This bestselling account of the most important season in baseball history, 1947, tells the dramatic story of how Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier and changed baseball forever. April 15, 1947, marked the most important opening day in baseball history. When Jackie Robinson stepped onto the diamond that afternoon at Ebbets Field, he became the first black man to break into major-league baseball in the twentieth century. World War II had just ended. Democracy had triumphed. Now Americans were beginning to press for justice on the home front—and Robinson had a chance to lead the way. In Opening Day , Jonathan Eig tells the true story behind the national pastime’s most sacred myth. He offers new insights into events of sixty years ago and punctures some familiar legends. Was it true that the St. Louis Cardinals plotted to boycott their first home game against the Brooklyn Dodgers? Was Pee Wee Reese really Robinson’s closest ally on the team? Was Dixie Walker his greatest foe? How did Robinson handle the extraordinary stress of being the only black man in baseball and still manage to perform so well on the field? Opening Day is also the story of a team of underdogs that came together against tremendous odds to capture the pennant. Facing the powerful New York Yankees, Robinson and the Dodgers battled to the seventh game in one of the most thrilling World Series competitions of all time. Drawing on interviews with surviving players, sportswriters, and eyewitnesses, as well as newly discovered material from archives around the country, Jonathan Eig presents a fresh portrait of a ferocious competitor who embodied integration’s promise and helped launch the modern civil-rights era. Full of new details and thrilling action, Opening Day brings to life baseball’s ultimate story.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From Jane Leavy, the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Boy and Sandy Koufax, comes the definitive biography of Babe Ruth—the man Roger Angell dubbed "the model for modern celebrity." A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The Boston Globe | Publishers Weekly | Kirkus | Newsweek | The Philadelphia Inquirer | The Progressive Winner of the 2019 SABR Seymour Medal | Finalist for the PEN/ESPN Literary Sports Writing Award | Longlisted for Spitball Magazine’s Casey Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year | Finalist for the NBCC Award for Biography “Leavy’s newest masterpiece…. A major work of American history by an author with a flair for mesmerizing story-telling.” —Forbes He lived in the present tense—in the camera’s lens. There was no frame he couldn’t or wouldn’t fill. He swung the heaviest bat, earned the most money, and incurred the biggest fines. Like all the new-fangled gadgets then flooding the marketplace—radios, automatic clothes washers, Brownie cameras, microphones and loudspeakers—Babe Ruth "made impossible events happen." Aided by his crucial partnership with Christy Walsh—business manager, spin doctor, damage control wizard, and surrogate father, all stuffed into one tightly buttoned double-breasted suit—Ruth drafted the blueprint for modern athletic stardom. His was a life of journeys and itineraries—from uncouth to couth, spartan to spendthrift, abandoned to abandon; from Baltimore to Boston to New York, and back to Boston at the end of his career for a finale with the only team that would have him. There were road trips and hunting trips; grand tours of foreign capitals and post-season promotional tours, not to mention those 714 trips around the bases. After hitting his 60th home run in September 1927—a total that would not be exceeded until 1961, when Roger Maris did it with the aid of the extended modern season—he embarked on the mother of all barnstorming tours, a three-week victory lap across America, accompanied by Yankee teammate Lou Gehrig. Walsh called the tour a "Symphony of Swat." The Omaha World Herald called it "the biggest show since Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey, and seven other associated circuses offered their entire performance under one tent." In The Big Fella, acclaimed biographer Jane Leavy recreates that 21-day circus and in so doing captures the romp and the pathos that defined Ruth’s life and times. Drawing from more than 250 interviews, a trove of previously untapped documents, and Ruth family records, Leavy breaks through the mythology that has obscured the legend and delivers the man.

