The Baseball: A Brief Novel

The Baseball: A Brief Novel

Author: James Flerlage

Publisher:

Published: 2019-11-09

Total Pages: 142

ISBN-13: 9780989828123

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Editorial Reviews "The Baseball is written so fluently that I didn't want it to end. This story is built around family, the good times and the bad times, the happy times and the sad times. It's about how different people cope with pain differently and how good things can come out of things that may initially seem like the end of the world. I recommend this book for anyone who truly values family, making memories, and living life to the fullest." - Manhattan Book Review (5-Star Review) " The Baseball is a brief novel by James Flerlage about family and the quality time we choose to spend with them. The irony of Landon's fate-an oncologist whose son develops cancer-could have turned the story into one of bitterness and regret. Instead, it is an opportunity to revisit a time in a man's life when he must choose his family or his work. The author delivers the heart-wrenching plot in simple and crisp prose and without judgment andgives readers the opportunity to re-examine their own priorities in life." - San Francisco Book Review (4-Star Review) "An unusually affecting story. Overall, this is an earnest, unpretentious book that, despite overly deliberate grabs for the heartstrings, still manages to pluck them, all the same. A familiar tale, but one that has a melodramatic sincerity." - Kirkus Reviews "The plot of The Baseball is a well-developed hybrid of family and sports drama. It hits familiar plot beats and framing devices, but the work develops smoothly and evenly with quiet style. The author has a clear handle on storytelling and the unveiling of mystery; the sports focus and the manner in which it is integrated into the characters' lives is alluring." - The BookLife Prize From the Back Cover Landon Myers is a retired pediatric oncologist who spends his days diagnosing the ills of his young grandchildren's stuffed animals while scheming up new ways to spend time with the older ones. When his thirteen-year-old granddaughter Lucy discovers an old Major League Baseball while cleaning his cellar, he faces the difficult task of exposing a family secret that has lain dormant for the past forty years. Over a long lunch with Lucy, Landon reveals that he was previously married, divorced, and had a son, Alex. Two years after his parents' bitter divorce, sixteen-year-old Alex receives devastating news that derails the course of his life. In a captivating story about family, relationships, and reconciliation, The Baseball begs the question, "If life gave you a second chance, would you know what to do with it?"


Bottom of the Ninth

Bottom of the Ninth

Author: John McNally

Publisher: SIU Press

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 9780809325047

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Skillfully edited by John McNally, Bottom of the Ninth: Great Contemporary Baseball Short Stories collects nineteen contemporary baseball short stories from a successful mix of well-established writers, lesser-knowns, and a few up-and-comers. These stories are characterized by the same dramatic elements that draw people to the sport itself--the mythologizing of players, the obsessions and romance of the game, the bonds between players and fans, parents and children. From a key play, a missed catch, a chance lost, these are tales of characters facing high stakes and calls to action, metaphorically and literally, in the bottom of the ninth.


The Shortstop

The Shortstop

Author: Zane Grey

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2014-02-21

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 1609773802

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Zane Grey (January 31, 1872 - October 23, 1939) was an American author best known for his popular adventure novels and stories that presented an idealized image of the American frontier, including the novel Riders of the Purple Sage, his bes selling book. This is one of his stories.


501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read Before They Die

501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read Before They Die

Author: Ron Kaplan

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2018-08-01

Total Pages: 567

ISBN-13: 1496209885

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Propounding his "small ball theory" of sports literature, George Plimpton proposed that "the smaller the ball, the more formidable the literature." Of course he had the relatively small baseball in mind, because its literature is formidable--vast and varied, instructive, often wildly entertaining, and occasionally brilliant. From this bewildering array of baseball books, Ron Kaplan has chosen 501 of the best, making it easier for fans to find just the books to suit them (or to know what they're missing). From biography, history, fiction, and instruction to books about ballparks, business, and rules, anyone who loves to read about baseball will find in this book a companionable guide, far more fun than a reference work has any right to be.


How Baseball Happened

How Baseball Happened

Author: Thomas W. Gilbert

Publisher: Godine+ORM

Published: 2020-09-15

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 1567926886

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The untold story of baseball’s nineteenth-century origins: “a delightful look at a young nation creating a pastime that was love from the first crack of the bat” (Paul Dickson, The Wall Street Journal). You may have heard that Abner Doubleday or Alexander Cartwright invented baseball. Neither did. You may have been told that a club called the Knickerbockers played the first baseball game in 1846. They didn’t. Perhaps you’ve read that baseball’s color line was first crossed by Jackie Robinson in 1947. Nope. Baseball’s true founders don’t have plaques in Cooperstown. They were hundreds of uncredited, ordinary people who played without gloves, facemasks, or performance incentives. Unlike today’s pro athletes, they lived full lives outside of sports. They worked, built businesses, and fought against the South in the Civil War. In this myth-busting history, Thomas W. Gilbert reveals the true beginnings of baseball. Through newspaper accounts, diaries, and other accounts, he explains how it evolved through the mid-nineteenth century into a modern sport of championships, media coverage, and famous stars—all before the first professional league was formed in 1871. Winner of the Casey Award: Best Baseball Book of the Year


