Baseball has long been dubbed America's national pastime. When the top teams face off in the World Series each season, team legacies and fans' hearts are on the line. Author Matt Doeden covers the century-long history of the World Series, from its humble beginnings to becoming a worldwide sensation. Discover the drama behind the statistics and record books that keeps the crowd enthralled!
Baseball's Greatest Series details what many believe to be the most exciting postseason series in baseball history: the 1995 Division Series between the New York Yankees and the Seattle Mariners. This division series was not simply about two teams playing five postseason games. It was about Ken Griffey Jr., Lou Piniella, Buck Showalter, Gene Michael, Jim Leyritz, Randy Johnson, Wade Boggs, Tony Fernandez, Pat Kelly, Dion James, Darryl Strawberryùand many others who changed the course of baseball history . . . A team playing to keep baseball alive in the Pacific Northwest A manager who was literally managing for his job A New York sports icon who for one week reminded everybody of the dominating player he had been a decade earlier Chris Donnelly's replay of this entire season reminds readers that it was a time when grown men cried their eyes out after defeat, and others, just a few hundred feet away, poured beer and champagne over one another while 57,000 people in Seattle's Kingdome celebrated. Five games they were. Five games that reminded people, after the devastating players' strike in 1994, how great a game baseball is because comebacks are always possible, no matter how great the obstacles may seem. From Don Mattingly's only postseason home run, which caused a near riot, to Edgar Martinez's legendary eleventh inning series-clinching double, Donnelly chronicles the earlier struggles of both teams during the 1980s, their mid-1990s resurgence, all five heart-stopping games of the series, and the dramatic and long-lasting effects of Seattle's victory. Simply stated, Baseball's Greatest Series hits a home run.
Who's the greatest slugger of all time, Babe Ruth or Ted Williams? Where do Derek Jeter and Cal Ripken Jr. rank on the list of the best shortstops? At third base, would you rather have Mike Schmidt or Brooks Robinson? Is Fenway or Wrigley the better ballpark? This book will end many arguments-and start some new ones. Sports Illustrated's has polled its Major League Baseball experts to determine the ultimate Top 10 in more than 20 categories. The rankings appear alongside stunning photography and classic stories from SI's archives. This is the best of the best in the major leagues, or, more simply, Baseball's Greatest.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Winner of the CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year “An instant sports classic.” —New York Post * “Stellar.” —The Wall Street Journal * “A true masterwork…880 pages of sheer baseball bliss.” —BookPage (starred review) * “This is a remarkable achievement.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) A magnum opus from acclaimed baseball writer Joe Posnanski, The Baseball 100 is an audacious, singular, and masterly book that took a lifetime to write. The entire story of baseball rings through a countdown of the 100 greatest players in history, with a foreword by George Will. Longer than Moby-Dick and nearly as ambitious,? The Baseball 100 is a one-of-a-kind work by award-winning sportswriter and lifelong student of the game Joe Posnanski. In the book’s introduction, Pulitzer Prize–winning commentator George F. Will marvels, “Posnanski must already have lived more than two hundred years. How else could he have acquired such a stock of illuminating facts and entertaining stories about the rich history of this endlessly fascinating sport?” Baseball’s legends come alive in these pages, which are not merely rankings but vibrant profiles of the game’s all-time greats. Posnanski dives into the biographies of iconic Hall of Famers, unfairly forgotten All-Stars, talents of today, and more. He doesn’t rely just on records and statistics—he lovingly retraces players’ origins, illuminates their characters, and places their accomplishments in the context of baseball’s past and present. Just how good a pitcher is Clayton Kershaw in the 21st-century game compared to Greg Maddux dueling with the juiced hitters of the nineties? How do the career and influence of Hank Aaron compare to Babe Ruth’s? Which player in the top ten most deserves to be resurrected from history? No compendium of baseball’s legendary geniuses could be complete without the players of the segregated Negro Leagues, men whose extraordinary careers were largely overlooked by sportswriters at the time and unjustly lost to history. Posnanski writes about the efforts of former Negro Leaguers to restore sidelined Black athletes to their due honor and draws upon the deep troves of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and extensive interviews with the likes of Buck O’Neil to illuminate the accomplishments of players such as pitchers Satchel Paige and Smokey Joe Williams; outfielders Oscar Charleston, Monte Irvin, and Cool Papa Bell; first baseman Buck Leonard; shortstop Pop Lloyd; catcher Josh Gibson; and many, many more. The Baseball 100 treats readers to the whole rich pageant of baseball history in a single volume. Engrossing, surprising, and heartfelt, it is a magisterial tribute to the game of baseball and the stars who have played it.
Which baseball player hit more home runs than any other player? Who holds the record for most stolen bases? What kinds of records can pitchers hold? The answers to these questions and many more are waiting to be discovered by readers, as they learn about the most famous records in one of the world’s most popular sports. Colorful photographs and informative biographies of stars from baseball’s past and present engage readers, and stat boxes allow them to practice interpreting charts to learn fun facts about baseball.
Baseball has always had its share of colorful characters, and over the years they have expressed themselves in eminently quotable ways. In this treasury of more than 5,000 quotations, noted baseball writer and observer Paul Dickson has captured the flavor of the game, in the words of its most important participants and onlookers. They are all here—from Aaron (Estella, Hank's mother) to Zoldack ("Sad Sack" Sam), and everyone in between. From the players, sportswriters, and politicians, to noted personalities in other fields (a very diverse group), everyone has his or her say on our nation's pastime. Dickson skillfully selects and annotates each remark, presenting the good, the bad, and the ugly of baseball lore. Included are extended lessons in Stengelese, Reggiespeak, Earl Weaverisms, and famous announcers' home run calls (who can forget Mel Allen's classic "Going, going, gone!"?). These and thousands of other cheerful, pithy, and memorable voices from the past through the present day are all captured in Baseball's Greatest Quotations.
My Greatest Day in Baseball, one of the earliest collections of the game’s oral histories, presents forty-seven famous stars from the golden age of baseball relating their most unforgettable moments in the sport. Ty Cobb vividly recreates the seventeenth-inning tie between the Philadelphia Athletics and Detroit Tigers with the 1908 pennant at stake. Grover Cleveland Alexander describes the day he saved the 1926 world championship for the St. Louis Cardinals. Babe Ruth recalls hitting the homer he had promised to the crowd at a 1932 World Series game. Dizzy Dean recounts a run-in with Ford Frick and a record-setting day in 1933 when he struck out seventeen Chicago Cubs. Among the other celebrated baseball figures telling their dramatic stories are Leroy “Satchel” Paige, Casey Stengel, Leo “The Lip” Durocher, Honus Wagner, Johnny Evers, Lefty Gomez, Tris Speaker, Cy Young, Pepper Martin, George Sisler, Billy Southworth, Enos Slaughter, Connie Mack, Walter Johnson, and Rogers Hornsby.
