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Sports / Recreation
Baseball continues to be a popular game both as a spectator sport and as a pastime. Since the publication of Baseball For Dummies, 3rd Edition, baseball teams have changed, new MLB stadiums have been built, and rules have been updated. This updated 4th Edition brings you the latest information on the players, the places, and above all, the game.
Baseball For Dummies is for baseball fans at all levels, from players and coaches to spectators who love the game. Baseball Hall of Fame player Joe Morgan explains baseball with remarkable insight, using down-to-earth language so everyone from the casual observer to the die-hard fan can gain a fuller appreciation of the sport.
Complete with Morgan's personal lists of top-ten toughest pitchers, smartest players, and most strategic managers, Baseball For Dummies gives you all the inside tips, facts, and stats so you can have Major League fun!
--Bob Costas, NBC Sports Broadcaster
"This book has something for everybody, from longtime fans to Little Leaguers."
--New York Newsday
It's known as America's National Pastime. It's nicknamed "The Greatest Game Ever Invented." No question about it: baseball is a way of life for millions, whether they're watching from the bleachers or sluggers in their own right. After more than 150 years as an all-American sport, baseball lingo is even part of our everyday language. With all its history and influence, baseball is a phenomenon we should at least be able to yak about at the water cooler--even if we never set foot on the diamond.
Whether you don't know the difference between a shortstop and a backstop, dabble in a bit of fantasy baseball, or need to perfect your split-fingered fastball, the second edition of this classic guide shows you the ropes. Ever wondered how great outfielders get a good jump on an incoming ball? Why the bases are 90 feet apart? Baseball For Dummies has answers to those questions, along with loads of All-Star tips on:
Baseball Hall-of-Famer Joe Morgan--who played with the Cincinnati Reds in two World Series championships--teams up here with sportswriter Richard Lally to coach you through everything from keeping a scorecard to hitting like a Major Leaguer. In their down-to-earth style, they cover all the bases, including:
You'll get a baseline knowledge--and find out details and trivia even the most die-hard fans don't know. If you're looking to walk the walk, or just be able to talk the talk, step up to the plate: Baseball For Dummies delivers the goods.
Would you love to know the incredible and exciting history of baseball?
Whether you want to (1) learn incredible and interesting facts about baseball history, (2) discover some of baseball's greatest events and stories, or (3) be thoroughly entertained as you learn how baseball has evolved over the years, this book will teach you everything you need to know.
See what happens inside the game.
This book is about what makes baseball the sport it is today. We'll take you inside a game to see what individual players are thinking. You will visit the early days of the sport to see some of the influences that have made the game what it is today. You will be inspired by the examples of real players who have pursued a dream, watched their dream crumble before their eyes, and then who persisted with dedication and hard work to attain success. If life is about winning and competition, then the game of baseball is rich soil in which to develop success.
Discover the greatest innovations to the game.
Because baseball relies equally upon chance and skill, you will discover some of the tactics players have used to try and improve their odds for success: changing the bat, scuffing the ball, bunting, stealing bases, and the use of any number of superstitions and good-luck charms, to name a few.
The Rich Culture of Baseball
Baseball is a sport rich in history, culture, and traditions. It doesn't matter if you have devoted your entire life to the game or whether you know little about baseball besides its name; this book is for you! You will find inside these pages both inspiration and a treasure of knowledge to flesh out the game for you. Beyond a play-by-play description of the game dynamics, you will be introduced to some of the strategies that have made baseball so unpredictably fascinating.
Trace the Development of the Sport.
You will also meet some of the interesting people who have contributed to the game and you will learn from the ongoing legacy of practical innovation that has shaped baseball over its one hundred-plus years of history. You will be introduced to innovators such as John Hillerich, Barry Bonds, Russ Ford, Harry Decker, Albert Spalding, and Alexander Cartwright. You will discover the connection between the sport of baseball and dodge ball, find out why there is a large bump in the middle of the playing field, and be transported to the ballpark for the first time "The Star Spangled Banner" was sung by the crowd. You will be inspired by the lives of athletes who pursued their dreams and continued to hope even when it appeared they would never play again. In addition, you will learn how fans have shown their support for their favorite teams and encouraged them, even in the darkest of days. Whatever your interest or level of knowledge, "The History of Baseball" will entertain, educate, and inspire you.
What Will You Discover About Baseball History?
You Will Also Learn:
Discover the incredibly entertaining history of baseball.
Get inside the game: Buy It Now!
The 2017 edition of The New York Times Bestselling Guide.
The 22nd edition of this industry-leading baseball annual contains all of the important regular and advanced statistics, player predictions and insider-level commentary that readers have come to expect, along with significant improvements to several statistics that were created by, and are exclusive to, Baseball Prospectus.
Baseball Prospectus 2017 provides fantasy players and insiders alike with prescient PECOTA projections, which The New York Times called "the überforecast of every player's performance."
With forty-five Baseball Prospectus alumni currently working for major-league baseball teams, nearly every organization has sought the advice of current or former Prospectus analysts, and readers of Baseball Prospectus 2017 will understand what all those insiders have been raving about!
