With four World Series championships in five seasons and a deep bench of legends and comers -- Clemens, Rivera, Williams, Soriano, Jeter, O'Neill -- they dominated the major leagues.For the members of the team, though, baseball Yankees-style was a pressure cooker of anxiety, expectation, and infighting. As the spending and emotion spiraled, careers were made and broken, friendships began and ended, and a sports dynasty rose and fell.In The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty, Buster Olney tracks the Yankees through these tumultuous seasons and into the scandals and disappointments of 2004, providing insightful portraits of the stars, the foot soldiers, the coaches, the manager, and the Boss himself. With unparalleled knowledge of the game and an insider's familiarity with the team, Olney also advances a compelling argument that the philosophy that made the Yankees great was inherently unsustainable, ultimately harmful to the sport, and led inevitably to that warm autumn night in Arizona -- the last night of the Yankee dynasty.

    The Splendid Splinter. Teddy Ballgame. One of the greatest figures of his generation, and arguably the greatest baseball hitter of all time. But what made Ted Williams a legend – and a lightning rod for controversy in life and in death? What motivated him to interrupt his Hall of Fame career twice to serve his country as a fighter pilot; to embrace his fans while tangling with the media; to retreat from the limelight whenever possible into his solitary love of fishing; and to become the most famous man ever to have his body cryogenically frozen after his death? New York Times bestselling author Leigh Montville, who wrote the celebrated Sports Illustrated obituary of Ted Williams, now delivers an intimate, riveting account of this extraordinary life. Still a gangly teenager when he stepped into a Boston Red Sox uniform in 1939, Williams’s boisterous personality and penchant for towering home runs earned him adoring admirers--the fans--and venomous critics--the sportswriters. In 1941, the entire country followed Williams's stunning .406 season, a record that has not been touched in over six decades. At the pinnacle of his prime, Williams left Boston to train and serve as a fighter pilot in World War II, missing three full years of baseball. He was back in 1946, dominating the sport alongside teammates Dominic DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky, and Bobby Doerr. But Williams left baseball again in 1952 to fight in Korea, where he flew thirty-nine combat missions—crash-landing his flaming, smoke-filled plane, in one famous episode.Ted Willams's personal life was equally colorful. His attraction to women (and their attraction to him) was a constant. He was married and divorced three times and he fathered two daughters and a son. He was one of corporate America's first modern spokesmen, and he remained, nearly into his eighties, a fiercely devoted fisherman. With his son, John Henry Williams, he devoted his final years to the sports memorabilia business, even as illness overtook him. And in death, controversy and public outcry followed Williams and the disagreements between his children over the decision to have his body preserved for future resuscitation in a cryonics facility--a fate, many argue, Williams never wanted. With unmatched verve and passion, and drawing upon hundreds of interviews, acclaimed best-selling author Leigh Montville brings to life Ted Williams's superb triumphs, lonely tragedies, and intensely colorful personality, in a biography that is fitting of an American hero and legend.

    Set against the backdrop of a resort town on the bend of the outer Cape, the story charts the changing fortunes of a handful ?of players battling slumps and self-doubt in their effort to make the league playoffs and, more importantly, impress the major league scouts.We learn about everything from the physics of wooden bats and the physiology of elbows to the psychology of slumps and the lure of drugs. In the course of a single dramatic season, with euphoric wins and devastating losses, we come to know the intricacies of the major league scouting network and the rapidly changing profile of major league baseball.In the tradition of The Boys of Summer, The Last Best League is about dreams fulfilled and dreams denied, about Cape Cod and the rites of summer, and about the way one small town grows to love a group of young men coming of age in America.

    But their greatness on the field was nearly eclipsed by how bad they were off it. Led by the indomitable Keith Hernandez and the young dynamic duo of Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry, along with the gallant Scum Bunch, the Amazin’s left a wide trail of wreckage in their wake—hotel rooms, charter planes, a bar in Houston, and most famously Bill Buckner and the hated Boston Red Sox.With an unforgettable cast of characters—including Doc, Straw, the Kid, Nails, Mex, and manager Davey Joshson—this “affectionate but critical look at this exciting season” (Publishers Weekly) celebrates the last of baseball’s arrogant, insane, rock-and-roll-and-party-all-night teams, exploring what could have been, what should have been, and what never was.

