Book picks similar to
Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract by Bill James
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Slap Shot Original: The Man, the Foil, and the Legend
Dave Hanson - 2008
In Slap Shot Original, Dave Hanson gives readers not only a behind the scenes look at what life was like on the set during the filming of the classic movie, but also treats them to stories from the actors and players themselves.
The Game for a Lifetime: More Lessons and Teachings
Harvey Penick - 1996
A return to the timeless wisdom that has made his first bestseller, Harvey Penick's Little Red Book, a modern classic, The Game for a Lifetime does not contain the technical swing tips and stance aids of today's instructional guides, but dispenses a philosophy on golf, and on life. Harvey Penick knew that the teachings in his book would stand the test of time, and he spent his lifetime pursuing and enjoying all that the game has to offer—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. The Game for a Lifetime, the final book by Harvey Penick, stands as a wonderful testimonial to this legendary career, his celebrated teaching style, and his ability to affect the lives of the people who had the good fortune to know him.
The Answer Is Never: A Skateboarder's History of the World
Jocko Weyland - 2002
In The Answer Is Never, skating journalist Jocko Weyland tells the rambunctious story of a rebellious sport that began as a wintertime surfing substitute on the streets of Southern California beach towns more than forty years ago and has evolved over the decades to become a fixture of urban youth culture around the world. Merging the historical development of the sport with passages about his own skating adventures in such wide-ranging places as Hawaii, Germany, and Cameroon, Weyland gives a fully realized portrait of a subculture whose love of free-flowing creativity and a distinctive antiauthoritarian worldview has inspired major trends in fashion, music, art, and film. Along the way, Weyland interweaves the stories of skating pioneers like Gregg Weaver and the Dogtown Z-Boys and living legends like Steve Caballero and Tony Hawk. He also charts the course of innovations in deck, truck, and wheel design to show how the changing boards changed the sport itself, enabling new tricks as skaters moved from the freestyle techniques that dominated the early days to the extreme street-skating style of today. Vivid and vibrant, The Answer Is Never is a fascinating book as radical and unique as the sport it chronicles.
The Last Real Season: A Hilarious Look Back at 1975 - When Major Leaguers Made Peanuts, the Umpires Wore Red, and Billy Martin Terrorized Everyone
Mike Shropshire - 2008
But for the baseball cognoscenti, there are just a few "must-have" classics: BALL FOUR by Jim Bouton. THE LONG SEASON by Jim Brosnan. WILLIE'S TIME by Charles Einstein. And SEASONS IN HELL by Mike Shropshire, which was a hilarous first-person account of Mike's travails serving as a daily beat writer covering the hapless 1972 Texas Rangers. Now, in The Last Real Season, Shropshire captures the essence of a different time and different place in baseball, when the average salary for major leaguers was only $27,600...when the ballplayers' drug of choice was alcohol, not steroids...when major leaguers sported tight doubleknit uniforms over their long-hair and Afros...and on July 28th, 1975, the day that famed Detroit resident Jimmy Hoffa went missing, the Detroit Tigers started a losing streak of 19 games in a row. On the day that the Tigers blew a 4-run lead in the bottom of the ninth, Shropshire recalls: "I drank three bottles of Stroh's beer in less than a minute and wrote that 'Jimmy Hoffa will show up in the left field stands with Amelia Earhart as his date before the Tigers will win another game.'"And so it goes. Filled with just the kind of wonderful baseball stories that real fans crave, this is the funniest baseball book of the year.
More Than a Season: Building a Championship Culture
Dayton Moore - 2015
The general manager inherited a major league club that had just one winning season in the previous decade. Moore, a Kansas native who grew up as a Royals fan, implemented a plan to return the franchise to its glory years. Though not without a few bumps in the road, that plan came to fruition in 2014 as the Royals swept through the American League playoffs to take the pennant and returned the World Series to Kansas City. In More Than a Season, Moore shares how his faith and leadership principles guided his rebooting of the Royals. The general manager describes how he built one of baseball’s best farm systems and international scouting departments of out nothing. He shares insight on how he persevered through six consecutive losing seasons and the critical response to controversial trades of Zack Greinke and Wil Myers—transactions that ultimately yielded the foundation of a champion. Full of never-before-told stories from inside the Royals organization More Than a Season features a foreword by star outfielder Alex Gordon and an introduction by William F. High, CEO of the National Christian Foundation Heartland.