The 2018 edition of The New York Times Bestselling Guide.
PLAY BALL! The 23rd edition of this industry-leading baseball annual contains all of the important statistics, player predictions and insider-level commentary that readers have come to expect, along with significant improvements to several statistics that were created by, and are exclusive to, Baseball Prospectus, and an expanded focus on international players and teams.
Baseball Prospectus 2018 provides fantasy players and insiders alike with prescient PECOTA projections, which The New York Times called "the überforecast of every player's performance."
With more than 50 Baseball Prospectus alumni currently working for major-league baseball teams, nearly every organization has sought the advice of current or former BP analysts, and readers of Baseball Prospectus 2018 will understand why!
Visit www.baseballprospectus.com for year-round baseball coverage
America's favorite pastime has never been more popular and, for over a decade, "Baseball Prospectus" has been the ultimate guide to the game for fantasy players, professionals, and casual fans alike. "Baseball Prospectus 2007" continues that tradition, bringing together the top young baseball writers and analysts in the business to provide a definitive look at the season to come. Featuring humorous and incisive essays on all thirty teams and an in-depth look at every major league player and all the top prospects, "Baseball Prospectus 2007" offers the cutting-edge analysis that has inspired nearly every major league team to seek the advice of current or former "Prospectus" writers. Also included are projections of player stats for next year, as determined by the groundbreaking PECOTA system, which "Sports Illustrated" has called ?perhaps the game's most accurate projection model.? The most authoritative and entertaining book of its kind, "Baseball Prospectus 2007" is as essential to the baseball- watching experience as hot dogs and cold beer.
From the icons of the game to the players who got their big break but never quite broke through, The Baseball Talmud provides a wonderful historical narration of Major League Jewish Baseball in America. All the stats, the facts, the stories, and the (often unheralded) glory.
The Baseball Talmud reveals that there is far more to Jewish baseball than Hank Greenberg's powerful slugging and Sandy Koufax's masterful control. From Ausmus to Zinn, Berg to Kinsler, Holtzman to Yeager, and many others, Megdal draws upon the lore and the little-known details that increase our enjoyment of the game, including:
But this is more than just stories. Megdal, a stat geek himself, uses the wealth of modern sabermetrics to determine the greatest Jewish players at each position, the all-time Jewish All-Star Team, and how they would rate against the greatest teams in baseball history, from the 1906 Chicago Cubs to the 1998 New York Yankees.
The Baseball Talmud rewrites the history of Jewish baseball and is a book that every baseball fan should own.
In Baseball, one of the great bards of America's Grand Old Game gives a rousing account of the sport, from its pre-Republic roots to the present day. George Vecsey casts a fresh eye on the game, illuminates its foibles and triumphs, and performs a marvelous feat: making a classic story seem refreshingly new. Baseball is a narrative of America's can-do spirit, in which stalwart immigrants such as Henry Chadwick could transplant cricket and rounders into the fertile American culture and in which die-hard unionist baseballers such as Charles Comiskey and Connie Mack could eventually become the tightfisted avatars of the game's big-money establishment. It's a celebration of such underdogs as a rag-armed catcher turned owner named Branch Rickey and a sure-handed fielder named Curt Flood, both of whom flourished as true great men of history. But most of all, Baseball is a testament to the unbreakable bond between our nation's pastime and the fans, who've remained loyal through the fifty-year-long interdict on black athletes, the Black Sox scandal, franchise relocation, and the use of performance-enhancing drugs by some major stars. Reverent, playful, and filled with Vecsey's charm, Baseball begs to be read in the span of a rain-delayed doubleheader, and so enjoyable that, like a favorite team's championship run, one hopes it never ends.
"Vecsey possesses a journalist's eye for detail and a historian's feel for the sweep of action. His research is scrupulous and his writing crisp. This book is an instant classic--a highly readable guide to America's great enduring pastime."--The Louisville Courier Journal
On a quiet street on Long Island early on a December morning in 2005, more than fifty federal agents stood outside a lovely new home waiting for the front door to be opened. When it did, there stood the central figure in one of the biggest scandals in sports history: Kirk Radomski.
Radomski was a regular New York kid who, from the age of fifteen had the amazing fortune of working in the Mets clubhouse. The focus of his job was to give the players whatever they wanted or needed?he got their uniforms ready, packed up their homes at the end of the season, cashed their checks, and helped them beat the drug tests that would have led to suspension. And at the end of the 1986 season he even led the World Champions down Broadway during their victory parade. Eventually, he graduated to helping in other ways: providing them with steroids and human growth hormones. By the time the Feds knocked on his door, he was the main clubhouse supplier of performance-enhancing drugs to almost three hundred baseball players.
Under threat of a long prison sentence?and after being identified by players he?d helped?he cooperated with Senator George Mitchell to produce the Mitchell Report, providing names and dates. Now he's ready to tell the whole story to the world. Radomski made little money from these transactions, and in this stunning book he will recount what baseball knew about the problem, his life since the report came out, and who took what. This is the tale of a young man seeing his heroes turn into clay, and the degradation of a once great sport into the drug-addicted spectacle it has become.