"ROGER MARIS may be the greatest ballplayer no one really knows. In 1961, the soft-spoken man from the frozen plains of North Dakota enjoyed one of the most amazing seasons in baseball history, when he outslugged his teammate Mickey Mantle to become the game's natural home-run king. It was Mantle himself who said, "Roger was as good a man and as good a ballplayer as there ever was." Yet Maris was vilified by fans and the press and has never received his due from biographers--until now.Tom Clavin and Danny Peary trace the dramatic arc of Maris's life, from his boyhood in Fargo through his early pro career in the Cleveland Indians farm program, to his World Series championship years in New York and beyond. At the center is the exciting story of the 1961 season and the ordeal Maris endured as an outsider in Yankee pinstripes, unloved by fans who compared him unfavorably to their heroes Ruth and Mantle, relentlessly attacked by an aggressive press corps who found him cold and inaccessible, and treated miserably by the organization. After the tremendous challenge of breaking Ruth's record was behind him, Maris ultimately regained his love of baseball as a member of the world champion St. Louis Cardinals. And over time, he gained redemption in the eyes of the Yankee faithful.With research drawn from more than 130 interviews with Maris's teammates, opponents, family, and friends, as well as 16 pages of photos, some of which have never before been seen, this timely and poignant biography sheds light on an iconic figure from baseball's golden era--and establishes the importance of his role in the game's history.

    He has ten of them, in fact. One for each and every finger.In Ten Rings, Yogi, for the first time, tells the stories behind each of those remarkable championship seasons, spanning 1947 through 1962, baseball's golden years. It was a time when players played for the love of the game, a time when dynasties were born and baseball became the national pastime. And what a pastime it was.With Yogi Berra at their heart, Casey Stengel's Yankees took on their heralded archrivals: the Cleveland Indians, the New York Giants, the Brooklyn Dodgers, and, of course, the Boston Red Sox. And with those teams was Yogi's constellation of contemporaries, a who's who of the Hall of Fame: Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Sandy Koufax, Willie Mays, Duke Snider, Ted Williams, Jackie Robinson, Phil Rizzuto, and many others.Each season brought its own drama, and it's all brought to life by the man who witnessed it. Ten Rings is a one-of-a-kind story told by a one-of-a-kind guy, baseball's elder statesman, the beloved Yogi Berra.

    Part comedian, part feisty competitor, Berra is also the winningest player (fourteen pennants, ten World Series, three MVPs) in baseball history. In this revelatory biography, Allen Barra presents Yogi's remarkable life as never seen before, from his childhood in "Dago Hill," the Italian-American neighborhood in St. Louis, to his leading role on the 1949-53 Yankees, the only team to win five consecutive World Series, to the travails of the '64 pennant race, through his epic battles and final peace with George Steinbrenner. This biography, replete with nearly one hundred photos and countless "Yogi-isms," offers hilarious insights into many of baseball's greatest moments. From calling Don Larsen's perfect game to managing the 1973 "You Gotta Believe" New York Mets, Yogi's life and career are a virtual cutaway view of our national pastime in the twentieth century. 98 photographs

    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.

    Told for the first time, this is his remarkable story.  Born to a small-town California ranching family, the youngest of eight, Vernon “Lefty” Gomez rode his powerful arm and jocular personality right across America to the dugout of the New York Yankees. Lefty baffled hitters with his blazing fastball, establishing himself as the team’s ace. He vacationed with Babe Ruth, served as Joe DiMaggio’s confidant, and consoled Lou Gehrig the day the “Iron Horse” removed himself from the lineup. He started and won the first-ever All-Star Game, was the first pitcher to make the cover of Time magazine, and barnstormed Japan as part of Major League Baseball’s grand ambassadorial tour in 1934. Away from the diamond, Lefty played the big-city bon vivant, marrying Broadway star June O’Dea and hobnobbing with a who’s who of celebrities, including George Gershwin, Jack Dempsey, Ernest Hemingway, Marilyn Monroe, George M. Cohan, and James Michener. He even scored a private audience with the pope.   And even when his pro ball career was done, Lefty wasn’t. He became a national representative for Wilson Sporting Goods, logging over 100,000 miles a year, spreading the word about America’s favorite game, and touching thousands of lives. In 1972 he was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Three baseball fields are named for him, and to this day the top honor bestowed each year by the American Baseball Coaches Association is the Lefty Gomez Award.   Now, drawing on countless conversations with Lefty, interweaving more than three hundred interviews conducted with his family, friends, competitors, and teammates over the course of a decade, and revealing candid photos, documents, and film clips—many never shown publicly—his daughter Vernona Gomez and her award-winning co-author Lawrence Goldstone vividly re-create the life and adventures of the irreverent southpaw fondly dubbed “El Señor Goofy.”   “I’d rather be lucky than good,” Lefty Gomez once quipped—one of many classic one-liners documented here. In the end he was both. A star-studded romp through baseball’s most glorious seasons and America’s most glamorous years, Lefty is at once a long-overdue reminder of a pitcher’s greatness and a heartwarming celebration of a life well-lived.