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER THE BEST SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR "October 1964 should be a hit with old-time baseball fans, who'll relish the opportunity to relive that year's to-die-for World Series, when the dynastic but aging New York Yankees squared off against the upstart St. Louis Cardinals. It should be a hit with younger students of the game, who'll eat up the vivid portrayals of legends like Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris of the Yankees and Bob Gibson and Lou Brock of the Cardinals. Most of all, however, David Halberstam's new book should be a hit with anyone interested in understanding the important interplay between sports and society." --The Boston Globe "Compelling...1964 is a chronicle of the end of a great dynasty and of a game, like the country, on the cusp of enormous change." --Newsweek "Halberstam's latest gives us the feeling of actually being there--in another time, in the locker rooms and in the minds of baseball legends. His time and effort researching the book result in a fluency with his topic and a fluidity of writing that make the reading almost effortless....Absorbing." --San Francisco Chronicle "Wonderful...Memorable...Halberstam describes the final game of the 1964 series accurately and so dramatically, I almost thought I had forgotten the ending." --The Washington Post Book World "Superb reporting...Incisive analysis...You know from the start that Halberstam is going to focus on a large human canvas...One of the many joys of this book is the humanity with which Halberstam explores the characters as well as the talents of the players, coaches and managers. These are not demigods of summer but flawed, believable human beings who onoccasion can rise to peaks of heroism." --Chicago Sun-Times "From the Trade Paperback edition.

A New York Times Bestseller By the author of Showtime--the source for HBO's Winning Time--the definitive biography of mythic multi-sport star Bo Jackson. "A legendary tome on a legendary athlete." --Chris Herring, author of Blood in the Garden From the mid-1980s into the early 1990s, the greatest athlete of all time streaked across American sports and popular culture. Stadiums struggled to contain him. Clocks failed to capture his speed. His strength was legendary. His power unmatched. Video game makers turned him into an invincible character--and they were dead-on. He climbed (and walked across) walls, splintered baseball bats over his knee, turned oncoming tacklers into ground meat. He became the first person to simultaneously star in two major professional sports, and overtook Michael Jordan as America's most recognizable pitchman. He was on our televisions, in our magazines, plastered across billboards. He was half man, half myth. Then, almost overnight, he was gone. He was Bo Jackson. Drawing on an astonishing 720 original interviews, New York Times bestselling sportswriter Jeff Pearlman captures as never before the elusive truth about Jackson, Auburn University's transcendent Heisman Trophy winner, superstar of both the NFL and Major League Baseball and ubiquitous "Bo Knows" Nike pitchman. Did Bo really jump over a parked Volkswagen? (Yes.) Did he actually run a 4.13 40? (Yes.) During the 1991 flight that nearly killed every member of the Chicago White Sox, was he in the cockpit trying to help? (Oddly, yes. Or no. Or ... maybe.) Bo Jackson isn't Jim Thorpe. He's not Deion Sanders, either. No, Bo Jackson is Paul Bunyan. The Last Folk Hero is the true tale of Bo Jackson that only "master storyteller" (NPR.org) Jeff Pearlman could tell.

The New York Times bestselling author of Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football “knocks it out of the park” ( Vanity Fair ) in this captivating blend of sports reportage and memoir, exploring the history of the 2016 World Series champions, the Chicago Cubs. When Rich Cohen was eight years old, his father took him to see a Cubs game. On the way out of the park, his father asked him to make a promise. “Promise me you will never be a Cubs fan. The Cubs do not win,” he explained, “and because of that, a Cubs fan will have a diminished life determined by low expectations. That team will screw up your life.” Cohen became not just a Cubs fan but one of the biggest Cubs fans in the world. In this book, he captures the story of the team, its players and crazy days. Billy Sunday and Ernie Banks, Three Finger Brown and Ryne Sandberg, Bill Buckner, the Bartman Ball, Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo—the early dominance followed by a 107 year trek across the wilderness. It’s all here, in The Chicago Cubs: Story of a Curse —not just what happened, but what it felt like and what it meant. Featuring extensive interviews with players, owners, and coaches, this mix of memoir, reporting, history, and baseball theology—forty years in the making—has never been written because it never could be. Only with the 2016 World Series can the true arc of the story finally be understood.

