Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game

Author: Michael Lewis

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2004-03-17

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0393066231

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Michael Lewis’s instant classic may be “the most influential book on sports ever written” (People), but “you need know absolutely nothing about baseball to appreciate the wit, snap, economy and incisiveness of [Lewis’s] thoughts about it” (Janet Maslin, New York Times). One of GQ's 50 Best Books of Literary Journalism of the 21st Century Just before the 2002 season opens, the Oakland Athletics must relinquish its three most prominent (and expensive) players and is written off by just about everyone—but then comes roaring back to challenge the American League record for consecutive wins. How did one of the poorest teams in baseball win so many games? In a quest to discover the answer, Michael Lewis delivers not only “the single most influential baseball book ever” (Rob Neyer, Slate) but also what “may be the best book ever written on business” (Weekly Standard). Lewis first looks to all the logical places—the front offices of major league teams, the coaches, the minds of brilliant players—but discovers the real jackpot is a cache of numbers?numbers!?collected over the years by a strange brotherhood of amateur baseball enthusiasts: software engineers, statisticians, Wall Street analysts, lawyers, and physics professors. What these numbers prove is that the traditional yardsticks of success for players and teams are fatally flawed. Even the box score misleads us by ignoring the crucial importance of the humble base-on-balls. This information had been around for years, and nobody inside Major League Baseball paid it any mind. And then came Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland Athletics. He paid attention to those numbers?with the second-lowest payroll in baseball at his disposal he had to?to conduct an astonishing experiment in finding and fielding a team that nobody else wanted. In a narrative full of fabulous characters and brilliant excursions into the unexpected, Michael Lewis shows us how and why the new baseball knowledge works. He also sets up a sly and hilarious morality tale: Big Money, like Goliath, is always supposed to win . . . how can we not cheer for David?

Tom Yawkey
Tom Yawkey

Author: Bill Nowlin

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 736

ISBN-13: 1496204395

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2019 SABR Baseball Research Award Few people have influenced a team as much as did Tom Yawkey (1903-76) as owner of the Boston Red Sox. After purchasing the Red Sox for $1.2 million in 1932, Yawkey poured millions into building a better team and making the franchise relevant again. Although the Red Sox never won a World Series under Yawkey's ownership, there were still many highlights. Lefty Grove won his three hundredth game; Jimmie Foxx hit fifty home runs; Ted Williams batted .406 in 1941, and both Williams and Carl Yastrzemski won Triple Crowns. Yawkey was viewed by fans as a genial autocrat who ran his ball club like a hobby more than a business and who spoiled his players. He was perhaps too trusting, relying on flawed cronies rather than the most competent executives to run his ballclub. One of his more unfortunate legacies was the accusation that he was a racist, since the Red Sox were the last Major League team to integrate, and his inaction in this regard haunted both him and the team for decades. As one of the last great patriarchal owners in baseball, he was the first person elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame who hadn't been a player, manager, or general manager. Bill Nowlin takes a close look at Yawkey's life as a sportsman and as one of the leading philanthropists in New England and South Carolina. He also addresses Yawkey's leadership style and issues of racism during his tenure with the Red Sox.

Faithful
Faithful

Author: Stewart O'Nan

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2005-09-06

Total Pages: 465

ISBN-13: 0743267532

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Now in paperback, two fiercely avid Red Sox fans document one of the most eagerly anticipated baseball seasons of all time. From devoted fans O'Nan and King comes this unique chronicle of one baseball team's journey from spring training to post-season play.

Joe Black
Joe Black

Author: Martha Jo Black

Publisher: Chicago Review Press

Published: 2015-02-01

Total Pages: 396

ISBN-13: 0897337530

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He was told that the color of his skin would keep him out of the big leagues, but Joe Black worked his way up through the Negro Leagues and the Cuban Winter League. He burst into the Majors in 1952 when he signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers. In the face of segregation, verbal harassment, and even death threats, Joe Black rose to the top of his game; he earned National League Rookie of the Year and became the first African American pitcher to win a World Series game. With the same tenacity he showed in his baseball career, Black became the first African American vice president of a transportation corporation when he went to work for Greyhound. In this first-ever biography of Joe Black, his daughter Martha Jo Black tells the story not only of a baseball great who broke through the color line, but also of the father she knew and loved.

Scandal on the South Side
Scandal on the South Side

Author: Jacob Pomrenke

Publisher: SABR, Inc.

