Stuck in a rut, baseball was dying. Then Steinbrenner bought the Yankees, a second-division club with wife-swapping pitchers, leaving the House That Ruth Built not with a slam but a simper. He vowed not to interfere—before soon changing his mind. Across town, Tom Seaver led the Mets’ stellar pitching line-up, and iconic outfielder Willie Mays was preparing to say goodbye. For months, the Mets, under Yogi Berra, couldn’t get it right. Meanwhile, the A’s were breaking a ban on facial hair while maverick owner Charlie Finley was fighting to keep them underpaid. But beneath the muttonchops and mayhem, lay another world. Elvis commanded a larger audience than the Apollo landings. A Dodge Dart cost $2,800, gas was a quarter per gallon. A fiscal crisis loomed; Vietnam had ended, the vice president resigned, and Watergate had taken over. It was one of the most exciting years in the game’s history, the first with the designated hitter and the last before arbitration and free agency. The two World Series opponents went head-to-head above the baby steps of a dynasty that soon dwarfed both league champions. It was a turbulent time for the country and the game, neither of which would ever be the same again.

    Criticized in New York and beloved in Los Angeles, O’Malley is one of the most controversial owners in the history of American sports. He remade the major leagues and altered the course of history in both Brooklyn and Los Angeles when he moved the Dodgers to California. But while many New York critics attacked him, O’Malley looked to the future, declining to argue his case. As a result, fans across the nation have been unable to stop arguing about him—until now. Using never-before-seen documents and candid interviews with O’Malley’s players, associates, and relatives, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Michael D’Antonio finally reveals this complex sportsman and industry pioneer. Born into Tammany Hall connections, O’Malley used political contacts to grow wealthy during the Great Depression, and then maneuvered to take control of the formerly downtrodden Dodgers. After his defeat in a war of wills with the famed power broker, Robert Moses, O’Malley uprooted the borough’s team and transplanted them to Los Angeles. Once in Los Angeles, O’Malley overcame opponents of his stadium and helped define the city. Other owners came to regard him as their guide—almost an unofficial commissioner—and he worked behind the scenes to usher in the age of the players’ union and free agency. Filled with new revelations about O’Malley’s battle with Moses, his pioneering business strategies, and his relationship with Jackie Robinson, Forever Blue is a uniquely intimate portrait of a man who changed America’s pastime forever. His fascinating story is fundamental to the history of sports, business, and the American West.

    Small though that number is, it is inflated by dozens of skippers with only a few weeks or months at the helm of a club. If we were to define "real" managers as those who have managed a thousand games - not, after all, a terribly high bar to hurdle, fewer than seven full seasons - we would find that fewer than one hundred men qualify. Now Bill James, "the guru of baseball" (Newsweek), takes on the challenge of chronicling that history, including a decade-by-decade snapshot of baseball strategy from the 1870s through the 1990s.

    They couldn't be more wrong.In this award-winning book, Alan Schwarz - whom bestselling Moneyball author Michael Lewis calls "one of today's best baseball journalists" - provides the first-ever history of baseball statistics, showing how baseball and its numbers have been inseparable ever since the pastime's birth in 1845. He tells the history of this obsession through the lives of the people who felt it most: Henry Chadwick, the 19th-century writer who invented the first box score and harped endlessly about which statistics mattered and which did not; Allan Roth, Branch Rickey's right-hand numbers man with the late-1940s Brooklyn Dodgers; Earnshaw Cook, a scientist and Manhattan Project veteran who retired to pursue inventing the perfect baseball statistic; John Dewan, a former Strat-O-Matic maven who built STATS Inc. into a multimillion-dollar powerhouse for statistics over the Internet; and dozens more.Schwarz paints a history not just of baseball statistics, but of the soul of the sport itself. Named as ESPN's 2004 Baseball Book of the Year, The Numbers Game will be an invaluable part of any fan's library and go down as one of the sport's classic books.

    He spoke out against player trading. He banned Pete Rose from baseball for gambling. He even asked sports fans to clean up their acts. Bart Giamatti was baseball's Renaissance man and its commissioner. In A GREAT AND GLORIOUS GAME, a collection of spirited, incisive essays, Giamatti reflects on the meaning of the game. Baseball, for him, was a metaphor for life. He artfully argues that baseball is much more than an American "pastime." "Baseball is about going home," he wrote, "and how hard it is to get there and how driven is our need." And in his powerful 1989 decision to ban Pete Rose from baseball, Giamatti states that no individual is superior to the game itself, just as no individual is superior to our democracy. A GREAT AND GLORIOUS GAME is a thoughtful meditation on baseball, character, and values by one of the most eloquent men in the world of sport.

    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.

    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.

    Prophet of the Sandlots reveals a world of farm teams and back roads, where hopes of athletic glory rise as dependably as the corn, and honors a baseball sage who is the best possible guide to the game at America's heart--Tony Lucadello.

