More than 300 ballplayers have spent time with both the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees, opposing teams in one of the most intense rivalries ever in sports. This book examines the century long antagonism between the two clubs, their storied pasts and their evolution during the 20th century. Several what-ifs are considered: what if Babe Ruth had never been traded from the Red Sox to the Yankees? What if the clubs had swapped Joe DiMaggio for Ted Williams, as was proposed by the owners of both teams? What if Alex Rodriguez had gone to Boston, as was originally intended, rather than to New York? The debate as to which team has made out better with shared players is explored.
Inspired and led by sporting magnate Albert Goodwill Spalding, two teams of baseball players circled the globe for six months in 1888-1889 competing in such far away destinations as Australia, Sri Lanka and Egypt. These players, however, represented much more than mere pleasure-seekers. In this lively narrative, Zeiler explores the ways in which the Spalding World Baseball Tour drew on elements of cultural diplomacy to inject American values and power into the international arena. Through his chronicle of baseball history, games, and experiences, Zeiler explores expressions of imperial dreams through globalization's instruments of free enterprise, webs of modern communication and transport, cultural ordering of races and societies, and a strident nationalism that galvanized notions of American uniqueness. Spalding linked baseball to a U.S. presence overseas, viewing the world as a market ripe for the infusion of American ideas, products and energy. Through globalization during the Gilded Age, he and other Americans penetrated the globe and laid the foundation for an empire formally acquired just a decade after their tour.
Egyre kritikusábbá vált a helyzete Tokés Lászlónak, a legismertebb romániai ellenzékinek. A temesvári református lelkész hétrol hétre népes gyülekezet elott beszélt az országban tapasztalható elviselhetetlen életkörülményekrol és a rettegett román titkosrendorség, a Securitate terrorjáról. A diktatúrával való ilyen nyílt szembeszegülés példa nélküli volt Romániában. A renitenst sürgosen el kellett hallgattatni. Ám a hatalomnak elovigyázatosnak kellett lennie, hiszen nyugaton is figyelemmel követték a lelkipásztor sorsát. Az események drámai fordulatot vettek, amikor egy észak-amerikai magyar emigráns csoport két kanadait küldött Temesvárra, hogy videóinterjút készítsenek Tokéssel. A dátum 1989. március 20. A titokban leforgatott interjúnak végzetes következményei lettek – mind a lelkész, mind az egész ország számára.
After 1948, the 370,000 Jews of Romania who survived the Holocaust became one of the main sources of immigration for the new state of Israel as almost all left their homeland to settle in Palestine and Israel. Romania's decision to allow its Jews to leave was baldly practical: Israel paid for them, and Romania wanted influence in the Middle East. For its part, Israel was rescuing a community threatened by economic and cultural extinction and at the same time strengthening itself with a massive infusion of new immigrants. Radu Ioanid traces the secret history of the longest and most expensive ransom arrangement in recent times, a hidden exchange that lasted until the fall of the Communist regime. Including a wealth of recently declassified documents from the archives of the Romanian secret police, this updated edition follows Israel’s long and expensive ransom arrangement with Communist Romania. Ioanid uncovers the elaborate mechanisms that made it successful for decades, the shadowy figures responsible, and the secret channels of communication and payment. As suspenseful as a Cold-War thriller, his book tells the full, startling story of an unprecedented slave trade.
A fascinating look inside the inner sanctum of the Steinbrenner era Yankees No team in American sports has as storied a history as the New York Yankees, winners of 27 World Series. As the strength and conditioning coach for the Yankees for parts of three decades, Jeff Mangold?was firmly embedded ?in building the dynasty of the 1990s and 2000s.? In?Power and Pinstripes, Mangold shares priceless stories from his 14 seasons behind the scenes in the Bronx. Mangold had a front-row seat to the daily drama of George Steinbrenner's revolving door of managers—Yogi Berra, Billy Martin, and Lou Piniella—in the 1980s. Then, when he returned to the Yankees in 1998, he joined a juggernaut of a team and was tasked with maintaining the health of a star-studded roster including the Core Four of Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Andy?Pettitte, and Mariano Rivera.? Mangold shares personal tales of finding his way with stars like Dave Winfield and Ron Guidry, motivating personalities like David Wells, and facing a thorny challenge that later became a scandal when Roger Clemens and other Yankees arrived at?spring training with their own personal strength coaches in tow.? Yankees fans will not want to miss this unique perspective on a the franchise during one of baseball's most exciting and controversial eras.
