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Chicago's Wrigley Field opened in 1914 as Weeghman Park, the new North Side stadium erected for use by the Federal League's Chicago team, which would eventually be called the Whales. It was built in just 50 days, with an rectangular shape in the style of New York's Polo Grounds, designed to fit the odd dimensions of the lot which formerly housed a seminary school that Whales owner "Lucky" Charley Weeghman had purchased with a 99-year lease at a little over $300,000. In all, it took $250,000 and...

Unbreakable gives fans the fascinating stories behind incredible records and the players who made them and provides a basis for comparing players of the Deadball era with those of today. Most importantly, it gives the true baseball fan quantitative objective data to bring to arguments about players and their records. It is almost impossible to fathom how Jack Chesbro could have won 41 games in 1904 when pitchers today don't even make that many starts in a season. Ed Walsh pitched 464 innings in...

David Ortiz first won over the Fenway faithful in 2003 with his monstrous home runs, beaming smile, big hugs, and kind heart. The following fall, he proved heroic, belting walk-off hits in Games 4 and 5 of the ALCS in an epic series comeback over Jeter's Yankees. His legendary feats helped the Red Sox end the 86-year-old "Curse of the Bambino" and deliver a World Series title to Boston. In the largest gathering in American history of any kind 3 million fans cheered Ortiz & Co. in the World Serie...

What do Dizzy Dean, Catfish Metkovich, John Boccabella, Bill Buckner, Mark Prior, and Jason Heyward all have in common? They all wore number 22 for the Chicago Cubs, even though eight decades have passed between the last time Dizzy Dean buttoned up a Cubs uniform with that number and the first time outfielder Jason Heyward performed the same routine. Since the Chicago Cubs first adopted uniform numbers in 1932, the team has handed out only 77 numbers to more than 1,500 players. That's a lot of...

For almost 50 years, the Cleveland Indians were a joke. They had won the 1948 World Series with one of the greatest teams of all time, but had not been to the playoffs since 1954 (losing to the New York Giants in the World Series). Even the Major League movies poked fun at their inadequacy. That all changed in the 1990s, when the Indians became one of the most dominant teams of the decade. A Tribe Reborn tells the story of a failing franchise, from "The Mistake by the Lake" to "The Curse of Roc...

Was it Babe Ruth who said it best when he once remarked, "Baseball was, is, and always will be to me the best game in the world"? Or Mickey Mantle when he channeled Lou Gehrig during his 1969 farewell address: "I never knew how someone dying could say he was the luckiest man in the world. But now I understand"? Since the New York Highlanders became the New York Yankees in 1913, this dynamic franchise has captured the hearts and minds of fans across the nation. But for all the glory garnered by t...

Amazing Stories From the Cubs Dugout is crammed with stories, quotes, and anecdotes about the greatest Cubs players of past and present. The story of the Cubs is part legend, part pathos; heroic and, on occasion, hilarious. Enjoy the heartbreak and joy of unforgettable afternoons at Wrigley Field. Without a doubt Amazing Stories From the Cubs Dugout is a must for any Chicago Cubs fan.

America's foremost sportswriters and other personalities offer their favorite memories of Yankee Stadium, the world's most famous ballpark. In Lasting Yankee Stadium Memories, editor Alex Belth of BronxBanterBlog.com collects personal essays by some of the most well-known and respected voices in sportswriting and entertainment today in these revealing, sometimes hilarious, oft-touching essays. The book also includes a special chapter on New Yankee Stadium. Contributors include: Bob Costas Cha...

Amazing Tales from the 2004 Boston Red Sox Dugout is a different kind of look back at the incredible championship season through the eyes of the players involved. It is packed full of anecdotes, quotes, and perspectives from each member of the team, presented in the context of their on-field heroics. The book includes intimate snapshots of particularly relevant moments rare glimpses behind the scenes in order bring you back to the moment. This was a group of bona fide characters who showed great...

When the National League decided on June 22, 1932, to place numbers on the backs of uniforms to make it easier for fans to follow their favorite players, no one knew at the time just what a landmark decision it would turn out to be. In fact, when the Pittsburgh Pirates donned numbered jerseys eight days later against the St. Louis Cardinals at Forbes Field, the uniform numbers were so unimportant on the team's list of priorities that it was second billing to the main event of that day: the first...

So You Think You're a Kansas City Royals Fan? will test and expand your knowledge of one of Major League Baseball's most successful expansion franchises. Rather than merely posing questions and providing answers, you'll get details behind each stories that bring to life the history of the Kansas City Royals. This book, part of a new series, is divided into four parts, with progressively more difficult questions in each new section. The first three-inning section contains the most basic question...

The Dodgers: 60 Years in Los Angeles chronicles the team's thrilling, roller coaster history since arriving in the West Coast from Brooklyn. Featuring the stellar talents and memorable personalities of Dodgers greats such as Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Tommy Lasorda, Fernando Valenzuela, and Kirk Gibson, as well as the stars of today, like Clayton Kershaw, Justin Turner, Yasiel Puig, Cody Bellinger, and Corey Seager, author Michael Schiavone offers an in-depth history of the team since their arr...

