John Holway brings history to life, like watching nine movies unroll before your eyes. American heroes you didn't read about in school. Yankee artists descend on Claude Monet's French village to paint with the Master and dally with his pretty daughters. Until the Old Man finds out. Then there's hell to pay. A pretty black Amelia Earhart does loop the loops in her bi-plane over Paris - and dazzles the men of France and America. Steve Nelson endures police beatings fighting for coal miners' rights, then sails to Spain to fight Fascist Armies while America sleeps. Bert Shepard straps himself into a fighter plane and roars into combat. He loses a leg but straps on a new one to pitch in the major leagues. While Congressmen cringe at the bully Joe McCarthy, a tiny woman, Margaret Chase Smith, strikes the first blow to bring him down. Charlie Bussey climbs a Korean hill with three men and two machine guns and blows away 258 enemy. But the Army refuses to award a Medal of Honor, because he's black. Three Salem Witches battle gamblers and amorous players to zap the Patriots to their first NFL flag. Arguing, aloholic Solveg, 36, and gimpy Eddie, 18, set out to cross a 20,000-foot mountain pass before the snows close it. They also fall in love. But can it endure?
John B Holway's Blackball Stars won the coveted Casey award as best baseball book of 1989. Blackball Stars is a wonderful collection of profiles and itself a fair history of the Negro Leagues. The Washington Post. This is more than a collection of baseball biographies. Its strength is Holway's ability to recreate the aura of this time through colorful anecdotes and player reminiscences. San Francisco Chronicle on Voices From the Great Black Baseball Leagues. John Holway's statistics prove the greatness of the Negro League players. Now, we can truly call baseball the National Pastime." Ken Burns on The Complete Book of the Negro Leagues Holway, one of the deans of black baseball history, provides the most complete statistical study yet of the game's segregated half, the obvious by-product of painstaking research. Library Journal on The Complete Book of the Negro Leagues. The Complete Book of the Negro Leagues is a compelling story and a must-read for all baseball fans. Allan 'Bud' Selig, Commissioner of baseball. Holway is the granddaddy of researchers on black baseball. Even other authorities will learn something on each page of The Complete Book of the Negro Leagues, a must-read for every student and historian. Robert Peterson, author of Only the Ball Was White. This book is a culmination of three decades of dedicated research by the man who knows more about Negro baseball history than any writer ever. Royce "Crash" Parr, author of Glory Days of Summer . Blackball Tales, Holway's third series of oral compilations, relates the joys, travails, and aspirations of members of the Negro Leagues. Holway has done as much as anyone to chronicle the story of segregated baseball. Highly recommended for general libraries. Library Journal.
The foremost historian of the "blackball" era spent nearly 10 years researching this acclaimed oral history, interviewing 17 outstanding players including Cool Papa Bell, Buck Leonard, and Willie Wells. Over 80 vintage photographs.
Ted Williams is perhaps the most fascinating, the most controversial - yes, and possibly the greatest - figure in American sports history. Only Babe Ruth, Muhammad Ali, and Michael Jordan stand on a pedestal with him. It is sad that millions of young people know only what they have read of his death. This book is not about his death. It is about his life. Ted Williams was an enigma, who just wouldn't fit into a mold. The Boston press once took a poll to name the least cooperative, most temperamental, most generous, and most cooperative players on the Red Sox. Williams came in first in every category. I knew Ted Williams for 45 years, beginning in 1957, and saw him play for 20, beginning in 1941. This has given me a unique box seat to this amazing chapter of Americana. To me he is the Beethoven and Monet of baseball. But why another Ted Williams book? Ted is already the subject of a large and growing hagiography of excellent and readable books. His own My Turn At Bat is one of the most engaging autobiographies in sports literature. I made a modest contribution in 1991 with The Last 400 Hitter, about his magnificent season of 1941. Each biography draws on different sources. They are like the blind men who clutch different parts of an elephant. Each adds to the mosaic, as each gropes to discover this ebullient yet elusive and enigmatic man. In the present work I have tapped hitherto untapped sources in hopes of presenting the most complete story yet assembled of an amazing Renaissance man. Based on half a century of research, I have examined this many-sided genius from as many new angles as possible, hoping to paint the Cromwellian portrait that he himself would have wanted, warts and all. Ted and I spent hours probing his memory for games and players now largely lost to living memory. Beginning 20 years ago I also probed the memories of dozens of men, many now gone, who played with and against
The foremost historian of the "blackball" era spent nearly 10 years researching this acclaimed oral history, interviewing 17 outstanding players including Cool Papa Bell, Buck Leonard, and Willie Wells. Over 80 vintage photographs.
