The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly: Pittsburgh Piratesby John McCollister presents all the best moments and personalities in the history of the Pittsburgh Pirates. It also unmasks, but doesn't revel in, the bad, the regrettably awful and the unflinchingly ugly. In entertaining—and unsparing—fashion, this book sparkles with Pirate highlights, lowlights, wonderful and wacky memories, legends and goats, the famous and the infamous. You'll relive the final homerun hits of the 1960 World Series by Hal Smith and Bill Mazeroski, the Fam-A-Lee of 1979, the World Series losses, the terrible 1952 Pirates, and the drug scandal of the early 1980s. There are Pirates you loved for all the right reasons, and those you couldn't stand, sublime and embarrassing records, and trades, both savvy and savagely bad. Brawls and fights. Rivalries. Compelling photos. And much, much more.
He pitched a baseball game that was more than perfect, and yet he lost. Southpaw Harvey Haddix had logged a solid but unspectacular career by the time he took the mound on May 26, 1959. Facing the Milwaukee Braves, he set down the first 36 batters in a row, or 12 innings' worth--a perfect game three innings longer than the norm. But his Pittsburgh Pirates couldn't score, either, and Haddix lost in the 13th inning on a controversial play. This book recounts Haddix's one-of-a-kind performance and describes the official decisions that changed the historical record.
This monumental book about the Philadelphia Flyers not only documents all the best moments and personalities in the history of the team, but also unmasks the regrettably awful and the unflinchingly ugly. In entertaining—and unsparing—fashion, this book sparkles with Flyers highlights and lowlights, from wonderful and wacky memories to the famous and infamous. Such moments include the era of the “Broad Street Bullies” as well as the playoff drought in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Learn how visionary founding owner Ed Snider created the Flyers and sold the city of Philadelphia on the sport of hockey. Get the inside story of how the franchise built a championship squad, then repeatedly rebuilt it over the next three decades to stay at the top of the NHL—in the process compiling the league’s second-best all-time winning percentage. Enjoy classic tales about the great rivalries (especially with the Rangers, Devils, and Penguins), about the great coaches—including Fred Shero and Pat Quinn—and countless great players: Barber, Clarke, Parent, Poulin, Hextall, Primeau, and many more. Whether providing fond memories, goose bumps, or laughs, this portrait of the team and its history is sure to appeal to the fan who has been through it all. This updated edition takes readers through the 2012–13 season and features the Flyers’ trip to the 2010 Stanley Cup Finals as well as recent stars Claude Giroux, Scott Hartnell, Kimmo Timonen, and more.
For the past three years, the Pittsburgh Pirates have been the National League East Division champions, but each time they have lost in the playoffs to their Western Division rivals. This book tells how the Pirates became the powerhouse team that won three straight division crowns, and takes a look at the factors that have kept the team from advancing to the World Series.
Finalist for the 2021 CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year "For that period of time, he was the greatest player of my generation."--Keith Hernandez Dave Parker was one of the biggest and most badass baseball players of the late twentieth century. He stood at six foot five and weighed 235 pounds. He was a seven-time All-Star, a two-time batting champion, a frequent Gold Glove winner, the 1978 National League MVP, and a World Series champion with both the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Oakland A's. Here the great Dave Parker delivers his wild and long-awaited autobiography--an authoritative account of Black baseball during its heyday as seen through the eyes of none other than the Cobra. From his earliest professional days learning the game from such baseball legends as Pie Traynor and Roberto Clemente to his later years mentoring younger talents like Eric Davis and Barry Larkin, Cobra is the story of a Black athlete making his way through the game during a time of major social and cultural transformation. From the racially integrated playing fields of his high school days to the cookie-cutter cathedrals of his prime alongside all the midseason and late-night theatrics that accompany an athlete's life on the road-Parker offers readers a glimpse of all that and everything in between. Everything. Parker recounts the triumphant victories and the heart-breaking defeats, both on and off the field. He shares the lessons and experiences of reaching the absolute pinnacle of professional athletics, the celebrations with his sports siblings who also got a taste of the thrills, as well as his beloved baseball brothers whom the game left behind. Parker recalls the complicated politics of spring training, recounts the early stages of the free agency era, revisits the notorious 1985 drug trials, and pays tribute to the enduring power of relationships between players at the deepest and highest levels of the sport. With comments at the start of each chapter by other baseball legends such as Pete Rose, Dave Winfield, Willie Randolph, and many more, Parker tells an epic tale of friendship, success, indulgence, and redemption, but most of all, family. Cobra is the unforgettable story of a million-dollar athlete just before baseball became a billion-dollar game.
