how hard you try. “Better method, more money,” Klaff says. “Much better method, much more money.” Klaff is the best in the business because his method is much better than anyone else’s. And now it’s yours. Apply the tactics and strategies outlined inPitch Anything to engage and persuade your audience—and you’ll have more funding and support than you ever thought possible.
How do we create new ways of looking at the world? Join award-winning data storyteller RJ Andrews as he pushes beyond the usual how-to, and takes you on an adventure into the rich art of informing. Creating Info We Trust is a craft that puts the world into forms that are strong and true. It begins with maps, diagrams, and charts — but must push further than dry defaults to be truly effective. How do we attract attention? How can we offer audiences valuable experiences worth their time? How can we help people access complexity? Dark and mysterious, but full of potential, data is the raw material from which new understanding can emerge. Become a hero of the information age as you learn how to dip into the chaos of data and emerge with new understanding that can entertain, improve, and inspire. Whether you call the craft data storytelling, data visualization, data journalism, dashboard design, or infographic creation — what matters is that you are courageously confronting the chaos of it all in order to improve how people see the world. Info We Trust is written for everyone who straddles the domains of data and people: data visualization professionals, analysts, and all who are enthusiastic for seeing the world in new ways. This book draws from the entirety of human experience, quantitative and poetic. It teaches advanced techniques, such as visual metaphor and data transformations, in order to create more human presentations of data. It also shows how we can learn from print advertising, engineering, museum curation, and mythology archetypes. This human-centered approach works with machines to design information for people. Advance your understanding beyond by learning from a broad tradition of putting things “in formation” to create new and wonderful ways of opening our eyes to the world. Info We Trust takes a thoroughly original point of attack on the art of informing. It builds on decades of best practices and adds the creative enthusiasm of a world-class data storyteller. Info We Trust is lavishly illustrated with hundreds of original compositions designed to illuminate the craft, delight the reader, and inspire a generation of data storytellers.
