And if you’re relatively new to the game, there’s certainly more than enough to keep you asking questions about the fine points of Major League Baseball. This revised and updated edition of the Baseball Field Guide explains the rules in plain English, enhanced with plenty of examples and illustrations you won’t find anywhere else. The result is an easy-to-use and entertaining reference guide that’s designed for quick and intuitive searches, helping you understand every aspect of the game while adding to your enjoyment of the sport. Inside you’ll find: the rules that apply before, during, and after the game equipment specifications and field requirements the duties of the coaches, managers, and umpires the rules for spectators (yes, they have rules, too) the clearest explanation anywhere of the infamous Infield Fly Rule!

    This volume reveals Weaver’s approach to the game, with a focus on how to manage a roster, a lineup, and a pitching staff. He defines the differences between running a team during a single game and managing it during an entire season. In his characteristically blunt style, Weaver explains everything from how to tell when a pitcher is tiring to how and when to argue with an umpire. Successful ball clubs still mimic his offensive strategies. Readers of this updated edition will learn new ways to think about the game as it’s played today.

    Mays recalls his childhood in rural Alabama, his early playing career, and his life as a star rookie in the glory days of New York baseball.

    Here is the brilliant manager stripped naked—the person underneath all the clowning, mugging, and double-talking. Robert Creamer shows us Casey at twenty-two, famous from his very first day in the big leagues. We see Casey’s playing career fall apart as he is traded, shunted to last-place teams, hampered by injuries, considered finished—until he bats a glorious home run in the 1923 World Series. Here are Casey’s managing successes and failures—dismissed by the Yankees, he returns to the limelight with his new and inept New York Mets, the team he single-handedly lifts into the nation’s consciousness.“I’m a man that’s been up and down,” Casey said in a serious moment. Certainly his knack for bouncing back made him a legend in our national pastime. Here are the stories and gags, the Stengelian style, the full dimensions of the man.

    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.

    Cub, to Sammy Sosa, today's record-setting sensation, Cubs Nation traces the history of a team that often had everything going for it and yet was so hampered by losses that it came to define the term lovable losers.

    Underneath the crew cut and behind the all-American boy-next-door good looks lurked a maverick with a signature style. Whether it was his frank talk about player salaries and mistreatment by management, his passionate advocacy of progressive politics, or his efforts to convince the United States to boycott the 1968 Olympics, Bouton confronted the conservative sports world and compelled it to catch up with a rapidly changing American society.                Bouton defied tremendous odds to make the majors, won two games for the Yankees in the 1964 World Series, and staged an improbable comeback with the Braves as a thirty-nine-year-old. But it was his fateful 1969 season with the Seattle Pilots and his resulting insider’s account, Ball Four, that did nothing less than reintroduce America to its national pastime in a lasting, profound way. In Bouton: The Life of a Baseball Original, Mitchell Nathanson gives readers a look at Bouton’s remarkable life. He tells the unlikely story of how Bouton’s Ball Four, perhaps the greatest baseball book of all time, came into being, how it was received, and how it forever changed the way we view not only sports books but professional sports as a whole. Based on wide-ranging interviews Nathanson conducted with Bouton, family, friends, and others, he provides an intimate, inside account of Bouton’s life. Nathanson provides insight as to why Bouton saw the world the way he did, why he was so different than the thousands of players who came before him, and how, in the cliquey, cold, bottom‑line world of professional baseball, Bouton managed to be both an insider and an outsider all at once.

    B. Berkowitz, who is assigned to cover the men of the Washington Senators -- the worst team in major league baseball. Life in the locker room shows her not just the players'…um…assets but also their all-too-human frailties. Love for the game and love for the newspaper business are the stars in this hilarious and heartbreaking novel that "will have you singing a rousing chorus of 'Take Me Out to the Locker Room'"(People).

