The Tao of Baseball
Author: Gordon Bell
Publisher: Touchstone
Published: 1991
Total Pages: 164
ISBN-13: 9780671704308
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Imperfect
Author: Jim Abbott
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2013-03-26
Total Pages: 330
ISBN-13: 0345523261
DOWNLOAD EBOOK“Honest, touching, and beautifully rendered . . . Far more than a book about baseball, it is a deeply felt story of triumph and failure, dreams and disappointments. Jim Abbott has hurled another gem.”—Jonathan Eig, New York Times bestselling author of Luckiest Man NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Born without a right hand, Jim Abbott dreamed of someday being a great athlete. Raised in Flint, Michigan, by parents who encouraged him to compete, Jim would become an ace pitcher for the University of Michigan. But his journey was only beginning: By twenty-one, he’d won the gold medal game at the 1988 Olympics and—without spending a day in the minor leagues—cracked the starting rotation of the California Angels. In 1991, he would finish third in the voting for the Cy Young Award. Two years later, he would don Yankee pinstripes and pitch one of the most dramatic no-hitters in major-league history. In this honest and insightful book, Jim Abbott reveals the challenges he faced in becoming an elite pitcher, the insecurities he dealt with in a life spent as the different one, and the intense emotion generated by his encounters with disabled children from around the country. With a riveting pitch-by-pitch account of his no-hitter providing the ideal frame for his story, this unique athlete offers readers an extraordinary and unforgettable memoir. “Compelling . . . [a] big-hearted memoir.”—Los Angeles Times “Inspirational.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer Includes an exclusive conversation between Jim Abbott and Tim Brown in the back of the book.
The Mental Game Of Baseball
Author: H. A. Dorfman
Publisher: Taylor Trade Publications
Published: 2002
Total Pages: 359
ISBN-13: 1888698543
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn this book, authors H.A. Dorfman and Karl Kuehl present their practical and proven strategy for developing the mental skills needed to achieve peack performance at every level of the game.
Infinite Baseball
Author: Alva Noë
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2019-03-01
Total Pages: 209
ISBN-13: 0190928190
DOWNLOAD EBOOKBaseball is a strange sport: it consists of long periods in which little seems to be happening, punctuated by high-energy outbursts of rapid fire activity. Because of this, despite ever greater profits, Major League Baseball is bent on finding ways to shorten games, and to tailor baseball to today's shorter attention spans. But for the true fan, baseball is always compelling to watch -and intellectually fascinating. It's superficially slow-pace is an opportunity to participate in the distinctive thinking practice that defines the game. If baseball is boring, it's boring the way philosophy is boring: not because there isn't a lot going on, but because the challenge baseball poses is making sense of it all. In this deeply entertaining book, philosopher and baseball fan Alva Noë explores the many unexpected ways in which baseball is truly a philosophical kind of game. For example, he ponders how observers of baseball are less interested in what happens, than in who is responsible for what happens; every action receives praise or blame. To put it another way, in baseball - as in the law - we decide what happened based on who is responsible for what happened. Noe also explains the curious activity of keeping score: a score card is not merely a record of the game, like a video recording; it is an account of the game. Baseball requires that true fans try to tell the story of the game, in real time, as it unfolds, and thus actively participate in its creation. Some argue that baseball is fundamentally a game about numbers. Noe's wide-ranging, thoughtful observations show that, to the contrary, baseball is not only a window on language, culture, and the nature of human action, but is intertwined with deep and fundamental human truths. The book ranges from the nature of umpiring and the role of instant replay, to the nature of the strike zone, from the rampant use of surgery to controversy surrounding performance enhancing drugs. Throughout, Noe's observations are surprising and provocative. Infinite Baseball is a book for the true baseball fan.
The Comic Book Story of Baseball
Author: Alex Irvine
Publisher: Ten Speed Graphic
Published: 2018-05-08
Total Pages: 178
ISBN-13: 0399578951
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA 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.
What Baseball Means to Me
Author: Curt Smith
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2009-02-28
Total Pages: 620
ISBN-13: 044655698X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFunny, moving, and each one a diamond in the rough of the American consciousness, the essays in this book are the ultimate baseball conversation that pays homage to the perfect sport, in this perfect companion for all our personal baseball journeys. For some people baseball means a memory-of a certain dusty ball field on a certain summer day, or the first time they walked into a major league park and saw the perfect emerald playing field. For some, baseball means one heartbreaking or heroic moment. And for others, it means a father, a friend, or an old flame who shared a game for a day or for a lifetime. To create this marvelous book, more than 150 writers, athletes, celebrities, politicians, presidents, and pundits were asked what baseball means to them. The answers came back with richness, wonder, insight, and poetry. A fascinating portrait of baseball's beautiful nuances, What Baseball means to me marks the greatest collection of original essays ever written about the game. Accompanied by more than 200 classic baseball photographs, the voices in this book bring alive the game in all its venues-in the past and present, in wartime and hard times, in Cuba, in Wrigley Field or Yankee Stadium. We meet players in a different light: including Paul Molitor returning a baseball to a trusting boy named Dan Jansen, Derek Jeter as depicted by his dad, the Toledo Mud Hens as seen through the eyes of Christine Brennan, and Pedro Martinez talking about baseball as a way of life in his native Dominican Republic. Most of all, we meet ordinary Americans, like the kids Rudy Giuliani grew up with in Brooklyn, or the man in Philadelphia who transforms himself for every home game from mild-mannered Tom Burgoyne to the Phillie Phanatic.