    Jayson Stark at ESPN says, "I never cease to be blown away by the geniuses at Baseball Prospectus." "When I have a question about a player, no matter how obscure, I pull out Baseball Prospectus," writes Rob Neyer at ESPN.com. And John Hunt, who covers fantasy baseball for USA Today, calls it "the best book for preparing for a rotisserie draft." Packed with statistics, analysis, and attitude for the information age, Baseball Prospectus is the essential guide for the 3.4 million serious fantasy baseball players, and the perfect game-side companion for millions more seamheads who want to understand the inside game--why, for example, Derek Jeter's recent contract makes A-Rod's look like a bargain, why the hiring of Dusty Baker should end the Cubs' long nightmare, and why, if he remains healthy, Pedro Martinez has a legitimate shot at being remembered as the best pitcher ever. Baseball Prospectus gives in-depth actual data and performance analysis of 1600 players, more than any other guide, covering the majors and minors, the top 40 prospects, draft choices, and rookie ball. It features essays on every team and gimlet-eyed evaluations of at least 50 players per organization. It's the final word--delivered in a wry and witty style--on what pitchers and hitters really did in 2003, and how they'll do in 2004 and beyond.

    Featuring totally revised and up-to-date statistics, this all-star encyclopedia presents the most complete and accurate portrait of the game of baseball ever compiled. Brought to fans at an unbeatable price, it’s brimming with illuminating essays and information. There’s comprehensive year-by-year and team-by-team batting and pitching statistics for all players in major league history; all-time leaders in 150 categories; all-inclusive coverage of career interruptions due to wartime military service; the most authoritative Negro League stats anywhere; and countless fascinating data about teams, managers, and ballparks. Plus every record ever set is noted and every active major league player’s numbers updated, with a detailed record of everything that happened in pro baseball this year.

    Years ago, two baseball fanatics and entertaining writers set out to create a comprehensive guide to all the diverse and fascinating ballparks throughout the country. For the second edition, they’ve done it again, providing updated information on every venue from Boston to L.A., plus brand new chapters for the brand new parks, like the new Yankee Stadium, Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park, the new Busch Stadium in St. Louis, the Mets’ Citi Field, San Diego's PETCO Park, Nationals Park in Washington, DC, the Twins’ Target Field, and Miami's Marlins Ballpark. With this book, you can skillfully plan and fully appreciate a road trip or a visit to any single park. Included are ticket and travel information, a detailed guide to the best and worst seats in each park, folklore and statistics on each park, tips on each park's trademark foods, and profiles of nearby sports bars and baseball attractions, all within a lively and fully illustrated narrative that reminds us that baseball is often the ultimate metaphor for the important things in life. Funny and irreverent and loaded with information, the book encompasses all the essential elements of a full-blown baseball road trip.

    and the premier research organization in all of sports, the Society for American Baseball Research. This initial release allows you to return to one of the most colorful, popular, important, and distinct periods of baseball history. With the Society for American Baseball Research to guide you, you'll learn about the stars, the regulars, and the people behind the scenes - who were all the leading lights of the senior circuit. Through them, follow the great game's opening decades as the original eight National League franchises combated the American League, only to strike up a partnership with it and start the World Series in 1903, launching the major leagues as we know them today. Lavishly illustrated, featuring photographs and autographs of every player or person profiled, Deadball Stars of the National League gives fans a unique window into the game of inside baseball, a time when the stolen base and the sacrifice were a manager's key weapons, when pitchers finished what they started, and when the baseball itself was a sodden, misshapen, tobaccostained menace. Edited by Tom Simon and written an