    That day these rousing ball clubs would meet at Fenway Park. Both had won ninety-nine games. Only one would win one hundred. The Yankees should have been reaching for their golf clubs-they had feuded until they were fourteen games out of first place. Then their fortunes turned, and they capped one of the most thrilling comebacks in baseball history by defeating the Red Sox that October afternoon in a game that many still remember as the greatest ever played. Transporting us into the midst of this unforgettable team, Roger Kahn weaves the first in-depth account of the legendary season of '78 and reaffirms his standing as our nation's master storyteller of baseball.

    Easy-to-find answers to the most common (and obscure but fascinating) baseball questions." - USA Today"A great starting point for newbies of the game." - Ron Kaplan, "501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read Before They Die""Surprisingly, there is no other book so comprehensive, concise or readable." - St. Paul Pioneer-Press"Instructive and fun." - Chicago Sun-Times**Selected for the Baseball Hall of Fame Bookstore in Cooperstown**Lose yourself in all the marvelous memories and hallowed history of America’s national pastime with "The Book of Baseball Literacy: 3rd Edition." From the gloveless pioneers of the 1840s to the strife-ridden headlines of the 2000s, this comprehensive reference offers nearly 700 important baseball yarns, stats, and stories—cross-referenced and hyperlinked—in a style as lively as the game itself. Incredibly thorough, never dull, the book answers these and countless other questions:- Who was Ray Chapman, and why is he important?- Did Abner Doubleday really invent baseball?- What is sabermetrics?- Who set off the Pine Tar Incident?- Where was the first organized baseball game?- Were the Cubs cursed by a billy goat?- What are waivers and options?Written by SABR member and former college baseball broadcaster David H. Martinez and even selected as required reading for a college course on baseball history, "The Book of Baseball Literacy: 3rd Edition" puts over a century and a half of legends and lore, right in your mitt. It will settle arguments and provoke them, answer questions and ask them. It’s a must for veteran baseball fans—and a perfect way to get up to speed on baseball history for newcomers.

    He was also the perfect idol for postwar America, a wholesome hero from the heartland.In A Season in the Sun, acclaimed historians Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith recount the defining moment of Mantle's legendary career: 1956, when he overcame a host of injuries and critics to become the most celebrated athlete of his time. Taking us from the action on the diamond to Mantle's off-the-field exploits, Roberts and Smith depict Mantle not as an ideal role model or a bitter alcoholic, but a complex man whose faults were smoothed over by sportswriters eager to keep the truth about sports heroes at bay. An incisive portrait of an American icon, A Season in the Sun is an essential work for baseball fans and anyone interested in the 1950s.

    Dynasty recounts this golden age of baseball, when DiMaggio, Mantle, and Maris were in their heyday. 8-page photo insert.

    Only one of them killed a man. This is the story of Ray Chapman of the Cleveland Indians, a popular player struck in the head and killed in August 1920 by a pitch thrown by Carl Mays of the New York Yankees. Was it, as most baseball observers thought at the time, a tragic but unavoidable accident? Mike Sowell's book investigates the incident and probes deep into the backgrounds of the players involved and the events that led to one of baseball's darkest moments.

    Love them or hate them, they cannot be ignored by anyone who professes to be a fan of the great game of baseball.With Damn Yankees, Rob Fleder, former Executive Editor for Sports Illustrated magazine, offers a timeless collection of original essays by some of the most prominent contemporary writers in America—from Pete Dexter to Jane Leavy, from Roy Blount Jr. to Colum McCann—each piece focusing on one uniquely colorful subject: the fanatically adored/resoundingly despised “Bronx Bombers.”Funny, moving, provocative, insightful appreciations and detractions—from Babe Ruth to Mickey Mantle to Derek Jeter—Damn Yankees offers twenty-four fascinating takes on the most storied franchise of baseball’s Major Leagues.

         2014 is the 20th anniversary of the strike that killed baseball in Montreal, and the 10th anniversary of the team's move to Washington, DC. But the memories aren't dead--not by a long shot. The Expos pinwheel cap is still sported by Montrealers, former fans, and by many more in the US and Canada as a fashion item. Expos loyalists are still spotted at Blue Jays games and wherever the Washington Nationals play (often cheering against them). Every year there are rumours that Montreal--as North America's largest market without a baseball team--could host Major League Baseball again.     There has never been a major English-language book on the entire franchise history. There also hasn't been a sportswriter as uniquely qualified to tell the whole story, and to make it appeal to baseball fans across Canada AND south of the border. Jonah Keri writes the chief baseball column for Grantland, and routinely makes appearances in Canadian media such as The Jeff Blair Show, Prime Time Sports and Off the Record. The author of the New York Times baseball bestseller The Extra 2% (Ballantine/ESPN Books), Keri is one of the new generation of high-profile sports writers equally facile with sabermetrics and traditional baseball reporting. He has interviewed everyone for this book (EVERYONE: including the ownership that allowed the team to be moved), and fans can expect to hear from just about every player and personality from the Expos' unforgettable 35 years in baseball. Up, Up, and Away is already one of the most anticipated sports books of next year.