The newly reissued Legends of the Philadelphia Phillies, originally published in 2005, takes an in-depth look at the legends that have shaped the Phillies' identity over the last seventy years. Each chapter profiles a different beloved Phillies personality that colored the latter half of the twentieth century. Most were cheered; some were booed. Philadelphia is a city that loves you back, just sometimes in strange ways. With quotes and interviews from former and current Phils, Legends of the Ph...

Philadelphia Phillies fans are not casual about their favorite team or its players. These intense and loyal fans expect a full effort from their charges, regardless of the outcome. Philadelphia Phillies: Where Have You Gone? takes an informative stroll down memory lane and includes information about dozens of former Phillies players and coaches from the fifties through the present day. Guys like Robin Roberts, Curt Simmons, Richie Ashburn, Jim Lonborg, Bill Robinson, and ambidextrous pitcher Gre...

One of the staples of the long and storied history of baseball on television is the "postgame show," and none was more beloved than Kiner's Korner. From the early 1960s into the 1990s, Hall of Famer and iconic broadcaster Ralph Kiner hosted the show that brought players into the homes of fans across the nation. From the host, to the set, to the guests, to the stories amassed over more than thirty-two years on the air, Down on the Korner takes the reader behind the scenes. Authors Mark Rosenman...

Rarely does anyone use the term "two-way" in regard to a baseball player. Yet the Los Angeles Angels' Shohei Ohtani, at the young age of twenty-three, has become the epitome of the term, drawing comparisons to Babe Ruth by baseball pundits everywhere. After being drafted by the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters of the Japan Pacific League with the number-one pick in 2012, the eighteen-year-old Ohtani struggled with the bat during his rookie season. However, he had a breakout year in 2014, posting...

August 30, 2018 marks the 100th birthday of the former Boston Red Sox outfielder and baseball legend. In Being Ted Williams, esteemed sportscaster Dick Enberg offers a series of personal anecdotes that loosely follow Ted's life from his childhood in San Diego, to his fun teenage years playing in the Pacific Coast League, his glorious yet frustrating Red Sox career, his heroic actions as a fighter pilot in two wars (as John Glenn's favorite wing-man), and his post-career years leading to his hear...

In 1969, the New York Mets took on a nickname that was certainly fitting for that season-the "Miracle Mets." Nevertheless, even beyond 1969, there have been numerous moments in the history of the Mets that have proven miraculous, from the pitcher's mound to the batter's box and from the regular season to the playoffs. In Miracle Moments in New York Mets History, Brett Topel details the team's greatest achievements, from the Mets' first win in franchise history in 1962, to Tom Seaver's near-pe...

Renowned artist Andy Jurinko believed the golden age of baseball was 1946-1960, an era that, not coincidentally, coincided with his childhood. It was a time that welcomed such legendary stars as Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Jackie Robinson, Ted Williams, and Henry Aaron into the national consciousness, a fifteen year stretch marked by Robinson's breaking of the color barrier in 1947 and by ten Yankee championships. Jurinko spent twenty years creating more than 600 portraits of the colorful charac...

Thirty-five years ago, Roberto Clemente made baseball history when he became the first Latin American to enter the Hall of Fame. Roberto Clemente: The Great One evaluates one of the game's most dynamic players and perhaps its most selfless humanitarian. From modest beginnings in Carolina, Puerto Rico, to a legendary career with the Pittsburgh Pirates, to his tragically premature death in a plane crash, Roberto Clemente remains one of baseball's most compelling characters. Interviews with teammat...

Games between the Dodgers and Giants are never just another day at the ballpark. Dating back to the late nineteenth century-when the teams embodied the competitive spirit of rival metropolises of New York and Brooklyn-the Giants-Dodgers rivalry gained intensity throughout the early twentieth century. The cheering and jeering continued unabated until 1957, when the clubs backed the moving vans up to the Polo Grounds and Ebbets Field, and took their rivalry to new venues in Los Angeles and San Fra...

Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Negro Leagues with updates and additions throughout! The Kansas City Monarchs, the Chicago American Giants, the St. Louis Stars, the Birmingham Black Barons, the Homestead Grays, and the Indianapolis Clowns; for over fifty years, they were the Yankees, Cardinals, and Red Sox of black baseball in America. And for over a decade beginning in the late 1940s, umpire Bob Motley called balls and strikes for many of their games, working alongside such legends...

Over 400 pages of stories about baseball’s most successful franchise—Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Reggie Jackson Derek Jeter, Don Larsen, Mickey Mantle, Sparky Lyle, Don Mattingly, Thurman Munson, and so many more! When it comes to baseball glory, no other team comes close to the New York Yankees, winners of forty American League pennants and twenty-seven World Series championships. Amazing Tales from the Yankee Dugout is a compilation of the funniest, strangest, and most unique stories, anecdotes,...