With "The Gashouse Gang," John Heidenry delivers the definitive account of one the greatest and most colorful baseball teams of all times, the 1934 St. Louis Cardinals, filled with larger-than-life baseball personalities like Branch Rickey, Leo Durocher, Pepper Martin, Casey Stengel, Frankie Frisch, and—especially—the eccentric good ol' boy and great pitcher Dizzy Dean and his brother Paul. The year 1934 marked the lowest point of the Great Depression, when the U.S. went off the gold standard, banks collapsed by the score, and millions of Americans were out of work. Epic baseball feats offered welcome relief from the hardships of daily life. The Gashouse Gang, the brilliant culmination of a dream by its general manager, Branch Rickey, the first to envision a farm system that would acquire and "educate" young players in the art of baseball, was adored by the nation, which saw itself—scruffy, proud, and unbeatable—in the Gang. Based on original research and told in entertaining narrative style, "The Gashouse Gang" brings to life a bygone era and a cast full of vivid personalities, and unearths a treasure trove of baseball lore that will delight any fan of the great American pastime.

    Johnstone, an outfielder and pinch hitter for the Dodgers, Cubs, Padres, Yankees, Phillies, A's, and White Sox shares humorous stories about his teammates and career.

    At the pizzeria where he worked as a kid, he learned to substitute pork for veal in cutlets—which came in handy later when the bankroll was low. At thirteen, he got his first percentage from a local deli—that lost business when he started supplying the neighborhood wiseguys with his own heroes. And what great heroes they were… Once he entered Witness Protection, though, Hill found himself in places where prosciutto was impossible to get and gravy was something you put on mashed potatoes. So he learned to fake it when necessary (for example, Romano with white pepper took the place of real pecorino-siciliano cheese), and wherever he found himself, Hill managed to keep good Italian food on the table. He still brings this flair for improvisation to his cooking. No recipe is set in stone. And substitutions are listed in case you need them. Now, in his inimitable style, Hill tells some spicy stories of his life in the Mob and shows you how to whip up his favorite dishes, Sicilian style—even when you’re cooking on the run....

    Ten fast-reading chapters show the basics of setting up a board, how to move, the opening strategies and replies, middle and end game tactics, basic probabilities, plus back game and doubling strategy. The world's best backgammon player shows beginning players how to play and win at this popular game.

    From its inception in 1913, through the Jazz Age and the Depression, to its reincarnation in the boom-boom Reagan years, to the image-saturated Information Age, Vanity Fair has presented the modern era as it has unfolded, using wit, imagination, peerless literary narrative, and bold, groundbreaking imagery from the greatest photographers, artists, and illustrators of the day. This sumptuous book takes a decade-by-decade look at the world as seen by the magazine, stopping to describe the incomparable editor Frank Crowninshield and the birth of the Jazz Age Vanity Fair, the magazine’s controversial rebirth in 1983, and the history of the glamorous Vanity Fair Oscar Party.With its exhaustive sweep, visual impact, and time-capsule format, Vanity Fair 100 Years is the book everyone will want in 2013.<!--?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /--> Praise for Vanity Fair 100 Years: “The book is a stunning artifact that begets staring, less for the words and publishing industry than as an exercise in visual storytelling reflected through the prism of society and celebrity. The best photographers, the best designers, the best illustrators all came together over Vanity Fair’s contents, and the book unfolds in page after page of stunningly rendered images, some iconic and some that never even ran.” —New York Times Book Review

    Each year, the series editor and guest editor curate a truly exceptional collection. The only shared traits among all these diverse styles, voices, and stories are the extraordinarily high caliber of writing, and the pure passion they tap into that can only come from sports.

