With their 2015 World Series championship, the Kansas City Royals claimed their spot among baseball's top current franchises. Through the words of the players, via multiple interviews conducted with current and past Royals, readers will meet the players, coaches, and management and share in their moments of greatness and defeat. Montgomery recounts moments with George Brett, Willie Wilson, and Mike Sweeney as well as the current squad under Ned Yost, including Eric Hosmer and Alex Gordon. Kansas City fans will not want to be without this book.
If You Were Only White explores the legacy of one of the most exceptional athletes ever—an entertainer extraordinaire, a daring showman and crowd-pleaser, a wizard with a baseball whose artistry and antics on the mound brought fans out in the thousands to ballparks across the country. Leroy “Satchel” Paige was arguably one of the world’s greatest pitchers and a premier star of Negro Leagues Baseball. But in this biography Donald Spivey reveals Paige to have been much more than just a blazing fastball pitcher. Spivey follows Paige from his birth in Alabama in 1906 to his death in Kansas City in 1982, detailing the challenges Paige faced battling the color line in America and recounting his tests and triumphs in baseball. He also opens up Paige’s private life during and after his playing days, introducing readers to the man who extended his social, cultural, and political reach beyond the limitations associated with his humble background and upbringing. This other Paige was a gifted public speaker, a talented musician and singer, an excellent cook, and a passionate outdoorsman, among other things. Paige’s life intertwined with many of the most important issues of the times in U.S. and African American history, including the continuation of the New Negro Movement and the struggle for civil rights. Spivey incorporates interviews with former teammates conducted over twelve years, as well as exclusive interviews with Paige’s son Robert, daughter Pamela, Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe, and John “Buck” O’Neil to tell the story of a pioneer who helped transform America through the nation’s favorite pastime. Maintaining an image somewhere between Joe Louis’s public humility and the flamboyant aggression of Jack Johnson, Paige pushed the boundaries of segregation and bridged the racial divide with stellar pitching packaged with slapstick humor. He entertained as he played to win and saw no contradiction in doing so. Game after game, his performance refuted the lie that black baseball was inferior to white baseball. His was a contribution to civil rights of a different kind—his speeches and demonstrations expressed through his performance on the mound.
A bad umpiring call ruins a pitcher’s once-in-a-lifetime chance to make Major League Baseball history. Fans boo and sports talkers bray—but murder? FBI Special Agent Patti Moreland knows nothing about baseball, but she must uncover who’s leaving a trail of bodies outside of stadiums in New York and New Jersey, and why. Each body comes with a note demanding the league commissioner reverse the call that ruined an ultra-rare perfect game, or more people die—including a player close to the investigation who’s vanished and has less than thirty-six hours to live if the commissioner doesn’t buckle. Unless Moreland catches the madman first.
The riveting story of four men—Larry Doby, Bill Veeck, Bob Feller, and Satchel Paige—whose improbable union on the Cleveland Indians in the late 1940s would shape the immediate postwar era of Major League Baseball and beyond. In July 1947, not even three months after Jackie Robinson debuted on the Brooklyn Dodgers, snapping the color line that had segregated Major League Baseball, Larry Doby would follow in his footsteps on the Cleveland Indians. Though Doby, as the second Black player in the majors, would struggle during his first summer in Cleveland, his subsequent turnaround in 1948 from benchwarmer to superstar sparked one of the wildest and most meaningful seasons in baseball history. In intimate, absorbing detail, Luke Epplin's Our Team traces the story of the integration of the Cleveland Indians and their quest for a World Series title through four key participants: Bill Veeck, an eccentric and visionary owner adept at exploding fireworks on and off the field; Larry Doby, a soft-spoken, hard-hitting pioneer whose major-league breakthrough shattered stereotypes that so much of white America held about Black ballplayers; Bob Feller, a pitching prodigy from the Iowa cornfields who set the template for the athlete as businessman; and Satchel Paige, a legendary pitcher from the Negro Leagues whose belated entry into the majors whipped baseball fans across the country into a frenzy. Together, as the backbone of a team that epitomized the postwar American spirit in all its hopes and contradictions, these four men would captivate the nation by storming to the World Series--all the while rewriting the rules of what was possible in sports.