In an era when too many heroes have been toppled from too many pedestals, Sandy Koufax stands apart and alone, a legend who declined his own celebrity. As a pitcher, he was sublime, the ace of baseball lore. As a human being, he aspired to be the one thing his talent and his fame wouldn't allow: a regular guy. A Brooklyn kid, he was the product of the sedate and modest fifties who came to define and dominate baseball in the sixties. In Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy, former award-winning Washington Post sportswriter Jane Leavy delivers an uncommon baseball book, vividly re-creating the Koufax era, when presidents were believed and pitchers aspired to go the distance. He was only a teenager when Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley proclaimed him "the Great Jewish Hope" of the franchise. But it wasn't until long after the team had abandoned Brooklyn that the man became the myth. Old-fashioned in his willingness to play when he was injured and in his acute sense of responsibility to his team, Koutax answered to an authority higher than manager Walter Alston. When he refused to pitch the opening game of the 1965 World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, he inadvertently made himself a religious icon and an irrevocably public figure. A year later, he was gone -- done with baseball at age thirty. No other sports hero had retired so young, so well, or so completely. Despite Sandy Koufax's best efforts to protect his privacy, his legend has grown larger ever since. Part biography, part cultural history, Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy gets as close to that legend as he will allow. Through meticulous reporting and interviews with five hundred of his friends, teammates, and opponents, Leavy penetrates the mythology to discover a man more than worthy of myth.

No immortal in the history of baseball retired so young, so well, or so completely as Sandy Koufax. After compiling a remarkable record from 1962 to 1966 that saw him lead the National League in ERA all five years, win three Cy Young awards, and pitch four no-hitters including a perfect game, Koufax essentially disappeared. Save for his induction into the Hall of Fame and occasional appearances at the Dodgers training camp, Koufax has remained unavailable, unassailable, and unsullied, in the process becoming much more than just the best pitcher of his generation. He is the Jewish boy from Brooklyn, who refused to pitch the opening game of the 1965 World Series on Yom Kippur, defining himself as a man who placed faith over fame. This act made him the standard to which Jewish parents still hold their children. Except for his autobiography (published in 1966), Koufax has resolutely avoided talking about himself. But through sheer doggedness that even Koufax came to marvel at, Jane Leavy was able to gain his trust to the point where they talked regularly over the three years Leavy reported her book. With Koufax′s blessing, Leavy interviewed nearly every one of his former teammates, opponents, and friends, and emerged with a portrait of the artist that is as thorough and stylish as was his command on the pitching mound.

From the subway ride to the ballpark, through batting practice and warm-ups, to the game-winning home run, A Day in the Bleachers describes inning by inning the strategies, heroics, and ineluctable rhythms of the opening game of the 1954 World Series. Here are the spectacular exploits of the Indians and Giants, and of a young player named Willie Mays, who made the most-talked-about catch in baseball history.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the acclaimed bestselling author comes a riveting journey through the world of minor-league baseball “Terrific…Reading this book will make you fall in love with baseball all over again.”— The Denver Post Minor league baseball is quintessentially American: small towns, small stadiums, $5 tickets, $2 hot dogs, the never-ending possibility of making it big. But looming above it all is always the real deal: Major League Baseball. John Feinstein takes the reader behind the curtain into the guarded world of the minor leagues, like no other writer can. Where Nobody Knows Your Name explores the trials and travails of the inhabitants of Triple-A, focusing on nine men, including players, managers and umpires, among many colorful characters, living on the cusp of the dream. The book tells the stories of former World Series hero Scott Podsednik, giving it one more shot; Durham Bulls manager Charlie Montoya, shepherding generations across the line; and designated hitter Jon Lindsey, a lifelong minor leaguer, waiting for his day to come. From Raleigh to Pawtucket, from Lehigh Valley to Indianapolis and beyond, this is an intimate and exciting look at life in the minor leagues, where you’re either waiting for the call or just passing through.

The Bad Guys Won, award-winning Sports Illustrated baseball writer Jeff Pearlman returns to an innocent time when a city worshipped a man named Mookie and the Yankees were the second-best team in New York. It was 1986, and the New York Mets won 108 regular-season games and the World Series, capturing the hearts (and other assorted body parts) of fans everywhere. But their greatness on the field was nearly eclipsed by how bad they were off it. Led by the indomitable Keith Hernandez and the young dynamic duo of Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry, along with the gallant Scum Bunch, the Amazin’s left a wide trail of wreckage in their wake—hotel rooms, charter planes, a bar in Houston, and most famously Bill Buckner and the hated Boston Red Sox. With an unforgettable cast of characters—including Doc, Straw, the Kid, Nails, Mex, and manager Davey Joshson—this “affectionate but critical look at this exciting season” (Publishers Weekly) celebrates the last of baseball’s arrogant, insane, rock-and-roll-and-party-all-night teams, exploring what could have been, what should have been, and what never was.