The story of Willie Mays's rookie year with the Negro American League's Birmingham Black Barons, the Last Negro World Series, and the making of a baseball legend Baseball Hall of Famer Willie Mays is one of baseball's endearing greats, a tremendously talented and charismatic center fielder who hit 660 career homeruns, collected 3,283 hits, knocked in 1,903 runs, won 12 Gold Glove Awards and appeared in 24 All-Star games. But before Mays was the "Say Hey Kid", he was just a boy. Willie's Boys is the story of his remarkable 1948 rookie season with the Negro American League's Birmingham Black Barons, who took a risk on a raw but gifted 16-year-old and gave him the experience, confidence, and connections to escape Birmingham's segregation, navigate baseball's institutional racism, and sign with the New York Giants. Willie's Boys offers a character-rich narrative of the apprenticeship Mays had at the hands of a diverse group of savvy veterans who taught him the ways of the game and the world. Sheds new light on the virtually unknown beginnings of a baseball great, not available in other books Captures the first incredible steps of a baseball superstar in his first season with the Negro League's Birmingham Black Barons Introduces the veteran group of Negro League players, including Piper Davis, who gave Mays an incredible apprenticeship season Illuminates the Negro League's last days, drawing on in-depth research and interviews with remaining players Explores the heated rivalry between Mays's Black Barons and Buck O'Neil's Kansas City Monarchs , culminating in the last Negro League World Series Breaks new historical ground on what led the New York Giants to acquire Mays, and why he didn't sign with the Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Yankees, or Boston Red Sox Packed with stories and insights, Willie's Boys takes you inside an important part of baseball history and the development of one of the all-time greats ever to play the game.
Most baseball fans know what links Fred Merkle, Fred Snodgrass, Mickey Owen and Bill Buckner. It's a pantheon of public failure. They would be harder put to say what links Eric Byrnes, Tony Fernandez, and Babe Ruth, though these players made misplays every bit as egregious. In this smart, highly readable history of scapegoating, John Billheimer identifies the elements that combine to condemn one player to a life sentence while another gets a wrist slap for the same offense. As it turns out, the difference between a lower-case e in some forgotten box score and a lifetime of ignominy can hinge on a number of factors, including timing, geography, reputation, misunderstanding, media bias, and just plain bad luck.
This book tells the story of how Mexican multimillionaire businessman Jorge Pasquel and the Mexican League hastened the integration of major league baseball. During the decade that preceded Jackie Robinson's breaking of the color barrier, almost 150 players from the Negro League played in Mexico, most of them recruited by Pasquel.
Jack Coombs rose to deadball-era stardom as the ace of Connie Mack's Athletics, winners of back-to-back world championships in 1910 and 1911. One of the few players of his day to have graduated from college, Coombs debuted for the Athletics in 1906, fresh from Colby College. Within a few years, he was one of the best and best-known pitchers in baseball, leading the majors in victories in consecutive seasons. But then in 1913 Coombs contracted typhoid fever, a disease that cost the right-hander two seasons at the peak of his career. And while he battled his way back, pitching well in his comeback season of 1915 and then leading the Brooklyn Robins to the World Series in 1916, he was never again the dominant pitcher he had been. Coombs went on to a long career as a coach for Duke University, and wrote one of the most highly regarded instructional books on baseball ever published.
Ford Frick is best known as the baseball commissioner who put the "asterisk" next to Roger Maris's record. But his tenure as commissioner carried the game through pivotal changes--television, continued integration, West Coast expansion and labor unrest. During those 14 years, and 17 more as National League president, he witnessed baseball history from the perspective of a man who began as a sportswriter. This biography of Frick, whose tenure sparked lively debate about the commissioner's role, provides a detailed narrative of his career and the events and characters of mid-20th century baseball.
