Sports Softball

Ever felt not good enough? Struggling with anxiety before significant games or crumbling under pressure? Maybe you're stuck despite countless hours of training, or merely seeking that extra edge. Whatever your situation, the answer is one: develop mental strength.

What does it mean to play heads-up baseball? A heads-up player has confidence in his ability, keeps control in pressure situations, and focuses on one pitch at a time. His mental skills enable him to play consistently at or near his best despite the adversity baseball presents each day.

In this groundbreaking book, Keith Law, the ESPN baseball writer and author of the acclaimed Smart Baseball, offers an era-spanning dissection of some of the best and worst decisions in modern baseball, explaining what motivated them, what can be learned from them, and how their legacy has shaped the game....

Raisa Kumar has been playing softball for years, and thanks to the support and encouragement of her team, the Tigers, she's one of the best pitchers in the league. When a new girl, Annie, joins the team and wants to learn how to pitch, Raisa is eager to help.

A journalist who many iconic athletes have trusted to tell their stories (of both triumph and disgrace), Jim has had unprecedented access to the people, places, and extraordinary events in the world of sports. Asking tough but fair questions, he has broken numerous stories, and landed squarely in the middle of others, from the Ben Johnson and Barry Bonds steroid scandals, to Michael Jordan’s surprise retirement, to the off-the-court Kobe/Shaq feud which led to their on-the-court break up, to being part of the live broadcast for 22 Super Bowls.

Everyone knows that baseball is a game of intricate regulations, but it turns out to be even more complicated than we realize. What truly governs the Major League game is a set of unwritten rules, some of which are openly discussed (don’t steal a base with a big lead late in the game), and some of which only a minority of players are even aware of (don’t cross between the catcher and the pitcher on the way to the batter’s box).

Baseball statistics come to life. Listeners won't look at mathematics in the same way again.

The authors of the acclaimed and best-selling The Civil War, Jazz, and The War turn to another uniquely American phenomenon: baseball. Geoffrey C. Ward's and Ken Burns’s moving and fascinating history of the game goes beyond stolen bases, double plays, and home runs to demonstrate how baseball has been influenced by, and has in turn influenced, American life.

Long before the Moneyball Era, the Earl of Baltimore reigned over baseball. History’s feistiest and most colorful manager, Earl Weaver transformed the sport by collecting and analyzing data in visionary ways, ultimately winning more games than anybody else during his time running the Orioles from 1968 to 1982. When Weaver was hired by the Orioles, managers were still seen as coaches and inspirational leaders, more teachers of the game than strategists. Weaver invented new ways of building baseball teams, prioritizing on-base average, elite defense, and strike throwing.

More than any baseball player of his generation, Clayton Kershaw has embodied the burden of athletic greatness, the prizes and perils that await those who strive for it all. He is a three-time Cy Young award winner, the first pitcher to win National League MVP since Bob Gibson, and a surefire, first-ballot Hall of Famer. Many of his peers consider him the greatest pitcher to ever climb atop a big-league mound.

Ted Williams was arguably the greatest pure hitter who ever lived. A lifelong student of hitting, he sought advice from every great hitter - and pitcher - he met. Drawing on that advice, as well as his own legendary life in baseball, Williams produced the all-time batting classic, The Science of Hitting. Using its detailed and concise coaching, players of all skill levels will learn how to improve their fundamentals and gain keen insights into the finer points of hitting.

Drawing on more than 500 interviews with friends and family, teammates, and opponents, she delivers the definitive account of Mantle's life, mining the mythology of The Mick for the true story of a luminous and illustrious talent with an achingly damaged soul.

Baseball is “the New York game” because New York is where the diamond was first laid out, where the bunt and the curveball were invented, and where the home run was hit. It’s where the game’s first stars were born, and where everyone came to play or watch the game. With nuance and depth, historian Kevin Baker brings this all vividly back to life: the still-controversial, indelible moments—Did the Babe call his shot? Was Merkle out? Did they fix the 1919 World Series? Here are all the legendary players, managers, and owners, in all their vivid, complicated humanity, on and off the field.

Every spring, Little Leaguers across the country mimic his stance and squabble over the right to wear his number, 2, the next number to be retired by the world’s most famous ball team. Derek Jeter is their hero. He walks in the footsteps of Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, and Mantle, and someday his shadow will loom just as large. Yet he has never been the best player in baseball. In fact, he hasn’t always been the best player on his team. But his intangible grace and Jordanesque ability to play big in the biggest of postseason moments make him the face of the modern Yankee dynasty, and of America’s game.

Shortstops who run with the wolves, painted eggs that reveal deeply disturbing meanings, long-dead Hall of Famers who miraculously return to the game, an Iowa minor-league town with a secret conspiracy: these are the elements from which W.P. Kinsella weaves nine fabulous stories about the magical world of baseball.

Highlights in this set include "The Night Manny Mota Tied the Record", "The Battery", and "The Thrill of the Grass". In a plot that preceded anything written by Mitch Albom, "The Night Manny Mota Tied the Record" explores the feelings after the death of Yankee catcher Thurmon Munson. Would a hardcore (non-Yankee) baseball fan give his life to save Munson's? "The Battery" takes readers to Santo Domingo where a wizard created in the vein of author Terry Pratchett sees the birth of baseball playing twins.

It’s the summer of 1973, and Joe Castle is the boy wonder of baseball, the greatest rookie anyone has ever seen. The kid from Calico Rock, Arkansas, dazzles Chicago Cubs fans as he hits home run after home run, politely tipping his hat to the crowd as he shatters all rookie records.

Josh Hamilton was the first player chosen in the first round of the 1999 baseball draft. He was destined to be one of those rare "high-character" superstars. But in 2001, working his way from the minors to the majors, all of the plans for Josh went off the rails in a moment of weakness. What followed was a four-year nightmare of drugs and alcohol, estrangement from friends and family, and his eventual suspension from baseball.

Harvard has a reputation for turning out notable lawyers, doctors, politicians, and scientists - but not exactly for producing professional ballplayers. However, in the mid-1970s Rick Wolff transferred from this major leaguer of academia to baseball’s minors, playing for the Detroit Tigers organization. Thirty years later, his son followed in his footsteps: Harvard diploma in hand, he now plays for a minor league affiliate of the New York Mets.

A captivating chronicle of the incredible story of one of America’s most iconic, charismatic, and still polarizing figures—baseball immortal Pete Rose—and an exquisite cultural history of baseball and America in the second half of the twentieth century.