In the 150 years since its humble birth, baseball has shown an infinite capacity for exhilarating triumphs, heart-breaking losses, amusing blunders, and awe-inspiring feats. Willie Mays's amazing catch of Vic Wertz's monstrous drive in the 1954 World Series, Bobby Thomson's "shot heard round the world," the "Black Sox" Scandal of 1919, DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak, even the pitiful 1962 Mets, who finished 60 games (or two full months) out of first place--these are all part of baseball lore and part of its allure. A banquet for baseball fans, Baseball Anecdotes offers a colorful and highly entertaining anecdotal history of America's National Pastime, from the founding of the first professional baseball team, Cincinnati's Red Stockings, by George Wright (the son of a famous English cricketer) and the forming of the first league (in a New York bar on St. Patrick's Day), to the miraculous comeback of the Mets in the Sixth Game of the 1986 World Series. Here you will meet the game's great innovators (from John Montgomery Ward, who invented the pitching mound--and also pitched the second perfect game in history--to Bill Veeck, who introduced the exploding scoreboard in Comiskey Park); the colorful eccentrics (such as King Kelly, who was accompanied off the field by a black monkey and a Japanese valet) and the self-effacing stars (such as Harmon Killebrew, who, when asked what his hobbies were, said, "Well, I like to wash dishes"); the penny-pinching owners (when Babe Ruth requested tickets for the Yankee's 1936 season opener at The House That Ruth Built, the team management said sure, just send in a check); and, most of all, the legendary players: Ruth, Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, Lefty Gomez, Sandy Koufax, Casey Stengel, Mickey Mantle, and countless others. Along the way, readers are treated to instant replays of some of baseball's most memorable moments, such as Roger Maris' quest for Ruth's 61-home-run record, Don Larsen's perfect World Series game, and Ted Williams' final major league at bat (he hit a home run). Okrent and Wulf, two highly regarded baseball writers, touch all the bases in this vividly written volume, capturing the whole human drama of baseball in a cascade of stories that offers a nostalgic feast (or, as Yogi Berra would put it, "Deja vu all over again") as well as a fascinating introduction to baseball lore for the newest generation of fans.

Pitchers are the heart of baseball, and John Feinstein tells the story of the game today through one season and two great pitchers working in the crucible of the New York media market. Tom Glavine and Mike Mussina have seen it all in the Major Leagues and both entered 2007 in search of individual milestones and one more shot at The World Series-Glavine with the Mets, Mussina five miles away with the Yankees. The two veterans experience very different seasons -- one on a team dealing with the pressure to get to a World Series for the first time in seven years, the other with a team expected to be there every year. Taking the reader through contract negotiations, spring training, the ups of wins and losses, and the people in their lives-family, managers, pitching coaches, agents, catchers, other pitchers -- John Feinstein provides a true insider's look at the pressure cooker of sports at the highest level.