    They were pure ballplayers, sluggers and sweet fielders who played with unbridled joy and breathtaking skill. The national press converged on Crenshaw. So many scouts gravitated to their games that they took up most of the seats in the bleachers. Even the Crenshaw ballfield was a sight to behold -- groomed by the players themselves, picked clean of every pebble, it was the finest diamond in all of inner-city Los Angeles. On the outfield fences, the gates to the outside stayed locked against the danger and distraction of the streets. Baseball, for these boys, was hope itself. They had grown up with the notion that it could somehow set things right -- a vague, unexpressed, but persistent hope that even if life was rigged, baseball might be fair. And for a while it seemed they were right. Incredibly, most of of this team -- even several of the boys who sat on the bench -- were drafted into professional baseball. Two of them, Darryl Strawberry and Chris Brown, would reunite as teammates on a National League All-Star roster. But Michael Sokolove's The Ticket Out is more a story of promise denied than of dreams fulfilled. Because in Sokolove's brilliantly reported poignant and powerful tale, the lives of these gifted athletes intersect with the realities of being poor, urban, and black in America. What happened to these young men is a harsh reminder of the ways inspiration turns to frustration when the bats and balls are stowed and the crowd's applause dies down.

    The featured luminaries include Zane Grey, Ring Lardner, Damon Runyan, W.P. Kinsella, Red Smith, Tim McCarver, Pete Rose, and George Will, and they all weigh in with wit and an obvious love of the sport. Many offer a fascinating glimpse into baseball’s history, such as Walt Whitman, who reports on a rugged game played even before the Civil War. Russell Baker provides lessons on the art of firing, “learned at the knee of Mr. Steinbrenner.” An excerpt from Jim Bouton’s groundbreaking classic Ball Four examines the sport’s unrelenting power over him: “You see, you spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.” With these stories and essays, baseball buffs will relive important moments, such as Candy Cummings’ perfecting the first curve ball, baseball’s drawing the color line in 1887, and Bob Carroll’s uncovering Nate Colbert’s hidden RBI record in 1972.

    The word conjures different things to different people, but its distinction — and notoriety — is universal. In the annals of baseball, the history of few other teams can compare to the rich legacy of the Dodgers. Their constituency includes fans from Bensonhurst to Burbank. Their colorful past — “dem bums,” Jackie Robinson and the boys of summer, Walter O’Malley, Sandy Koufax, Tommy Lasorda, “bleeding Dodger blue” — has enlivened baseball in innumerable, immeasurable ways. And their legacy, casting a 120-year shadow, remains essential to the very nature of the game. In a compelling, insightfully written narrative and more than two hundred unforgettable photographs, many never before seen, The Dodgers: 120 Years of Dodgers Baseball tells the team's story in its entirety, from its birth in Brooklyn in 1884 and its early glories, to the heart-wrenching move to Los Angeles in 1958, to the present day. The Dodgers' evolution, and particularly their willingness to embrace change even when it was a wildly unpopular choice, is also, writes Glenn Stout in his introduction, “an inherently American story that follows a familiar path, a story of immigration, assimilation, migration, and change.” In one of the only books to look at the team as a unified whole, we see how the Dodgers helped create modern baseball in Brooklyn, how they ushered the game into its contemporary form with the signing of Jackie Robinson in 1945, and how they have borne witness to the metamorphosis of baseball from an amateur game played by gentlemen into a multibillion-dollar business. It's all here, a century and more of history-making baseball. In these pages, readers will experience some of the game's finest moments, greatest plays, and most unforgettable players, including• the birth of the “Trolley Dodgers” in an unlikely borough • a legendary series of stirring pennant races in the late 1940s and 1950s • Jackie Robinson and the integration of baseball • the notorious move from East Coast to West at the hands of the much-maligned Walter O’Malley • the reemergence of the Dodgers-Giants rivalry in California • the game's most dynamic pitching duo, Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale • Kirk Gibson’s dramatic home run in the 1988 World Series * and lively essays by such heralded Dodger chroniclers as Dave Anderson, Jane Leavy, Bill Plaschke, Dick Young, and others

    Play Baseball the Ripken Way is the ultimate guide to playing the game, by one of the sport's living legends.Baseball is America's national pastime, but that doesn't mean we're all born naturals. Kids of all ages (and their parents) are eager to improve specific skills, and now they can learn from one of the most respected baseball families in history. Cal and Bill Ripken have written a thoroughly illustrated instructional book that clearly explains proper baseball fundamentals--hitting, fielding, baserunning, pitching, and much more.Based on the teachings of the late Cal Ripken, Sr., a player, coach, manager, and scout in the Baltimore Orioles system for thirty-seven years, Play Baseball the Ripken Way shows players just what they need to do to be their best while maintaining a sense of fun and accomplishment with every new lesson. The Ripken Way consists of the following principles:*Keep It Simple: Teaching that is too complicated is difficult to remember and can result in frustration.*Explain Why: A teacher who cannot explain why is not truly teaching. Lessons that make sense will stick with players.*Celebrate the Individual: No two players are alike, so why treat them as if they are?*Make It Fun: The game gets serious enough quickly enough on its own. Drills and instruction should be structured so that players can enjoy themselves while learning.The book also includes tips for parents and coaches, practice workouts, and drills for players of every level.