Thinking Body, Dancing Mind
Author: Chungliang Al Huang
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 2009-07-29
Total Pages: 335
ISBN-13: 0307568393
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhy fight your way to the top when you can rise to it? Let go of the obsession to win—and you will be victorious. Acknowledge your vulnerabilities—and turn them into strengths. Find the courage to risk failure—and begin your journey to success. That is the secret of the TaoAthlete, and in this remarkable book t'ai chi expert Chungliang Al Huang and renowned professional and Olympic sports psychologist Jerry Lynch teach you the time-honored principles of successful performance—whether on the playing field, in the office, or in your relationships. By mastering the unique strategies and mental exercises of the TaoAthelete, you'll unlock the extraordinary powers of body, mind, and spirit that will lead you to victory in any field of endeavor. Praise for Thinking Body, Dancing Mind “This gives you a positive mental perspective and provides good focus for your mind—unconscious and conscious.”—Phil Jackson, coach of the Los Angeles Lakers “Warning: If you're completely content with your life, don't read this book. But if you'd like to break through to higher levels of performance, understanding, and happiness . . . this book is magic.”—Larry Dossey, M.D., author of Meaning & Medicine and Healing Words “In six months my level of performance has grown more than in the previous ten years of athletic training. Using Taoist principles of performance has pushed me to levels I never dreamed possible.”—Steven Gottlieb, all-American 1989 NCAA Tennis Division III champion “Bringing Eastern thought to the Western world of sport really works. . . . My game has improved immensely.”—Vince Stroth, offensive guard, Houston Oilers, NFL “The Tao is responsible for me turning my life around, athletically and personally. I am now able to believe in myself and perform to my capability.”—Regina Jacobs, U.S. Olympic Track Team
The Prehistories of Baseball
Author: Seelochan Beharry
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2016-03-09
Total Pages: 331
ISBN-13: 147661363X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKBaseball's roots lie deep in our ancestral past. The ancient arts of throwing (distance warfare), hitting (close quarters combat), and running (attack and retreat) were woven into the earliest forms of baseball. Early humans recognized the importance of the sun and sought to placate it with sacrificial offerings, imitating its movements and deifying it. Myths and relics of these foundational practices and beliefs were carried westward across the Old World by Indo-European peoples. Games for the early British and Continental Europeans (notably the Celts and Druids) served military, religious, social and educational needs. As the Celts and Druids came under the control of the Roman Empire, and later the Christian Church, their customs and practices, including games, fell out of favor. Despite persecution, some folk games survived the millennia under such names as "stool-ball," "tut-ball," and "base-ball." Descendants of these peoples brought their variant games to the New World where the standardization of various informal rules led to their rapid spread. Baseball, with its underlying beliefs, superstitions and practices, still brings us together with familiar and comforting rituals as we assemble under the sun.
The Tao of Sport: Reflecting on Purpose, Passion, and Growth from a Hotbed of High Performance
Author: Duff Gibson
Publisher: ISBN Canada
Published: 2021-09-14
Total Pages: 220
ISBN-13: 9781777641436
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDuff Gibson has spent the better part of three decades in a hotbed of Olympic sport. As an athlete, Duff was a provincial champion speed skater, a national champion and national team member in bobsleigh, and then a world and Olympic gold medallist in the sport of skeleton. As a coach he led six different athletes to podium finishes at a world level. Competing against, working with, and learning from numerous world-leading athletes and coaches has provided Duff a breadth and depth of experience few others have had. Despite its mischaracterization in popular culture, the mental side of sport is perhaps the most significant aspect, and what very often makes the difference between success and failure, in particular at the highest level. The Tao of Sport explores the commonality amongst elite performers relating to purpose, passion, and growth, as a means to achieving high performance, or as a means to an end in itself. An inspiring and informative read for athletes and coaches of any level, as well as parents, teachers, and anyone helping others to become the best version of themselves. The Tao of Sport will forever change your perspective on what it really takes to win.
The Baseball Gods
Author: Ronald DiFabbio
Publisher: iUniverse
Published: 2006-07
Total Pages: 122
ISBN-13: 0595397328
DOWNLOAD EBOOKHave you ever watched a baseball game and wondered why on some days every good call or lucky bounce goes in favor of the team you're rooting for, while on the other days it seems like there is a grand conspiracy perpetuated by some higher power to keep them from winning? Or maybe you've wondered why some players always seem to get the big hit in the clutch, while others wilt when the spotlight shines on them? Or on a more personal level, maybe you're someone who can't figure why your life is not what you had always hoped it would be and you feel powerless to do anything about it? The questions of baseball and life are as mysterious as the compulsions that drive us to answer them, but there are a group of beings that make their home on the ball fields of our youth and in the landscape of our dreams who can answer all our questions and teach us to live to a better life. They are the Baseball Gods and this is the story of how I met them, how they have changed my life.