The Ultimate Baseball Book

The Ultimate Baseball Book

Author: Daniel Okrent

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 462

ISBN-13: 9780618056682

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THE ULTIMATE BASEBALL BOOK has more than lived up to its name. Spanning the complete history of the sport from the fledgling leagues in the late 1870s to the powerhouses of the 1990s and revealing in the process what a remarkable effect baseball has had on our collective experience, this is THE book for any and all baseball fans, certain to grace coffee and bedside tables alike. Designed with that wonderful nostalgia that the sport itself so often evokes, THE ULTIMATE BASEBALL BOOK combines timeless images with a sweeping narrative history as well as essays on various idols and icons by such heavy hitters as Red Smith, Wilfrid Sheed, Roy Blount, Jr., Tom Wicker, and Geoge Will. This new edition covers baseball through the nineties, the decade when home run records fell and the sport reclaimed its hold on America, and celebrates the national game in ultimate style.


The Way of Baseball

The Way of Baseball

Author: Shawn Green

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2012-06-05

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 1439191204

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Major League All-Star Green shares how his baseball career has taught him to live life being fully present in every moment.


The Art of Fielding

The Art of Fielding

Author: Chad Harbach

Publisher: Little, Brown

Published: 2011-09-07

Total Pages: 395

ISBN-13: 0316192163

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A disastrous error on the field sends five lives into a tailspin in this widely acclaimed tale about love, life, and baseball, praised by the New York Times as "wonderful...a novel that is every bit as entertaining as it is affecting." Named one of the year's best books by the New York Times, NPR, The New Yorker, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, Bloomberg, Kansas City Star, Richmond Times-Dispatch, and Time Out New York. At Westish College, a small school on the shore of Lake Michigan, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for big league stardom. But when a routine throw goes disastrously off course, the fates of five people are upended. Henry's fight against self-doubt threatens to ruin his future. College president Guert Affenlight, a longtime bachelor, has fallen unexpectedly and helplessly in love. Owen Dunne, Henry's gay roommate and teammate, becomes caught up in a dangerous affair. Mike Schwartz, the Harpooners' team captain and Henry's best friend, realizes he has guided Henry's career at the expense of his own. And Pella Affenlight, Guert's daughter, returns to Westish after escaping an ill-fated marriage, determined to start a new life. As the season counts down to its climactic final game, these five are forced to confront their deepest hopes, anxieties, and secrets. In the process they forge new bonds, and help one another find their true paths. Written with boundless intelligence and filled with the tenderness of youth, The Art of Fielding is an expansive, warmhearted novel about ambition and its limits, about family and friendship and love, and about commitment -- to oneself and to others. "First novels this complete and consuming come along very, very seldom." --Jonathan Franzen


The Comic Book Story of Baseball

The Comic Book Story of Baseball

Author: Alex Irvine

Publisher: Ten Speed Graphic

Published: 2018-05-08

Total Pages: 178

ISBN-13: 0399578951

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A graphic novel-style history of baseball, providing an illustrated look at the major games, players, and rule changes that shaped the sport. This graphic novel steps up to the plate and covers all the bases in illustrating the origin of America's national pastime, presenting a complete look at the beginnings (both real and legendary), developments, triumphs, and tragedies of baseball. It also breaks down the cultural impact and significance of the sport both in America and overseas (including Japan, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic), from the early days of America to the flying W outside Wrigley Field in 2016. Featuring members of Baseball's Hall of Fame and modern day stand-outs—including Cy Young, Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron, the 1930s New York Yankees, the 2004 Boston Red Sox, the 2016 Chicago Cubs, and more—The Comic Book Story of Baseball spotlights the players, teams, games, and moments that built the sport's legacy and ensured its popularity.


Shut Out

Shut Out

Author: Howard Bryant

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-10-11

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 1135297762

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Shut Out is the compelling story of Boston's racial divide viewed through the lens of one of the city's greatest institutions - its baseball team, and told from the perspective of Boston native and noted sports writer Howard Bryant. This well written and poignant work contains striking interviews in which blacks who played for the Red Sox speak for the first time about their experiences in Boston, as well as groundbreaking chapter that details Jackie Robinson's ill-fated tryout with the Boston Red Sox and the humiliation that followed.