    Whatever your passion, Central America is jam-packed with possibilities. Written by experts who travel on your budget, this guide lets you go further, stay longer, and pay less for the adventure of a lifetime. The countries covered in this guide are: Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Belize, and also part of Mexico—Quintana Roo, the Yucatan, and Chiapas states.Explore It All—in-depth coverage of all seven Central American nations, plus Mexico's Yucatan and Chiapas.Find Your Way—120 user-friendly maps plus detailed bus schedules and crucial border-crossing information.Rest Easy—lodging and restaurants that offer bang for your buck...plus the occasional splurge.Talk The Talk—comprehensive Language, Culture and Conduct sections keep you street-smart and clued-in. Who We Are At Lonely Planet, we see our job as inspiring and enabling travelers to connect with the world for their own benefit and for the benefit of the world at large. What We Do We offer travelers the world's richest travel advice, informed by the collective wisdom of over 350 Lonely Planet authors living in 37 countries and fluent in 70 languages. We are relentless in finding the special, the unique and the different for travellers wherever they are.When we update our guidebooks, we check every listing, in person, every time. We always offer the trusted filter for those who are curious, open minded and independent. We challenge our growing community of travelers; leading debate anddiscussion about travel and the world. We tell it like it is without fear or favor in service of the travelers; not clouded by any other motive. What We Believe We believe that travel leads to a deeper cultural understanding and compassion and therefore a better world.

     We all know what a .300 hitter looks like. The same with a 20-game winner. Those numbers are ingrained in our brains. But do they mean as much as we think? Do we feel the same way when we hear a batter has a .390 wOBA? How about a pitcher with a 1.2 WHIP? These statistics are the future of modern baseball, and no fan should be in the dark about how these metrics apply to the game.In the last twenty years, an avalanche of analytics has taken over the way the game is played, managed, and assessed, but the statistics that drive the sport (metrics like wRC+, FIP, and WAR, just to name a few) read like alphabet soup to a large number of fans who still think batting average, RBIs, and wins are the best barometers for baseball players.In A Fan’s Guide to Baseball Analytics, MLB.com reporter and columnist Anthony Castrovince has taken on the role as explainer to help such fans understand why the old stats don’t always add up. Readers will also learn where these modern stats came from, what they convey, and how to use them to evaluate players of the present, past, and future. For instance, what if we told you that when Joe DiMaggio had his famous 56-game hitting streak in 1941, helping him win the AL MVP, that there was, perhaps, someone more deserving? In fact, the great Ted Williams actually had a higher fWAR, bWAR, wRC+, OPS, OPS+, ISO, RC . . . well, you get the picture. So, streak or no streak, Williams should have been league MVP.An introductory course on sabermetrics, A Fan’s Guide to Baseball Analytics is an easily digestible resource that readers can keep turning back to when they see a modern metric referenced in today’s baseball coverage.

    This situation began to change in 1966, when the Major League Baseball Players Association was formed and Marvin Miller, who had been chief economist and assistant to the president of the steelworkers' union, became its first executive director. Here he recounts his experience in dealing with club owners and his success in winning a new role for the players. He helped virtually end the system that bound an athlete to one team forever, and thereby raised salaries enormously. Candid in his assessments of the characters involved in this drama, Mr. Miller is nonetheless generous in his comments about the ballplayers who made sacrifices for their union.

    Includes a new itineraries chapter for easy planning and "weekends to remember" suggestions throughout. of color photos. 128 maps.

    Host to organized baseball since 1892, Wahconah Park was soon to be abandoned by the owner of the Pittsfield Mets who would move his team to a new stadium in another town---an all too familiar story. Enter Bouton and his partners with the best deal ever offered to a community---a locally owned professional baseball team and a privately restored city owned ballpark at no cost to the taxpayers. It was a dream come true for the vast majority of the people of Pittsfield. But Bouton's plan was opposed by an elite group of power brokers who wanted to build a new $18.5 million baseball stadium---a stadium that the people had voted against three different times! In what one reviewer called that same humane, sarcastic voice, Bouton unmasks a mayor who brags that the fix is in, a newspaper that lies to its readers, and a city government that operates out of a bar. And that's just Part l. Part ll is the even more amazing story of what happened after this book as self published---a story in itself---in hardcover. Invited back to Pittsfield by newly elected city officials, Bouton and his partners raise $1.2 million, help uncover a document that dates Pittsfield's baseball origins to 1791, and stage a vintage baseball game that is broadcast live on national television. Who could have guessed what would happen next? And that this time it would involve the Massachusetts Attorney General.

