The typical baseball fan yearns for one of two things: a strikeout or a home run. But most of the game takes place in between these electrifying moments, and this book discusses the importance of "small ball" to baseball. It examines the multitude of times small ball activities have secured victories through aggressive base running, sacrifice hits, squeeze bunts, stolen bases, productive outs and hit-and-run plays, as well as games in which aggressive small ball activity led to defeat. The book covers the most important small ball players, managers and teams.
Big League Dreams finds the Krimsk Rebbe and many of his flock in St. Louis on a Saturday, the Sabbath, in the summer of 1920. In St. Louis, it is the summer of 1920 and the day is the Sabbath, but there is little rest for the Jews from Krimsk and less reverence for the wondrous Krimsker Rebbe, who led them to the New World seventeen years before. The rebbe's former hasidim have embraced America to discover that the vision of "gold in the streets" evokes larceny in the heart. Matti Sternweiss, the ungainly, studious child wonder in Krimsk, now the cerebral catcher for the St. Louis Browns, is scheming to fix Saturday's game against the pennant-contending Detroit Tigers. It is an American Sabbath: Prohibition, bookies, the criminal syndicate, the Hiberian fellowship of the police brass, hometown blondes, a bootlegging rabbi, and big league baseball. It is also Krimsk in America: Boruch Levi, the successful junkman, confiscates his zany, crippled brother-in-law Barasch's sizable bets; Barasch's lusty wife, Malka, has her own connubial reasons for wanting to stop the gambling; the chief of police fatefully inspires his loyal disciple, Boruch Levi, to bring Matti before the Krimsker Rebbe on the Sabbath in order to preserve the purity of the national pastime. Recluse and wonder-worker, messianist and pragmatist, the Krimsker Rebbe navigates the muddy Mississippi River, haunted by a recurring prophetic vision of Pharaoh's blood-red Nile. In the final, decisive innings, with Matti crouched behind home plate, it will come down to Ty Cobb versus the kabbalah. Richly imagined, populated with robust, complex characters, Big League Dreams is a profoundly original, inspiring, and comic creation. It is the second volume in the series Small Worlds, which follows the people of Krimsk and their descendants in America, Russia, Poland, and Israel. In each volume Allen Hoffman draws on his deep knowledge of Jewish religion and history to evoke the finite yet infinite "small worlds" his characters inhabit.
In 1947, as the integration of Major League Baseball began, the once-daring American League had grown reactionary, unwilling to confront postwar challenges--population shifts, labor issues and, above all, racial integration. The league had matured in the Jim Crow era, when northern cities responded to the Great Migration by restricting black access to housing, transportation, accommodations and entertainment, while blacks created their own institutions, including baseball's Negro Leagues. As the political climate changed and some major league teams realized the necessity of integration, the American League proved painfully reluctant. With the exception of the Cleveland Indians, integration was slow and often ineffective. This book examines the integration of baseball--widely viewed as a triumph--through the experiences of the American League and finds only a limited shift in racial values. The teams accepted few black players and made no effort to alter management structures, and organized baseball remained an institution governed by tradition-bound owners.
In the 1970s, after a decade of stagnant fan interest that seemed to signal the demise of Major League Baseball, the game saw growth and change. In 1972, the players became the first in professional sports to go on strike. Four years later, contractual changes allowed those with six years in the majors to become free agents, leading to an unprecedented increase in salaries. Developments in the play of the game included new ballparks with faster fields and artificial turf, and the introduction of the designated hitter in 1973. Eminent personalities emerged from the dugout, including many African Americans and Latinos. Focusing on the stars who debuted from 1970 through 1979, this book covers the highs and lows of more than 1,300 players who gave fans the most exciting decade baseball has ever seen.
For 52 years, Boston was a two-team Major League city, home to both the Red Sox and the Braves. This book focuses on the two teams' period of coexistence and competition for fans. The author analyzes the Boston fan base through trends in transportation, communication, geography, population and employment. Tracing the pendulum of fan preference between the two teams over five distinct time periods, a deeper understanding emerges of why the Red Sox remained in Boston and the Braves moved to Milwaukee.
PLAYING HARD BALL is a unique sports book, a cultural comparison of two national games - cricket, English in origin and American baseball - written from the viewpoint of a top-class practitioner of both codes. Ed Smith - the young Cambridge University and Kent batsman - has spent the winters since 1998 in Spring Training with the New York Mets baseball team. It has enabled Ed to contrast and compare arguably the two most iconic of sports from the inside. In fact, baseball had a thriving following in Britain until the Great War: Derby County's former stadium was called the Baseball Ground; Tottenham Hotspur was at first a baseball club. Apart from learning two very different techniques, Ed learned that the sports' ultimate heroes, the Babe and the Don - Babe Ruth and Don Bradman - might as well have come from different planets, whilst baseball's pristine Hall of Fame in Cooperstown is a far cry from the ramshackle cricket museum at Lord's. Ed Smith's PLAYING HARD BALL draws on these intriguing comparisons to paint a two-sided portrait of sports most illustrous 'hitting games'.
There is no question that the physical and mental demands of the sport of baseball are rigorous. Not only is it difficult to successfully hit a ninety-mile-per-hour fastball in front of a crowd of passionate spectators, but it is also challenging to navigate an often confusing system that leads players through youth leagues, high school, college, and for a lucky few, the Minor and Major Leagues. Rod Humphries, sports journalist, television writer, and former administrator of a worldwide professional tennis tour, shares his personal experiences and advice from experts in this complete insiders guide designed to help players, their parents, and baseball fans understand how Major Leaguers pay their dues. Humphries, who closely studied the entire baseball assembly line when his son was drafted out of high school by the Houston Astros, offers valuable information on: The professional baseball structure Little League vs. select/travel ball Player analysis and recruitment Scholarships and coaching camps Draft day decisions, salaries, and career chances Little League to the Major Leagues provides proven tips and time-tested advice for any family or player who dares to dream of journeying beyond youth baseball to high school, college, and the professional game.
Employ cognitive theory in the classroom every day Research into how we learn has opened the door for utilizing cognitive theory to facilitate better student learning. But that's easier said than done. Many books about cognitive theory introduce radical but impractical theories, failing to make the connection to the classroom. In Small Teaching, James Lang presents a strategy for improving student learning with a series of modest but powerful changes that make a big difference—many of which can be put into practice in a single class period. These strategies are designed to bridge the chasm between primary research and the classroom environment in a way that can be implemented by any faculty in any discipline, and even integrated into pre-existing teaching techniques. Learn, for example: How does one become good at retrieving knowledge from memory? How does making predictions now help us learn in the future? How do instructors instill fixed or growth mindsets in their students? Each chapter introduces a basic concept in cognitive theory, explains when and how it should be employed, and provides firm examples of how the intervention has been or could be used in a variety of disciplines. Small teaching techniques include brief classroom or online learning activities, one-time interventions, and small modifications in course design or communication with students.
With more than 4 million people participating in Little League games every year, Little League is the rite of passage into the quintessential American pastime. "Play Ball!" charts Little League's history from its earliest days and shows how, in many respects, its history parallels America's history. 140 illustrations.