Triumphant wins, gut-wrenching losses, last-second shots, underdogs, competition, and loyalty—it’s fun to be a fan. But when a football player takes a hit to the head after yet another study has warned of the dangers of CTE, or when a team whose mascot was born in an era of racism and bigotry takes the field, or when a relief pitcher accused of domestic violence saves the game, how is one to cheer? Welcome to the club for sports fans who care too much. In Loving Sports When They Don’t Love You Back, acclaimed sports writers Jessica Luther and Kavitha A. Davidson tackle the most pressing issues in sports, why they matter, and how we can do better. For the authors, “sticking to sports” is not an option—not when our taxes are paying for the stadiums, and college athletes aren’t getting paid at all. But simply quitting a favorite team won’t change corrupt and deplorable practices, and the root causes of many of these problems are endemic in our wider society. An essential read for modern fans, Loving Sports When They Don’t Love You Back challenges the status quo and explores how we might begin to reconcile our conscience with our fandom.
A page-turning blend of business and baseball that inspires and entertains Small Ball Big Results is about the little things that add up to the big wins in baseball, business and life. Leaders and team players alike will draw vital lessons from stories that transport you from the baseball field to the board room, revealing what it takes to build an unbeatable culture. Emmy Award-winning sports broadcaster Joel Goldberg shares tales of perseverance, patience, grit and gratitude from soldiers, executives, entrepreneurs, baseball players and many more. The essence of a strong culture shines through with chapters like "Purpose," "Trust," "Do the Right Thing" and "Every Role Matters." Structured like a baseball game - including extra innings and pre- and post-game shows - Joel is an unending well of stories that will make you laugh, cry, and most importantly, take action in your own life or business.
Dale Scott’s career as a professional baseball umpire spanned nearly forty years, including thirty-three in the Major Leagues, from 1985 to 2017. He worked exactly a thousand games behind the plate, calling balls and strikes at the pinnacle of his profession, working in every Major League Baseball stadium, and interacting with dozens of other top-flight umpires, colorful managers, and hundreds of players, from future Hall of Famers to one-game wonders. Scott has enough stories about his career on the field to fill a dozen books, and there are plenty of those stories here. He’s not interested in settling scores, but throughout the book he’s honest about managers and players, some of whom weren’t always perfect gentlemen. But what makes Scott’s book truly different is his unique perspective as the only umpire in the history of professional baseball to come out as gay during his career. Granted, that was after decades of remaining in the closet, and Scott writes vividly and movingly about having to “play the game”: maintaining a facade of straightness while privately becoming his true self and building a lasting relationship with his future husband. He navigated this obstacle course at a time when his MLB career was just taking off—and when North America was consumed by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Scott’s story isn’t only about his leading a sort of double life, then opening himself up to the world and discovering a new generosity of spirit. It’s also a baseball story, filled with insights and memorable anecdotes that come so naturally from someone who spent decades among the world’s greatest baseball players, managers, and games. Scott’s story is fascinating both for his umpiring career and for his being a pioneer for LGBTQ people within baseball and across sports.
Amos Otis, Frank White, George Brett, Hal McRae, Dan Quisenberry, Bret Saberhagen, Paul Splittorff. One mention of any of those names can bring about visions of great baseball, determination, hard-nosed, and winning. However, one vision out-weighs all others: the boys in blue & the Kansas City Royals. The Kansas City Royals, an expansion club in the American League in 1969, struggled during their early existence. It didn't take long, however, before the Royals established themselves as one of the most successful franchises in baseball. That success culminated with the winning of the 1985 World Series.Since 1969, the Royals have developed great players that have had fun. Along the way, they also have developed a winning tradition. Although the Royals have received the small-market tag in recent years, the organization still boasts a proud heritage. In Denny Matthews' Tales from the Royals Dugout, longtime Royals radio broadcaster Denny Matthews relives the club's great moments and pro