Back in 1982, the Society for American Baseball Research was still young, barely a decade past its founding, and had grown to some 1600 members. One of their number, a "defrocked English Lit guy poking around in journalism," suggested to the board of directors that SABR, and the world, might benefit from a publication along the lines of American Heritage, only about baseball. Before long that member, John Thorn, found himself at the helm of the newly christened periodical, The National Pastime: A Review of Baseball History. The very first issue included names we think of today as luminaries in the field of baseball history and analysis: Harold Seymour, Lawrence S. Ritter, Pete Palmer, David Voigt, Bob Broeg, and more. Over the years the significance of that flagship issue has only grown, while the inventory has dwindled. SABR is pleased to present a replica edition here, with the addition of a new preface by John Thorn, now the official historian of Major League Baseball. This issue includes: Nate Colbert's Unknown RBI Record by Bob Carroll Nineteenth-Century Baseball Deserves Equal Time by Art Ahrens Dandy at Third: Ray Dandridge by John B. Holway How Fast Was Cool Papa Bell? by Jim Bankes The Field of Play by David Sanders Ladies and Gentlemen, Presenting Marty McHale by Lawrence S. Ritter Remembrance of Summers Past by Bob Broeg The Merkle Blunder: A Kaleidoscopic View by G. H. Fleming A Tale of Two Sluggers: Roger Maris and Hack Wilson, by Don Nelson Baseball's Misbegottens: Expansion Era Managers by David Voigt The Early Years: A Gallery by Mark Rucker and Lew Lipset The Egyptian and the Greyhounds by Lew Lipset All the Record Books Are Wrong by Frank J. Williams Goose Goslin's Induction Day by Lawrence S. Ritter The Great New York Team of 1927—and It Wasn't the Yankees by Fred Stein Modern Times: A Portfolio by Stuart Leeds Books Before Baseball: A Personal History by Harold Seymour, Ph.D. Ballparks: A Quiz by Bob Bluthardt Runs and Wins by Pete Palmer Baltimore, the Eastern Shore, and More by Al Kermisch David and Goliath: Figures by Ted DiTullio Double Joe Dwyer: A Life in the Bushes by Gerald Tomlinson
Pairing their detailed, informative research with a sophisticated anecdotal approach, Joel Zoss and John Bowman have written a fascinating, original, literate, and concise compendium of the history and issues surrounding America's national pastime. Addressedøare such diverse topics as the origins of the game, the contributions of minorities and women, the evolution of umpiring, baseball's influence on literature and music, substance abuse, on- and off-field tragedy, and the game's international presence. Diamonds in the Rough is an invaluable and stimulating resource both for those who already study the game and for those who would like to learn its revealing history.
Back in 1982, the Society for American Baseball Research was still young, barely a decade past its founding, and had grown to some 1600 members. One of their number, a "defrocked English Lit guy poking around in journalism," suggested to the board of directors that SABR, and the world, might benefit from a publication along the lines of American Heritage, only about baseball. Before long that member, John Thorn, found himself at the helm of the newly christened periodical, The National Pastime: A Review of Baseball History. The very first issue included names we think of today as luminaries in the field of baseball history and analysis: Harold Seymour, Lawrence S. Ritter, Pete Palmer, David Voigt, Bob Broeg, and more. Over the years the significance of that flagship issue has only grown, while the inventory has dwindled. SABR is pleased to present a replica edition here, with the addition of a new preface by John Thorn, now the official historian of Major League Baseball.
Ted Williams is perhaps the most fascinating, the most controversial - yes, and possibly the greatest - figure in American sports history. Only Babe Ruth, Muhammad Ali, and Michael Jordan stand on a pedestal with him. It is sad that millions of young people know only what they have read of his death. This book is not about his death. It is about his life. Ted Williams was an enigma, who just wouldn't fit into a mold. The Boston press once took a poll to name the least cooperative, most temperamental, most generous, and most cooperative players on the Red Sox. Williams came in first in every category. I knew Ted Williams for 45 years, beginning in 1957, and saw him play for 20, beginning in 1941. This has given me a unique box seat to this amazing chapter of Americana. To me he is the Beethoven and Monet of baseball. But why another Ted Williams book? Ted is already the subject of a large and growing hagiography of excellent and readable books. His own My Turn At Bat is one of the most engaging autobiographies in sports literature. I made a modest contribution in 1991 with The Last 400 Hitter, about his magnificent season of 1941. Each biography draws on different sources. They are like the blind men who clutch different parts of an elephant. Each adds to the mosaic, as each gropes to discover this ebullient yet elusive and enigmatic man. In the present work I have tapped hitherto untapped sources in hopes of presenting the most complete story yet assembled of an amazing Renaissance man. Based on half a century of research, I have examined this many-sided genius from as many new angles as possible, hoping to paint the Cromwellian portrait that he himself would have wanted, warts and all. Ted and I spent hours probing his memory for games and players now largely lost to living memory. Beginning 20 years ago I also probed the memories of dozens of men, many now gone, who played with and against
* Captivating portraits that will appeal to baseball lovers of all ages * Contains thrilling accounts of pivotal games * Filled with action photographs & statistics
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