    Fans today look back on the legendary Negro Leagues with reverence and awe, yet there has been woefully little visual documentation of the leagues' history. This treasure trove of images by Ernest Withers, the unofficial team photographer for the Memphis Red Sox, captures the peak of Negro League action through the years of groundbreaking integration, as well as the community in which black baseball was played. Satchel Paige, Jackie Robinson, and Hank Aaron are among the superstars portrayed in 150 photographs, reproduced in stunning duotone plates, introduced by baseball legend Willie Mays, and accompanied by an informative text by Daniel Wolff. From pictures of Indianapolis clown King Tut, the baseball equivalent of a Harlem Globetrotter, and pitcher Charley Pride, who went on to become a country/western singing star, to shots of visiting celebrities and ballplayers relaxing at local clubs, these astonishing photographs evoke a long-gone era and form an essential visual archive of a near-mythological aspect of baseball history.

    The Revised Rules of Baseball for 1867 together with full instructions for umpires and scorers, and also for pitching, batting, and fielding.

    Not just a special day in a historic rivalry but a unique one in the long tradition of baseball writing. For on this day award-winning sportswriter Steve Kettmann worked with a team of top reporters to chronicle everything that happened, from the point of view of everyone involved. With One Day at Fenway, Kettmann goes beyond the ballpark to bring you interviews and anecdotes involving all the major players—from Red Sox owner John Henry and CEO Larry Lucchino, privately second-guessing Grady Little's managing moves during the game; to Yankee skipper Joe Torre, worrying on the bench about Mariano Rivera, who can't find home plate; to Sox slugger Manny Ramirez, who missed the game with a throat infection. And there's more: the famous and infamous players in the field and in the boardrooms, rabid fans on both sides, the not-so-innocent bystanders—all here in this brilliant re-creation of a day in the life of America's favorite pastime.

    Yankees: The Great Rivalry covers nearly a century's worth of epic battles on and off the baseball field between these age-old rivals. Featuring exclusive interviews with former governors Mario Cuomo of New York and Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts, former press secretary Ari Fleischer, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, congressmen, reporters, broadcasters, and especially players, coaches, managers and front-office execs from the Red Sox and Yankees including Don Zimmer, Nomar Garciaparra, Derek Lowe, Jason and Jeremy Giambi, Lou Meroni, Dwight Evans, and Theo Epstein. Two unique features of the book are a Rivalry Timeline and a Talkin' Rivalry section, a free-for-all in print among fans, journalists, and players who all have something to say. Other chapters include Marker Moments, in-depth profiles of Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams, Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium. More than two years in the making, this coffee-table book will have nearly 256 pages of text and more than 125 photos, some in color, some archival. A perfect book for Yankee fans, Red Sox fans, and all baseball fans.

    You can rattle off the batting averages of favorite players and name the winningest pitchers for the past century. You call yourself a baseball maniac, but you haven't come across the likes of Bert Sugar. In this monster encyclopedia, renowned sportswriter Bert Sugar gives you thousands of lists, tables, and fascinating facts about players and teams, managers, the World Series, and much more.

    CHILDRENS BOOK ON FENWAY PARK

    Unchanging, it is a part of the nation's fabric tying its past to its present and future. Baseball is a game of eternal childhood, where heartthrob and heartbreak go hand in hand. It is poetry of motion, colossal power, raw speed, and pinpoint accuracy, a classic tale of failure and redemption in which the heroic emerges and touches our collective soul.However, championships are not won by superstars but rather by teamwork and sacrifice. So it is with life. Bouncing back from failure, adapting to new circumstances, and handling success are all paramount to making it. Bunt, steal, hit and run, or swing away--like the game, life is filled with important choices. How we manage those decisions will determine where we wind up at the end. These experiences birth the life lessons that define human existence."Life Lessons from Baseball" captures stories of baseball's top players and brings them to life in a way that is relevant to everyone. This one-of-a-kind book captures insightful stories of the game's best hitters, pitchers, fielders, and the timeless truths that unfold through their lives. These stories will inspire you. And you will discover that you, too, can safely navigate life's fickle nine innings and be part of a winning team.