    . . . This account of his experience is a frank and fascinating one."-Chicago Sunday Tribune "The story of a man who became mentally 'sick, ' and how, through competent medical care, the help of a sympathetic and most understanding wife, the patience and encouragement of manager, teammates and fans, and above all his own splendid courage, he made a complete recovery and resumed his baseball career. . . .. How we overcame his fears is a dramatic, heart-warming story."-Library Journal Jim Piersall played baseball in the 1950s and 1960s for the Boston Red Sox, the Cleveland Indians, the Washington Senators, the New York Mets, and the California Angels. After brief forays into professional football and wrestling businesses, he has worked for many years in broadcasting and minor league player development for the Chicago Cubs. He lives in Arizona during the off-season and in Chicago during the season.

    The Perfection Point is ideal for sports fans interested in the scientific basis of athletic excellence and a fascinating read for science fans interested in the physics of sports.

    Packed with stories, biographical essays, scores of archival photographs and other evocative artifacts, it is an important contribution to sports history and a wonderful tribute to the players and teams who wrote a unique chapter in the annals of baseball and American culture. National Geographic is proud to present this compelling volume, compiled by a who's who of authorities on the subject. Drawing on years of research, Shades of Glory traces the history of black baseball from the 19th century to the first great teams, such as the Cuban Giants, and on to the era of the vibrant barnstorming teams from the East Coast, Chicago, and Cuba. The unparalleled Rube Foster started the first Negro League in 1920, with such dominant teams as the Chicago American Giants and the Kansas City Monarchs. Pittsburgh soon produced two of the greatest teams of all time, the Homestead Grays and the Pittsburgh Crawfords, featuring such stars as Satchel Paige, John Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, and many more. Their superb brand of baseball rivaled the best of the major leagues until the historic signing of Jackie Robinson by the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Shades of Glory chronicles a bygone era of black baseball and the stars who were shadowed by racial prejudice, but now shine forth in all their sparkling brilliance.

    A perfect way for Royals fans, and baseball fans everywhere, to share that magic night with their children and commemorate it themselves with beautiful illustrations and clever rhymes.

    It's a sport that shows us what a human being might be capable of, with extreme dedication--whether we're eating hot dogs in the stands, waiting out a rain delay in our living rooms, or practising the lost art of catching a stray radio signal from an out-of-market broadcast.From learning about America through ball diamond visits to the most famous triple play that never happened on Canadian soil, Forbes invites us to witness the adult conversing with the O Pee-Chee baseball cards of his youth. Tender, insightful, and with the slow heartbreak familiar to anyone who's cheered on a losing team, The Utility of Boredom tells us a thing or two about the sport, and how a seemingly trivial game might help us make sense of our messy lives.

    If you love watching "Major League," you’ll be fascinated by this inside story. Based on interviews with all major cast members plus crew and producers, it tells how writer/director David S. Ward battled the Hollywood system to turn his own love of the underdog Cleveland Indians into a classic screwball comedy. Learn how a tight-knit group of rising young stars (and a few wily veterans) had a blast pretending to play ball while creating several iconic characters. Filled with little-known facts and personal recollections about outtakes and inside jokes, batting practice and script changes, all-night location shoots, bar hopping and more, this is the ultimate guide to the film that reinvented the baseball movie and inspired a generation of belly laughs. Includes rare photos, storyboard illustrations, script excerpts, and more. With a foreword by Charlie Sheen.

    One of baseball’s most valuable franchises, they had suffered an embarrassing late season collapse and two bitter losing seasons. Their GM had made costly mistakes. And their principle owners, two Bernie Madoff investors, were embroiled in the fall-out from the largest financial scam in American history.To whom did they turn? Sandy Alderson, a former marine who served in Vietnam and graduated from Harvard Law. Alderson started in baseball with the Oakland Athletics in 1981. Two years later, he was running the team.With the A’s, Alderson led a revolution in baseball. Partnering with Apple, he introduced the first computers into the sport and used statistical analysis for everything from unorthodox player evaluation to modernizing ticket sales. He attracted bright people and turned the team into a powerhouse, winning the 1989 World Series. When new owners slashed payroll, his creativity and intelligent management were thrust into the spotlight.Best-selling author Steve Kettmann follows Alderson's transformation of baseball over the last thirty years and his attempts to turn the Mets back into contenders. This is a gripping behind-the-scenes look at a Major League team and a fascinating exploration of what it means to be smart.