Baseball, Chicago Style explores the exciting, enticing, enduring and frequently frustrating panorama of our national pastime. For the first time the colorful saga of Major League Baseball in Chicago is wrapped between the covers of a single book sure to appeal to both Cubs and White Sox fans. No writers are better suited to survey it than Holtzman, a Hall of Fame member and the first official historian of Major League Baseball, and partner Vass, both of whom covered the teams for many seasons. When it comes to baseball tradition, Chicago is second to none, the sole city to embrace two major league teams without interruption from their founding to the present. The Cubs haven't missed a beat since 1876 as the oldest uninterrupted franchise in all pro sports, while the White Sox have challenged them without letup since 1901 for the backing of Chicago's vast fandom. The Cubs' best known exploit of the last 55 seasons may have been to not win the pennant in 1969, the year of the Great Collapse. Not even division titles in 1984 and 1989, or a "wild card" post-season excursion in 1998, all of which ended in tears, have displaced the sorrow of 1969 in the collective memory of Cubs fans. But those who scoff at Cubs' tradition willfully ignore several glorious periods of their history. It's true they've won only two World Series (1907-08), but they've played in 10, far more than most teams. And their 1906 record of 116-36, for a percentage of .847, is unmatched in major league history. What's best-known nationally about the White Sox is that they "threw" the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. The dastardly act, commemorated in history, literature, film and television, transformedtheir previously innocuous nickname of Black Sox, based on the hue of their uniforms in previous seasons, into an invidious epithet which clings to them like a burr to corduroy. The tale of stinginess, greed and the betrayal of "the faith of 50 million people" forms the book's first chapter. It has never been told so fully and objectively without glib sentiment obscuring its uglier aspects. Even if Chicago's teams have waged war by frequently marching to the rear since the White Sox last brought the World Series to the city in 1959, more than four decades ago, they've played the game with a gusto that belongs solely to Baseball, Chicago Style.

Here is an eye-opening look at one of baseball's most intriguing and little known stories: the many-faceted relationship between Jews and black baseball in Jim Crow America. In Out of Left Field, Rebecca Alpert explores how Jewish sports entrepreneurs, political radicals, and a team of black Jews from Belleville, Virginia called the Belleville Grays--the only Jewish team in the history of black baseball--made their mark on the segregated world of the Negro Leagues. Through in-depth research, Alpert tells the stories of the Jewish businessmen who owned and promoted teams as they both acted out and fell victim to pervasive stereotypes of Jews as greedy middlemen and hucksters. Some Jewish owners produced a kind of comedy baseball, akin to basketball's Harlem Globetrotters--indeed, Globetrotters owner Abe Saperstein was very active in black baseball--that reaped financial benefits for both owners and players but also played upon the worst stereotypes of African Americans and prevented these black "showmen" from being taken seriously by the major leagues. But Alpert also shows how Jewish entrepreneurs, motivated in part by the traditional Jewish commitment to social justice, helped grow the business of black baseball in the face of the oppressive Jim Crow restrictions, and how radical journalists writing for the Communist Daily Worker argued passionately for an end to baseball's segregation. In fact, the campaign to convince manager Branch Rickey to integrate the Brooklyn Dodgers was initiated by Daily Worker sports writer Bill Mardo, in an open letter in the paper. Deftly written and meticulously researched, Out of Left Field offers a unique perspective on the economic and social negotiations between blacks and Jews in the first half of the 20th century, shedding new light on the intersection of race, religion, and sports in America.

This is the untold story of the secret scandal behind baseball's most legendary moment:The Shot Heard Round the World. A Washington Post Best Book of the Year. At 3:58 p.m. on October 3, 1951, Bobby Thomson hit a home run off Ralph Branca. The ball sailed over the left field wall and into history. The Giants won the pennant. That moment—the Shot Heard Round the World—reverberated from the West Wing of the White House to the Sing Sing death house to the Polo Grounds clubhouse, where hitter and pitcher forever turned into hero and goat. It was also in that centerfield block of concrete that, after the home run, a Giant coach tucked away a Wollensak telescope. The Echoing Green places that revelation at the heart of a larger story, re-creating in extravagant detail and illuminating as never before the impact of both a moment and a long-guarded secret on the lives of Bobby Thomson and Ralph Branca.

