Baseball Science

Play ball! Jack and Annie aren’t great baseball players... yet! Then Morgan the librarian gives them magical baseball caps that will make them experts. They just need to wear the caps to a special ballgame in Brooklyn, New York. The magic tree house whisks them back to 1947! When they arrive, Jack and Annie find out that they will be batboys in the game - not ballplayers. What exactly does Morgan want them to learn? And what’s so special about this game? They only have nine innings to find out!

Does team chemistry actually exist? Is team chemistry as real and relevant as on-base percentages and wins above replacement? In Joan Ryan's groundbreaking audiobook, we discover that the answer to all of the above is a resounding "Yes". As Ryan puts it, team chemistry, or the combination of biological and social forces that boosts selfless effort among more players over more days of a season, is what drives sports teams toward a common goal, encouraging the players to be the best versions of themselves. These are the elements of teams that make them "click".

Today, sports arenas have been transformed into staging grounds for American patriotism and the hero worship of law enforcement. Teams wear camouflage jerseys to honor those who serve; police officers throw out first pitches; soldiers surprise their families with homecomings at halftime. Sports and politics are decidedly entwined. But as journalist Howard Bryant reveals, this has always been more complicated for black athletes, who from the start were committing a political act simply by being on the field.

Why does a football spiral? How do some athletes jump so high? The answer is science! The Secret Science of Sports helps kids better understand concepts of science, technology, engineering, and math through the sports they love to play and watch.

The riveting story of four men - Larry Doby, Bill Veeck, Bob Feller, and Satchel Paige - whose improbable union on the Cleveland Indians in the late 1940s would shape the immediate postwar era of Major League Baseball and beyond.

Crack of the Bat takes listeners from the 1920s to the present, examining the role of baseball in the development of the radio industry and the complex coevolution of their relationship. Despite cable television’s ubiquity, live video streaming, and social media, radio remains an important medium through which fans engage with their teams.

Ryan hated the move. He hated being uprooted from his home in New York to the rural outskirts of Nashville, Tennessee. But little did he know what was in store for him, as he becomes wrapped up in two worlds, and in two conflicts. After touching a baseball bat found in the attic of his new home, the Belle Meade Plantation, Ryan is transported back in time to the Civil War. It is here that he takes part in a baseball game between Union and Confederate soldiers on the eve of the Battle of Nashville. It would be a summer unlike any other.

In November 1934 as the United States and Japan drifted toward war, a team of American League all-stars that included Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, future secret agent Moe Berg, and Connie Mack barnstormed across the Land of the Rising Sun. Hundreds of thousands of fans, many waving Japanese and American flags, welcomed the team with shouts of Banzai! Banzai Babe Ruth! The all-stars stayed for a month, playing 18 games, spawning professional baseball in Japan.

A mild mannered CPA and baseball fan travels back in time to prevent the 1919 World Series from being fixed, and saving the reputations of Joe Jackson and Eddie Cicotte. Along the way, he meets lots of interesting characters from that era. He not only must stop the scandal, but has a murderer on his tail trying to stop him.

Some of baseball's rebels are widely recognized, but most of them are either little known or known primarily for their baseball achievements—not their political views and activism. Many players, owners, reporters, and other activists challenged both the baseball establishment and society's status quo. Baseball Rebels tells stories of baseball's reformers and radicals who were influenced by, and in turn influenced, America's broader political and social protest movements, making the game—and society—better along the way.

A People's History of Baseball, probes the less well-known but no less meaningful other side of baseball: episodes not involving equality, patriotism, heroism, and virtuous capitalism, but power - how it is obtained, and how it perpetuates itself. Through the growth and development of baseball Nathanson shows that, if only we choose to look for it, we can see the petty power struggles as well as the large and consequential ones that have likewise defined our nation.

From Major League Baseball's inception in the 1880s through World War II, team owners enjoyed monopolistic control of the industry. Despite the players' desire to form a viable union, every attempt to do so failed. In the mid-1960s, star players Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale staged a joint holdout for multiyear contracts and much higher salaries. Their holdout quickly drew support from the public; for the first time, owners realized they could ill afford to alienate fans, their primary source of revenue.

As star players for the 1955 World Champion Brooklyn Dodgers, and prior to that as the first black players to be candidates to break professional baseball's color barrier, Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella would seem to be natural allies. But the two men were divided by a rivalry going far beyond the personality differences and petty jealousies of competitive teammates. Behind the bitterness were deep and differing beliefs about the fight for civil rights.

Rosie: Capricorn. Her talisman: a magical jacket from her mother's past that gets people to do whatever she says. Caro: Taurus. Rosie's older sister. Her talisman: a baseball bat that fixes whatever it breaks. Zeke: Certified Triple Pisces. His talisman: a manifestation stone that will make anyone fall in love with him. Rosie, Caro, and Zeke—and their talismans—find themselves intertwined in a magical, hilarious, and whip-smart Outsiders for the modern day.

Is the face of American baseball throughout the world that of goodwill ambassador or ugly American? Has baseball crafted its own image or instead been at the mercy of broader forces shaping our society and the globe? The Empire Strikes Out gives us the sweeping story of how baseball and America are intertwined in the export of “the American way."

Chris Von der Ahe knew next to nothing about baseball when he risked his life’s savings to found the St. Louis Browns, the franchise that would become the St. Louis Cardinals. Yet the German-born beer garden proprietor would become one of the most important - and funniest - figures in the game’s history.

An inside look at the 2017 Houston Astros championship season, focusing on the epic seven-game World Series, the front office decisions that built a winning team, and the resilience of the city in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. On November 1, 2017, the Houston Astros defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers in an epic seven game battle to become 2017 World Series champs. For the Astros, the combination of a magnificently played series, a 101-victory season, and the devastation Hurricane Harvey brought to their city was so incredible it might give Hollywood screenwriters pause.

In Circling the Bases, leading sports economist Andrew Zimbalist continues his discussion and analysis of the major issues and challenges confronting the sports industry in the second decade of the 21st century. Presenting a general overview of the sports business at the college and professional levels, this volume places concerns such as the antitrust status of sports leagues, the stalled progress of gender equity in college sports, and the control of performance enhancing drugs in historical context.

The Presidents and the Pastime draws on Curt Smith's extensive background as a former White House presidential speechwriter to chronicle the historic relationship between baseball, the "most American" sport, and the US presidency. Smith, who USA Today calls "America's voice of authority on baseball broadcasting", starts before America's birth, when would be presidents played baseball antecedents. He charts how baseball cemented its reputation as America's pastime in the 19th century and tracks every US president from Theodore Roosevelt to Donald Trump

Megan, the mage, leaves her friend, Edmund, in charge of the kingdom while she and her beloved succubus, Kendra, take a short vacation together. Edmund lets his friend, Phil, an ogre mercenary, talk him into organizing a game which goes very badly, and then, the kingdom in invaded by a beautiful dark elf sorceress named Lorelei and her companions, which include two scientists, a museum curator, and her pet Ankylosaurus. After a fierce battle, the two sides join forces to steal a magical artifact from a dryad, with many other bad ideas along the way.