    Sporting News has what other publishers do not - our own archive of Red Sox history since we helped found the American League in 1901. As well as exclusive editorial and photos from our archives and the 1918 Sporting News cover from the last time "we reported" on a Red Sox World Series win over the Chicago Cubs, 4 games to 2. FEATURES: Expert commentary; Photo-rich approach; Exclusive Red Sox photos; Coverage of the team's 2004 regular season with commentary on: key wins, players, fans and management contributions; Game coverage of both the Division and the League Championship Series; Game by game World Series coverage and commentary from the Sporting News editors.

    The city and its team have cooked up a partnership as strong and as strange as scrapple and toast over the past 121 years. Since 1883, the Phillies have been on the move-at times slowly, many times glacially, and sometimes quickly. Movin' On Up layers the present on the past by revisiting the places the Fightin' Phils once called their new home. But Movin' On Up is really about people, past, and present-not only players, but others who help and helped Philly move on up to the fabulous sports town we know today. The journey rolls along humorous and poignant episodes, old and new, that have splashed Philly and its fan with the signature color that both fascinates and infuriates outsiders. As this new millennium dashes toward the midpoint of its first decade, Philly's Phillies have a new park, a new team, and a new attitude. Well, maybe the attitude isn't all that new, as you'll read-and ne

    Don Drysdale. Maury Wills. Steve Garvey. Don Sutton. Fernando Valenzuela. Tommy Lasorda. Shawn Green. Eric Gagne. Since 1958, names like these have made the Los Angeles Dodgers into one of baseball's most successful and envied teams. Over the years, the team has won an astonishing nine National League championships and five World Series.Some familiar faces from their Brooklyn roots, including Gil Hodges and Duke Snider, led the Dodgers to their first championship at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1959; and a sparkling new Dodger Stadium featured the 1960s-era stars of Drysdale, Koufax, and Wills. The 1970s brought a record-setting infield and a Big Blue Wrecking Crew, led by manager Lasorda who claimed to "bleed Dodger blue." The 1980s placed the spotlight on "Fernandomania" and Kirk Gibson's World Series home run, which was later voted "the Greatest Moment in Southern California sports history." The team also heralded a new era of international players into the ranks of the major leagues, thanks to Valenzuela and later to Hideo Nomo, who made a successful transition from Japan to the Dodgers in 1995.

    DiMaggio's life is often seen as embodying the American Dream. The son of Sicilian immigrants, he rose from an unexceptional childhood in San Francisco to stardom on the national pastime's greatest stage--Yankee Stadium. As a player, DiMaggio fought off injuries and earned a reputation for unyielding excellence, exemplified by his Major-League-record 56-game hitting streak. DiMaggio's celebrity and sense of style and grace transcended the game, and his brief marriage to America's sex symbol, Marilyn Monroe, remains the stuff of legends. But Joltin' Joe struggled with the attention and scrutiny that came with fame, and he became increasingly reclusive in later life. In this concise biography, David Jones offers a complex new look at the man who was once voted baseball's greatest living player.It has been said that hitting a baseball is the hardest thing in professional sports. "Baseball's All-Time Greatest HitterS" presents biographies on Greenwood's selection for the 12 best hitters in Major League history, written by some of today's best baseball authors. These books present straightforward stories in accessible language for the high school researcher and the general reader alike. Each volume includes a timeline, bibliography, and index. In addition, each volume includes a Making of a Legend chapter that analyses the evolution of the player's fame and (in some cases) infamy.

    It was a baseball epic, an event for the ages that put the Sox into a World Series that was profoundly anticlimactic. From the writers, editors, and photographers of the award-winning Boston Globe comes the official 2004 Special Commemorative Book.