    As told by Dr. Rock Positano, DiMaggio’s closest confidante in New York during the final years of his life, Dinner with DiMaggio is an intimate portrait of one of America’s most enduring heroes.This memoir of a decade-long friendship reveals the very private DiMaggio as he really was—sometimes demanding, sometimes big-hearted, always impeccable, loyal, and a true stand-up guy—while serving up illuminating stories and rare insights about the people in his life, including his teammates, Muhammad Ali, Sandy Koufax, Woody Allen, and more. In 1990, Dr. Rock Positano, the thirty-two-year-old foot and ankle specialist, was introduced to DiMaggio, the pair brought together by a career-ending heel spur injury. Though Dr. Positano was forty years younger, an unlikely friendship developed after the doctor successfully treated the baseball champ’s heel. At the start, Joe mentored Rock but came to rely on his young friend to show him a good time in New York, the town that made him a legend. In time, the famously reserved DiMaggio opened up to Dr. Positano and talked about his joys, his disappointments, and his sorrows as he reflected on his extraordinary life. The stories and experiences shared with Dr. Positano comprise an intimate portrait of one of the great stars of baseball and icon of the twentieth century.

    You wake up on your first day in the White House—now what do you do? Where's the bathroom? How do you get breakfast? What time is your first meeting? When can you use Air Force One? Can you order a pizza from the Oval Office? What line do you use for personal phone calls? This fully illustrated, how-to, hands-on handbook explains the nuts and bolts of being the President of the United States. Discover how to read a teleprompter, greet foreign dignitaries, and light the White House Christmas tree. Learn where to sit at Cabinet meetings and whether you need to bring your own ball to the White House bowling alley. Your job benefits, vacation schedule, and all the other perks and duties are clearly explained in this indispensable manual. It's a tough job, and somebody's got to do it.

    But for some, the experience can be less sensory. Some, such as Ryan Spaeder and Kevin Reavy, live for baseball statistics. Stats give the game historical context and measurables for past, present, and predictive analysis.Incredible Baseball Stats helps tell unique baseball stories, showcasing extraordinary stats and facts in baseball history, through the 2015 season. For example, in 2015, the Nationals’ Bryce Harper broke out in a major way. He batted .330/.460/.649 with 42 home runs en route to his first MVP Award. It was his fourth MLB season, but he was still younger than NL Rookie of the Year Kris Bryant. He became the youngest player to lead the league in both on-base percentage and homers in the same season since Ty Cobb in 1909. Through 2015, he has a career .902 OPS (143 OPS+), the same OPS and adjusted OPS that Henry Aaron had through his first four seasons—and Hammerin’ Hank was nearly a year older!The authors have scoured the records for untold tales and looked at familiar ones with new statistical insights, to create Incredible Baseball Stats, a perfect book for baseball fans from coast to coast.Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Sports Publishing imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in sports—books about baseball, pro football, college football, pro and college basketball, hockey, or soccer, we have a book about your sport or your team.Whether you are a New York Yankees fan or hail from Red Sox nation; whether you are a die-hard Green Bay Packers or Dallas Cowboys fan; whether you root for the Kentucky Wildcats, Louisville Cardinals, UCLA Bruins, or Kansas Jayhawks; whether you route for the Boston Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, or Los Angeles Kings; we have a book for you. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to publishing books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked by other publishers and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

    Contains concept art and models of the game's characters, locations, and weapons, as well as artists' comments on the work and the game.Note:The Rapture Edition Art book is a reduced version of the Special Edition Art book made to be a value against the Special Edition. It is reduced to 96 pages, and scaled down to the dimensions of the game case itself.The Special Edition Art book is the main version of BioShock 2's art book. It is 168 pages and is composed of 10 chapters.♢Chapter 1 - Citizens of Rapture♢Chapter 2 - Big Daddies♢Chapter 3 - Big Sisters♢Chapter 4 - Little Sisters♢Chapter 5 - Environments♢Chapter 6 - Weapons♢Chapter 7 - User Interface♢Chapter 8 - Advertisements♢Chapter 9 - Storyboards♢Chapter 10 - Credits