    Thomas, the grandson of Walter Johnson, lives in Arlington, Virginia. He is currently editing, for audio release, the interviews taped by Lawrence Ritter for his classic The Glory of Their Times. Shirley Povich died in 1998 at the age of 92 after seventy-five years as an award-winning sportswriter for the Washington Post.

    The love between team and borough was equally storied, an iron bond of loyalty forged through years of adversity and sometimes legendary ineptitude. Coming off their first World Series triumph ever in 1955, against the hated Yankees, the Dodgers would defend their crown against the Milwaukee Braves and the Cincinnati Reds in a six-month neck-and-neck contest until the last day of the playoffs, one of the most thrilling pennant races in history.But as The Last Good Season so richly relates, all was not well under the surface. The Dodgers were an aging team at the tail end of its greatness, and Brooklyn was a place caught up in rapid and profound urban change. From a cradle of white ethnicity, it was being transformed into a racial patchwork, including Puerto Ricans and blacks from the South who flocked to Ebbets Field to watch the Dodgers’ black stars. The institutions that defined the borough – the Brooklyn Eagle, the Brooklyn Navy Yard – had vanished, and only the Dodgers remained. And when their shrewd, dollar-squeezing owner, Walter O’Malley, began casting his eyes elsewhere in the absence of any viable plan to replace the aging Ebbets Field and any support from the all-powerful urban czar Robert Moses, the days of the Dodgers in Brooklyn were clearly numbered.Michael Shapiro, a Brooklyn native, has interviewed many of the surviving participants and observers of the 1956 season, and undertaken immense archival research to bring its public and hidden drama to life. Like David Halberstam’s The Summer of ’49, The Last Good Season combines an exciting baseball story, a genuine sense of nostalgia, and hard-nosed reporting and social thinking to reveal, in a new light, a time and place we only thought we understood.From the Hardcover edition.

    Still, though I followed their season closely, I never fully understood their impact."—Allen Barra, The New York SunIn 1947, major league baseball experienced its first measure of integration when the Brooklyn Dodgers brought Jackie Robinson to the National League. While Robinson's breakthrough opened the gates of opportunity for African Americans and other minority players, the process of integration proved slow and uneven. It was not until the 1960s that a handful of major league teams began to boast more than a few Black and Latino players. But the 1971 World Championship team enjoyed a full and complete level of integration, with half of its twenty-five-man roster comprised of players of African American and Latino descent. That team was the Pittsburgh Pirates, managed by an old-time Irishman.In The Team That Changed Baseball: Roberto Clemente and the 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates, veteran baseball writer Bruce Markusen tells the story of one of the most likable and significant teams in the history of professional sports. In addition to the fact that they fielded the first all-minority lineup in major league history, the 1971 Pirates are noteworthy for the team's inspiring individual performances, including those of future Hall of Famers Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell, and Bill Mazeroski, and their remarkable World Series victory over the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles. But perhaps their greatest legacy is the team's influence on the future of baseball, inspiring later championship teams such as the New York Yankees and Oakland Athletics to open their doors fully to all talented players, regardless of race, particularly in the new era of free agency.

    It was the quiet beginning to the most resonant baseball achievement of all time. Starting that day, the vaunted Yankee centerfielder kept on hitting-at least one hit in game after game after game.In the summer of 1941, as Nazi forces moved relentlessly across Europe and young American men were drafted by the millions, it seemed only a matter of time before the U.S. went to war. The nation was apprehensive. Yet for two months in that tense summer, America was captivated by DiMaggio's astonishing hitting streak. In 56, Kostya Kennedy tells the remarkable story of how the streak found its way into countless lives, from the Italian kitchens of Newark to the playgrounds of Queens to the San Francisco streets of North Beach; from the Oval Office of FDR to the Upper West Side apartment where Joe's first wife, Dorothy, the movie starlet, was expecting a child. In this crisp, evocative narrative Joe DiMaggio emerges in a previously unseen light, a 26-year-old on the cusp of becoming an icon. He comes alive-a driven ballplayer, a mercurial star and a conflicted husband-as the tension and the scrutiny upon him build with each passing day.DiMaggio's achievement lives on as the greatest of sports records. Alongside the story of DiMaggio's dramatic quest, Kennedy deftly examines the peculiar nature of hitting streaks and with an incisive, modern-day perspective gets inside the number itself, as its sheer improbability heightens both the math and the magic of 56 games in a row.