    They did it for the baby boomers in North Conway, NH, and Groton, MA. They did it for the kids in Central Falls, RI, and Putnam, CT. True. New England and a sprawling Nation of Sox fans can finally exhale. The Red Sox are World Champs. No more Curse of the Bambino. No more taunts of "1918." The suffering souls of Bill Buckner, Grady Little, Mike Torrez, Johnny Pesky, and Danny Galehouse are released from Boston Baseball's Hall of Pain. The 2004 Red Sox are champions because they engineered the greatest comeback in baseball history when they won four straight games against the hated Yankees in the American League Championship Series. It was baseball epic, an event for the ages putting the Sox into a World Series that was profoundly anticlimactic. En route to eight consecutive postseason wins, the Sons of Tito Francona simply destroyed a St. Louis Cardinals team that won a major league-high 105 games in 2004. Celebrate this historic win with two books partnered with

    Hero. A-Rod.Alex Rodriguez is on top of the sports world. At only 28 years old, he is possibly the best player in baseball, and now he is at the heart of what might be the best lineup in the history of the game: the 2004 New York Yankees.But how much do you really know about A-Rod?Follow A-Rod's rocket-ride to the top of the America's pastime, from his earliest days growing up in the shadow of historic Yankee Stadium, to his magical Most Valuable Player season in 2003 with the Texas Rangers.Find out what makes the greatest superstar in American sports tick as he chases the one thing missing from his Hall of Fame-bound career...a World Series ring.

    During its reign in Boston, the storied franchise, now the longest continuously active club in the history of baseball, had captured ten National League pennants and a world championship, and fielded thirty-eight Hall of Famers, including Kid Nichols, Warren Spahn, King Kelly, Rabbit Maranville, John Evers, Hugh Duffy, Eddie Matthews, and the Wright brothers. In this classic work, first published in 1948 and updated in 1954, famed sports scribe Harold Kaese brings to life the dramatic moments and brilliant players in the baseball legacy of the Braves in Boston. Richly illustrated with vintage photographs and cartoons, many published here for the first time, the book chronicles both the hapless and spectacular seasons from the Braves' founding in 1871 as the Boston Red Stockings in the National Association to their move to Milwaukee. Here one relives the remarkable dynasties in the nineteenth century, the "Miracle Braves" of 1914, the glory year of 1948, when the rallying cry was "Spahn, Sain, and pray for rain," and the lackluster final seasons in Boston. This edition includes a new index by Jonathan Fine of the Boston Braves Historical Association and a statistical appendix by Richard A. Johnson, editor of Northeastern's Sportstown series. This vivid look back at the Braves' years in Boston will appeal to both historians and baseball enthusiasts. It will also spark cherished memories of New England's still beloved team--the Boston National League club that "left behind an indifferent population, an ugly ball park, and the Red Sox."

    The Hardball Times 2004 Baseball Annual contains a number of articles reviewing the 2004 baseball season, as well as over 150 pages of baseball stats and our own special graphs. In all, 300 pages of pure baseball.

    Longtime White Sox fan and historian, Paul Whitfield takes the rich tradition of the White Sox and presents the legend and lore 'in brief' through quotes, humor, facts, figures and memories. It's a lot of ChiSox history in a little package Other books in the series include: Cubs, Red Sox, Cardinals, Yankees, and Giants.

    It includes informative introductions to the different sections and an extensive glossary that includes explanations and even mathematical formulae for the multitude of statistics now used in baseball -- many of them developed by Bill James himself. This book contains a myriad of stats on every hit, pitch and catch in Major League Baseball's 2004 season. Some of the most unique data include the Manager's Record, which gives readers an edge in understanding the differences between managers during a game, and Player Win-Shares, a statistic developed by Bill James evaluating a player's individual contribution to his team's wins.

    Follow the town of Bloomington, Indiana on its quest to buy the L.A. Dodgers and move them to the Midwest. You'll enjoy getting to know the funny residents of this college town as they come together to capture the attention of the nation, turn the baseball world upside down, and pursue an impossible dream.