The most detailed account of the 1949 shooting of the former Philadelphia Phillies baseball star Eddie Waitkus by an obsessed nineteen-year-old female fan in a Chicago hotel.
The Big Red Machine dominated major league baseball in the 1970s, but the Cincinnati franchise began its climb to that pinnacle in 1961, when an unlikely collection of cast-offs and wannabes stunned the baseball world by winning the National League pennant. Led by revered manager Fred Hutchinson, the team featured rising stars like Frank Robinson, Jim O'Toole, and Vada Pinson, fading stars like Gus Bell and Wally Post, and a few castoffs who suddenly came into their own, like Gene Freese and 20-game-winner Joey Jay. In time to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their pennant-winning season, the amazing story of the "Ragamuffin Reds" is told from start to finish in Before the Machine. Written by long-time Reds Report editor Mark J. Schmetzer and featuring dozens of photos by award-winning photographer Jerry Klumpe of the Cincinnati Post & Times Star, this book surely will be a winner with every fan in Reds country and coincides with an anniversary exhibit at the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame and Museum. Through interviews and research, Before the Machine captures the excitement of a pennant race for a team that had suffered losing seasons in 14 of the past 16 years. Schmetzer also beautifully evokes the time and place--a muggy Midwestern summer during which, as the new song of the season boasts, "the whole town's batty for that team in Cincinnati." Led by regional talk-show star Ruth Lyons (the Midwest's "Oprah") fans rallied around the Reds as never before. The year didn't begin well for the team. Budding superstar Frank Robinson was arrested right before spring training for carrying a concealed weapon, and long-time owner Powel Crosley Jr., died suddenly just days before the start of the season. Few experts--or fans--gave the Reds much of a chance at first place anyway. With powerhouse teams in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Milwaukee, the National League pennant was unlikely to fly over Cincinnati's Crosley Field. But manager Hutchinson somehow galvanized his motley crew and led them to victory after victory. Joey Jay, who had languished with the Braves, mowed down hitters while his rotation mates O'Toole and knuckleballer Bob Purkey did the same. The team also featured a dynamic duo in the bullpen in Bill Henry and Jim Brosnan, whose book about the season, Pennant Race, became a national bestseller the following year. As the rest of the league kept waiting for the Reds to fade, Hutch's boys kept winning--and finally grabbed the pennant. Though they couldn't continue their magic in the World Series against the Yankees, the previously moribund Reds franchise did continue to their success throughout the decade, winning 98 games in 1962 and falling just short of another pennant in 1964. They established a recipe for success that would lead, a few years later, to the emergence of the Big Red Machine.
Chronicles the greatest players in Yankees history through photographs, articles, and essays, from Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig to current superstars Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez.
Legendary New York Yankees pitcher Ron Guidry recounts his years playing for one of the most storied and celebrated teams in sports history--the world champion New York Yankees during their heyday in the Bronx Zoo years, with manic manager Billy Martin, headline loving owner George Steinbrenner, and an ego-driven all-star cast that included everyone from slugger Reggie Jackson and All star catcher Thurman Munson to Cy Young Award winners Sparky Lyle and Catfish Hunter. Ron Guidry, known as Gator and Louisiana Lightning to his teammates, quickly rose in 1977 to become the ace of the Yankees' stellar pitching staff, helping the team regarded as the most famous and notorious in Yankee history win the World Series. In 1978, he went 25-3 with a 1.74 ERA and won the Cy Young Award as the best pitcher in baseball, helping to bring home the Yankees' second straight World Series championship. A four-time All Star and five-time Golden Glove winner, he played from 1976 to 1988, served as the Yankees' captain in the 1980s, and remains one of the greatest pitchers in Yankee history. In Gator, Guidry takes us inside the clubhouse to tell us what it was like to play amidst the chaos and almost daily confrontations between Billy Martin and George Steinbrenner, Martin's altercations with star slugger Reggie "the straw that stirs the drink" Jackson. He talks poignantly about the death of Thurman Munson in 1979, and the impact that had on Ron and on the club. He tells stories about players like Lou Pinella, Willie Randolph, Bucky Dent, Catfish Hunter, Chris Chambliss, and Mickey Rivers, and coach Yogi Berra (who in 1984 became the Yankees' manager) and Elston Howard.