    It was Jackie Robinson's first Series, a postwar spectacle featuring Frank Sinatra, Ernest Hemingway and President Harry Truman in supporting roles. It was also the first televised World Series - sportswriters called it "Electric October."But for all the star power on display, the outcome hinged on role players: Bill Bevens, a journeyman who knocked on the door of pitching immortality; Al Gionfriddo and Cookie Lavagetto, bench players at the center of the Series' iconic moments; Snuffy Stirnweiss, a wartime batting champion who never got any respect; and managers Bucky Harris and Burt Shotton, each an unlikely choice to run his team. Six men found themselves plucked from obscurity to shine on the sport's greatest stage. But their fame was fleeting; three would never play another big-league game, and all six would be forgotten.Kevin Cook brings the '47 Series back to life, introducing us to men whose past offered no hint they were destined for extraordinary things. For some, the Series was a memory to hold onto. For others, it would haunt them to the end of their days. And for us, Cook offers new insights--some heartbreaking, some uplifting--into what fame and glory truly mean.

    Pete Van Wieren’s legacy began in 1976, when he and a young Skip Caray were hired to call Atlanta Braves games. During the next three decades, "the Professor" and Caray became the voices of a team known nationwide as America's Team courtesy of Ted Turner's SuperStation TBS. In this heartfelt autobiography, Van Wieren shares his memories of thrilling moments in Braves history, such as the 1995 season when the Braves won the world championship; the pitching mastery of Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and John Smoltz; the heartbreak of the 1996 World Series loss to the Yankees; and Atlanta's unprecedented run of 14 consecutive division titles.

    The Era begins in 1947 with Jackie Robinson changing major league baseball forever by taking the field for the Dodgers. Dazzling, momentous events characterize the decade that followed-Robinson's amazing accomplishments; the explosion on the national scene of such soon-to-be legends as Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Bobby Thomson, Duke Snider, and Yogi Berra; Casey Stengel's crafty managing; the emergence of televised games; and the stunning success of the Yankees as they play in nine out of eleven World Series. The Era concludes with the relocation of the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, a move that shook the sport to its very roots.

    Barriers of communication and transportation were being overcome and giants such as Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and William Randolph Hearst walked the land. The nation’s game was baseball, and its giant was Honus Wagner. In 1996, a baseball card depicting Honus Wagner sold for $640,500 - the largest sum ever paid at auction for a sports artifact. What could possibly make that piece of cardboard, approximately one-and-a-half by two-and-a-half inches, worth more than half a million dollars? The DeValerias tell the unique story behind this now-famous baseball card and the man depicted on it. In doing so, they accurately present the local, regional, and national context so readers gain a thorough understanding of Wagner’s times.Wagner’s gradual emergence from the pack into stardom and popularity is described here in rich detail, but the book also reveals much of Wagner’s family and personal life - his minor leauge career, his values, his failed business ventures during the Depression, and his later years. Neither the “rowdy-ball” ruffian nor the teetotal saint constructed of legend, Wagner is presented here in a complete portrait - one that offers a vivid impression of the era when baseball was America’s game and the nation was evolving into the world’s industrial leader.

    With respected veteran sportswriter Bill Madden, Piniella now reflects on his storied career, offering fans a glimpse of life on the field, in the dugout, and inside the clubhouse.Piniella speaks from the heart about his teams and his players, offering a detailed, up-close portrait of the Bronx Zoo’s raucous personalities such as Reggie Jackson and Catfish Hunter, as well as his close friendship with Thurman Munson and his unusual relationship with George Steinbrenner. He also delves deep into his post-Yankee experiences, from winning a World Series for the controversial owner of the Cincinnati Reds, Marge Schott, to transforming the perennial cellar-dwelling Seattle Mariners into one of the league’s best teams. Some of the game’s brightest stars are here: Ken Griffey Jr, Randy Johnson, and Alex Rodriguez, Piniella’s supremely talented and controversial protégé.

    Called “exceptional” by Time magazine, The Rocket That Fell to Earth is a stunning portrait of a sports legend equally loved and loathed by fans and colleagues, his life and his storied career, and his place at the dead center of professional baseball’s shocking steroid controversy.