Showing results by publisher "Blackstone Audio, Inc." in Baseball & Softball

Cardboard Gods is the memoir of Josh Wilker, a brilliant writer who has marked the stages of his life through the baseball cards he collected as a child. It also captures the experience of growing up obsessed with baseball cards and explores what it means to be a fan of the game. Along the way, as we get to know Josh, his family, and his friends, we also get Josh’s classic observations about the central artifacts from his life - the baseball cards themselves.

Matty, as he was called, makes the listener feel that tense moment when a player in a pinch must use his head. Pitching in a Pinch, originally published in 1912, is an insider's account of the world of baseball, blending anecdote, biography, instruction, and social history. It celebrates baseball as it was played in the first decade of the 20th century by famous contemporaries like Honus Wagner and Rube Marquand, managers like John McGraw and Connie Mack, and many others.

Havana Heat transports readers to 1911 America, where real-life pitcher Luther "Dummy" Taylor is trying to work his arm back into fighting shape. Though deaf, Taylor helped lead John McGraw's New York Giants to the pennant, winning 115 games between 1900 and 1908. But an injury relegates him to the minors, and he dreams of one last shot at the big barnstorming trip to Cuba.

From Coney Island sideshows to the brand-new Yankee Stadium, Diamond Ruby chronicles the extraordinary life and times of a girl who rises from utter poverty to the kind of renown only the Roaring Twenties can bestow. But her fame comes with a price, and Ruby must escape a deadly web of conspiracy and threats from Prohibition rumrunners, the Ku Klux Klan, and the gangster underworld.

Don Zimmer had his first taste of baseball glory in 1948 as a member of a national champion American Legion team. He was drafted by the Brooklyn Dodgers, only to have his career—and life—threatened when he was beaned in a minor league game in 1953.

On October 3, 1951, Bobby Thomson's "shot heard around the world" ended one of the most dramatic pennant races ever. Interviews, contemporary newspaper articles, and memoirs of participants are used to describe the intense rivalry and provide a day-by-day look at the Giants' pennant run, including a fascinating examination of the strategy of the final game.

This entertaining history blends anecdote, incident, and analysis as it chronicles the story of our national pastime. Alexander covers the advent of the first professional baseball leagues, the game’s surge in the early 20th century, the Golden 20s and the Gray 30s, the breaking of the color line in the late 40s, and the game’s expansion to its current status as a premier team sport. He describes changing playing styles and outstanding teams and personalities, but also demonstrates the many connections to society.

One of the most colorful and beloved characters in major league baseball, Durwood Merrill talks about the game’s many personalities and gives an up-close and personal account of life on the diamond, in the clubhouse, and beyond. With over two decades of laugh-out-loud anecdotes and controversial opinions, Merrill makes the call on managers, relating his explosive relationships with them and the viciously hilarious barbs they trade.

In the aftermath of the global conflict of World War II, few events in the United States were as eagerly awaited as baseball's spring training. But the national pastime was as unsettled as the rest of the country. Had some of the stars seen their careers ended by their service? How would wartime players fare against returning veterans?

It was the year that Joe DiMaggio set his 56-game hitting streak, that Ted Williams batted .406, that the Dodgers and the Yankees battled each other in a classic World Series, and that America went to war. In this look at what he calls "the best baseball season ever", Robert Creamer skillfully intertwines all these epochal baseball happenings with an informal history of a pivotal period in American life.