    In seven of those years, either the Dodgers or the Giants teams vied for the championship with the lordly Yankees. These were truly the glory years of New York baseball, when the city breathlessly followed the game in the tabloids rather than on the television. And the New York Daily News - the nation's largest newspaper - spared no expense to record the action for the fans. It had the best photographers, the best equipment, and the best field position - and it brought the art of baseball photography to its highest pitch. In this book, the reader can follow year by year the course of baseball's most exciting decade in the world's greatest city.

    Baseball taught him lessons he could apply to his life and his relationship with God. That's what Called Up is about.In this fast-moving and compelling book, Dravecky retells classic baseball stories and introduces readers to some of baseball's greatest players---and characters. Taking you inside the game, his insights will prompt you to think. You'll actually feel the tension, for instance, as you relive the final three outs in Sandy Koufax's electrifying no-hitter against the Chicago Cubs in 1965. And as you consider the huge odds Koufax faced, you'll be encouraged about your own performance in this pressure-cooker world. In life, unlike baseball, no one pitches a no-hitter---and thanks to God's grace, you don't have to. Filled with well-researched stories and spiritual insights, along with hilarious quotes from the players, Called Up also tells you about: * Branch Rickey's secret ambition to integrate Major League baseball* how Jackie Robinson's faith sustained him in 1947, the year he broke the color barrier * why freezing Ted Williams' body so he can one day be resurrected doesn't make sense* the wit, wisdom, and spiritual truths behind Yogi Berra's sayings * Dravecky's all-time, all-century, best-ever All-Star team* the challenges Dravecky faced living out his Christian faith in front of his teammatesGod doesn't waste any pitches when it comes to teaching you about life from the game of baseball. You'll love the breezy stories, the quick applications, the timeless thoughts and funny quotes in Called Up. Are you ready for the first pitch? Good---because the umpire is yelling, 'Play ball!'

    Up by 6 1/2 games with just 12 left to play in the 1964 season, they appeared to have clinched their first pennant in more than a decade. Outfielder Johnny Callison narrowly missed being the National League MVP. Third baseman Richie Allen was Rookie of the Year. But the Fightin' Phils didn't make it to the postseason--they lost 10 straight and finished a game behind the St. Louis Cardinals. Besides engineering the greatest collapse of any team in major league baseball history, the '64 Phillies had another, more important distinction: they were Philadelphia's first truly integrated baseball team. In September Swoon William Kashatus tells the dramatic story--both on the field and off the field--of the Phillies' bittersweet season of 1964.More than any other team in Philadelphia's sports history, the '64 Phillies saddled the city with a reputation for being a loser. Even when victory seemed assured, Philadelphia found a way to lose. Unfortunately, the collapse, dubbed the September swoon, was the beginning of a self-destructive skid in both team play and racial integration, for the very things that made the players unique threatened to tear the team apart. An antagonistic press and contentious fans blamed Richie Allen, the Phillies' first black superstar, for the team's losing ways, accusing him of dividing the team along racial lines. Allen manipulated the resulting controversy in the hopes that he would be traded, but in the process he managed to further fray already tenuous race relations.Based on personal interviews, player biographies, and newspaper accounts, September Swoon brings to life a season and a team that got so many Philadelphians, both black and white, to care deeply and passionately about the game at a turbulent period in the city's--and our nation's--history. The hometown fans reveled in their triumphs and cried in their defeat, because they saw in them a reflection of themselves. The '64 Phillies not only won over the loyalties of a racially divided city, but gave Philadelphians a reason to dream--of a pennant, of a contender, and of a City of Brotherly Love.

    As the official Collectibles Publications Partner of Major League Baseball, the "2005 Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards earns high marks and an official nod from Major League Baseball as the most accurate, completed and trusted card reference available on the market today.

    The series started with baseball's winningest pitcher, Cy Young, throwing the first pitch, and ended with baseball's greatest hitter, Honus Wagner, striking out on the last pitch. Boston won the series, five games to three. Each game of the 1903 World Series and its key plays and players are thoroughly covered here, and the authors also pay special attention to the great significance that first World Series held for the future of baseball. Not only was the survival of the American League at stake, but baseball's place as the preeminent sport in America. The 1903 World Series drew more than 100,000 people to the ballparks, and there was no doubt about the popularity of the game. It was, as the authors point out, played by men, who, had they not been baseball players, would have been among the working class that made up most of the audience.