The 1951 regular season was as good as over. The Brooklyn Dodgers led the New York Giants by three runs with just three outs to go in their third and final playoff game. And not once in major league baseball’s 278 preceding playoff and World Series games had a team overcome a three-run deficit in the ninth inning. But New York rallied, and at 3:58 p.m. on October 3, 1951, Bobby Thomson hit a home run off Ralph Branca. The Giants won the pennant. The Echoing Green follows the reverberations of that one moment–the Shot Heard Round the World–from the West Wing of the White House to the Sing Sing death house to the Polo Grounds clubhouse, where a home run forever turned hitter and pitcher into hero and goat. It was also in that centerfield block of concrete that, after the home run, a Giant coach tucked away a Wollensak telescope. The spyglass would remain undiscovered until 2001, when, in the jubilee of that home run, Joshua Prager laid bare on the front page of the Wall Street Journal a Giant secret: from July 20, 1951, through the very day of that legendary game, the orange and black stole the finger signals of opposing catchers. The Echoing Green places that revelation at the heart of a larger story, re-creating in extravagant detail the 1951 pennant race and illuminating as never before the impact of both a moment and a long-guarded secret on the lives of Bobby Thomson and Ralph Branca. A wonderfully evocative portrait of the great American pastime, The Echoing Green is baseball history, social history and biography–irresistible reading from any angle.

The remarkable story of the season when the New York Jets, Mets, and Knicks all won championships, recounted by the players who made it happen and the fans who experienced it In 1969 three underdog New York sports teams won World Championships. It was an unprecedented feat in the history of sports, and it helped bring the nation's largest city---and much of the country---euphoria to balance the lingering political despair of 1969. And here, in The Magnificent Seasons , is that story---a re-creation of one of the most magical periods in sports history. In reflecting on these events, what they meant then and what they still mean today, Art Shamsky, a 1969 "Miracle Met," introduces the thoughts of members of every team. Highlights include comments from Joe Namath, Tom Seaver, Bill Bradley, Yogi Berra, Emerson Boozer, Jerry Koosman, and many more. But as important as these wins were to the players and coaches who made them happen, their victories meant just as much to the city and the people who celebrated them, and Shamsky includes their perspectives through such personalities as Bob Costas, David Halberstam, Rudy Giuliani, and many other fans of the city and its sports. Together, the words and pictures within make a wonderful keepsake---a book that lets fans relive three championship runs and gives a true sense of what these sports victories meant to a country suffering through a turbulent period in its history. The words and memories of the players, their fans, and their opponents carry a tremendous emotional charge, and The Magnificent Seasons takes readers back with all the heart-stopping thrill of the time when three teams captivated the country, and when New York City ruled the sporting world.

Celebrated sports writer Roger Kahn casts his gaze on the golden age of baseball, an unforgettable time when the game thrived as America's unrivaled national sport. The Era begins in 1947 with Jackie Robinson changing major league baseball forever by taking the field for the Dodgers. Dazzling, momentous events characterize the decade that followed-Robinson's amazing accomplishments; the explosion on the national scene of such soon-to-be legends as Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Bobby Thomson, Duke Snider, and Yogi Berra; Casey Stengel's crafty managing; the emergence of televised games; and the stunning success of the Yankees as they play in nine out of eleven World Series. The Era concludes with the relocation of the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, a move that shook the sport to its very roots.

No two phrases in American baseball go together better than “World Series Champions” and “New York Yankees.” The most iconic franchise in American sports, the Yankees have taken home 27 World Series titles. Out of the thousands of games and millions of memories that have come to define this epic team, Maury Allen has distilled the greatest championship moments in this newly revised edition of Yankees World Series Memories . The name says it all—within these pages readers can relive all the glory, passion, and excitement of Yankees domination. Critical reading for any baseball fan, Yankees World Series Memories is a nail-biting compendium of athleticism and skill. Readers young and old will relish tales of baseball’s golden age and the thrill of modern victories. From Yogi Berra to Derek Jeter, Maury Allen highlights the absolute best of Yankees baseball.

On the morning of October 2, 1978, the World Champion NewYork Yankees found themselves tied for first place with the Boston Red Sox. That day these rousing ball clubs would meet at Fenway Park. Both had won ninety-nine games. Only one would win one hundred. The Yankees should have been reaching for their golf clubs-they had feuded until they were fourteen games out of first place. Then their fortunes turned, and they capped one of the most thrilling comebacks in baseball history by defeating the Red Sox that October afternoon in a game that many still remember as the greatest ever played. Transporting us into the midst of this unforgettable team, Roger Kahn weaves the first in-depth account of the legendary season of '78 and reaffirms his standing as our nation's master storyteller of baseball.