Published: 2015-06

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 1933599944

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The Black Sox Scandal is a cold case, not a closed case. When Eliot Asinof wrote his classic history about the fixing of the 1919 World Series, Eight Men Out, he told a dramatic story of undereducated and underpaid Chicago White Sox ballplayers, disgruntled by their low pay and poor treatment by team management, who fell prey to the wiles of double-crossing big-city gamblers offering them bribes to lose the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. Shoeless Joe Jackson, Buck Weaver, Eddie Cicotte, and the other Black Sox players were all banned from organized baseball for life. But the real story is a lot more complex. We now have access to crucial information that changes what we thought we knew about “baseball’s darkest hour” — including rare film footage from that fateful fall classic, legal documents from the criminal and civil court proceedings, and accurate salary information for major-league players and teams. All of these new pieces to the Black Sox puzzle provide definitive answers to some old mysteries and raise other questions in their place. However, the Black Sox Scandal isn’t the only story worth telling about the 1919 Chicago White Sox. The team roster included three future Hall of Famers, a 20-year-old spitballer who would go on to win 300 games in the minor leagues, and even a batboy who later became a celebrity with the “Murderers’ Row” New York Yankees in the 1920s. All of their stories are included in Scandal on the South Side, which has full-life biographies on each of the 31 players who made an appearance for the White Sox in 1919, plus a comprehensive recap of Chicago’s pennant-winning season, the tainted World Series, and the sordid aftermath. This book isn’t a rewriting of Eight Men Out, but it is the complete story of everyone associated with the 1919 Chicago White Sox. The Society for American Baseball Research invites you to learn more about the Black Sox Scandal and the infamous team at the center of it all. With contributions from Adrian Marcewicz, Andy Sturgill, Brian Cooper, Brian McKenna, Brian Stevens, Bruce Allardice, Dan Lindner, Daniel Ginsburg, David Fleitz, David Fletcher, Gregory H. Wolf, Irv Goldfarb, Jack Morris, Jacob Pomrenke, James E. Elfers, James R. Nitz, Jim Sandoval, John Heeg, Kelly Boyer Sagert and Rod Nelson, Lyle Spatz, Paul Mittermeyer, Peter Morris, Richard Smiley, Rick Huhn, Russell Arent, Steve Cardullo, Steve Steinberg, Steven G. McPherson, and William F. Lamb. Table of Contents: 1. Introduction, by Jacob Pomrenke 2. Prologue: Offseason 1918-19, by Jacob Pomrenke 3. Joe Benz, by William F. Lamb 4. Eddie Cicotte, by Jim Sandoval 5. Eddie Collins, by Paul Mittermeyer 6. Shano Collins, by Andy Sturgill 7. Dave Danforth, by Steve Steinberg 8. Red Faber, by Brian Cooper 9. Season Timeline: April 1919 10. Happy Felsch, by James R. Nitz 11. Chick Gandil, by Daniel Ginsburg 12. Joe Jackson, by David Fleitz 13. Bill James, by Steven G. McPherson 14. Joe Jenkins, by Jacob Pomrenke 15. Dickey Kerr, by Adrian Marcewicz 16. Season Timeline: May 1919 17. Nemo Leibold, by Gregory H. Wolf 18. Grover Lowdermilk, by James E. Elfers 19. Byrd Lynn, by Russell Arent 20. Erskine Mayer, by Lyle Spatz 21. Hervey McClellan, by Jack Morris 22. Tom McGuire, by Jack Morris 23. Season Timeline: June 1919 24. Fred McMullin, by Jacob Pomrenke 25. Eddie Murphy, by John Heeg 26. Win Noyes, by Bruce Allardice 27. Pat Ragan, by Andy Sturgill 28. Swede Risberg, by Kelly Boyer Sagert and Rod Nelson 29. Charlie Robertson, by Jacob Pomrenke 30. Season Timeline: July 1919 31. Reb Russell, by Richard Smiley 32. Ray Schalk, by Brian Stevens 33. Frank Shellenback, by Brian McKenna 34. John Sullivan, by Jacob Pomrenke 35. Buck Weaver, by David Fletcher 36. Roy Wilkinson, by William F. Lamb 37. Season Timeline: August 1919 38. Lefty Williams, by Jacob Pomrenke 39. Owner: Charles Comiskey, by Irv Goldfarb 40. Manager: Kid Gleason, by Dan Lindner 41. General Manager: Harry Grabiner, by Steve Cardullo 42. Executive: Tip O’Neill, by Brian McKenna 43. Batboy: Eddie Bennett, by Peter Morris 44. Season Timeline: September 1919 45. Walking Off to the World Series, by Jacob Pomrenke 46. The 1919 World Series: A Recap, by Rick Huhn 47. The Pitching Depth Dilemma, by Jacob Pomrenke 48. 1919 American League Salaries, by Jacob Pomrenke 49. The Black Sox Scandal, by William F. Lamb 50. Epilogue: Offseason 1919-20, by Jacob Pomrenke

Pete Rose
Pete Rose

Author: William A. Cook

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2003-12-31

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 0786426950

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On September 11, 1985, with a sell-out crowd of 52,000 fans on hand at Cincinnati's Riverfront Stadium and millions of others watching on television, Pete Rose collected hit number 4,192 of his career and passed Ty Cobb as the all-time career hits leader. As he reached first base, thousands of cameras flashed, his teammates mobbed him, fireworks exploded and the crowd overwhelmed him with a seven-minute standing ovation. Rose was on top of the world. Less than four years later, he would be banned for life from baseball for allegedly betting on major league games, roundly criticized in the press by both fans and fellow players, and then convicted for tax evasion. In 2003, fourteen years after he was made ineligible for the Hall of Fame, Commissioner Bud Selig took up Rose's application for reinstatement, igniting once again an intense debate about his legacy and baseball's long-standing zero-tolerance policy on gambling. This book gathers the available facts of Rose's life and career, as well as the scandals he was embroiled in, leaving the reader a more informed participant in the ongoing discussion.

The Selling of the Babe
The Selling of the Babe

Author: Glenn Stout

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2016-03-08

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 1466870001

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WINNER of the Society for American Baseball Research's (SABR) 2017 Larry Ritter Awardfor best baseball book of the Deadball Era The complete story surrounding the most famous and significant player transaction in professional sports The sale of Babe Ruth by the Boston Red Sox to the New York Yankees in 1919 is one of the pivotal moments in baseball history, changing the fortunes of two of baseball's most storied franchises, and helping to create the legend of the greatest player the game has ever known. More than a simple transaction, the sale resulted in a deal that created the Yankee dynasty, turned Boston into an also-ran, helped save baseball after the Black Sox scandal and led the public to fall in love with Ruth. Award-winning baseball historian Glenn Stout reveals brand-new information about Babe and the unique political situation surrounding his sale, including: -Prohibition and the lifting of Blue Laws in New York affected Yankees owner and beer baron Jacob Ruppert -Previously unexplored documents reveal that the mortgage of Fenway Park did not factor into the Ruth sale - Ruth's disruptive influence on the Red Sox in 1918 and 1919, including sabermetrics showing his negative impact on the team as he went from pitcher to outfielder The Selling of the Babe is the first book to focus on the ramifications of the sale and captures the central moment of Ruth's evolution from player to icon, and will appeal to fans of The Kid and Pinstripe Empire. Babe's sale to New York and the subsequent selling of Ruth to America led baseball from the Deadball Era and sparked a new era in the game, one revolved around the long ball and one man, The Babe.

Knuckler
Knuckler

Author: Tim Wakefield

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2011-04-06

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 0547517718

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At forty-four years old, Tim Wakefield is the longest-serving member of one of baseball’s most popular franchises. He is close to eclipsing the winning records of two of the greatest pitchers to have played the game, yet few realize the full measure of his success. That his career can be characterized by such words as dependability and consistency defies all odds because he has achieved this with baseball’s most mercurial weapon—the knuckleball. Knuckler is the story of how a struggling position player bet his future on a fickle pitch that would define his career. The pitch may drive hitters crazy, but how does the pitcher stay sane? The moment Wakefield adopted the knuckleball, his career sought to answer that question. With the Red Sox, Wakefield began to master his pitch only to find himself on the mound in 2003 for one of the worst post-season losses in history, followed the next year by one of the most vindicating of championships. Even now, as Wakefield battles, we see the twists and turns of a major league career pushed to its ultimate extreme. A remarkable story of one player’s success despite being the exception to every rule, Knuckler is also a lively meditation on the dancing pitch, its history, its mystique, and all the ironies it brings to bear.

Baseball in the Garden of Eden
Baseball in the Garden of Eden

Author: John Thorn

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2012-03-20

Total Pages: 386

ISBN-13: 0743294041

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Think you know how the game of baseball began? Think again. Forget Abner Doubleday and Cooperstown. Did baseball even have a father--or did it just evolve from other bat-and-ball games? John Thorn, baseball's preeminent historian, examines the creation story of the game and finds it all to be a gigantic lie. From its earliest days baseball was a vehicle for gambling, a proxy form of class warfare. Thorn traces the rise of the New York version of the game over other variations popular in Massachusetts and Philadelphia. He shows how the sport's increasing popularity in the early decades of the nineteenth century mirrored the migration of young men from farms and small towns to cities, especially New York. Full of heroes, scoundrels, and dupes, this book tells the story of nineteenth-century America, a land of opportunity and limitation, of glory and greed--all present in the wondrous alloy that is our nation and its pastime.--From publisher description.