"With inside access and reporting, Sports Illustrated senior baseball writer and FOX Sports analyst Tom Verducci reveals how Theo Epstein and Joe Maddon built, led, and inspired the Chicago Cubs team that broke the longest championship drought in sports, chronicling their epic journey to become World Series champions"--
This book explains how Billy Beene, the general manager of the Oakland Athletics, is using a new kind of thinking to build a successful and winning baseball team without spending enormous sums of money. The author examines the fallacy behind the major league baseball refrain that the team with the biggest wallet is supposed to win. Over the past four years the Oakland Athletics, a major league team with a minor league payroll, have had one of the...
Drawing on interviews with friends and family, as well as teammates and opponents, "New York Times"-bestselling author Leavy delivers the definitive account of one of the biggest talents and most tragic figures ever to play baseball--Mickey Mantle.
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,...
"Biography of baseball manager Joe Maddon. With his irreverent personality, laid-back approach, and penchant for the unexpected, Joe Maddon is a singular presence among Major League Baseball managers. Whether he's bringing clowns and live bear cubs to spring training or leading the Chicago Cubs to their first World Series victory in 108 years, Maddon is always one to watch. In Try Not to Suck, ESPN's Jesse Rogers and MLB.com's Bill Chastain fully...
After his first Cubs game when Rich Cohen was eight, 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." Here he captures the story of the team, its players and crazy days-- not just what happened, but what it felt like and what it meant. He searches for...
The longtime Commissioner of Major League Baseball provides an unprecedented look inside professional baseball today, focusing on how he helped bring the game into the modern age and revealing his interactions with players, managers, fellow owners, and fans nationwide. More than a century old, the game of baseball is resistant to change--owners, managers, players, and fans all hate it. Yet, now more than ever, baseball needs to evolve -- to compete...
"How did the Chicago Cubs transform themselves from one of the worst organizations in baseball to a dynasty in the making? In The Plan, legendary Chicago sports personality David Kaplan takes you inside the Cubs organization with unparalleled access, including in-season and post-World Series interviews with Tom Ricketts, Theo Epstein, Jed Hoyer, Joe Maddon, the players, industry insiders, and more. Kaplan shares how the Cubs devised their audacious...
"The legendary Willie Mays shares the inspirations and influences responsible for guiding him on and off the field in this reflective and inspirational memoir. "It's because of giants like Willie that someone like me could even think about running for President." -President Barack Obama. Widely regarded as the greatest all-around player in baseball history because of his unparalleled hitting, defense and baserunning, the beloved Willie Mays offers...
"The definitive and revealing biography of Chicago Cubs legend Ernie Banks, one of America's most iconic, beloved, and misunderstood baseball players, by acclaimed journalist Ron Rapoport"--
Ernie Banks played in fourteen All-Star Games, won two MVPs, and twice led the Major Leagues in home runs and runs batted in... but he spent his entire career with the Chicago Cubs, who didn't win a pennant in his adult lifetime. His enthusiasm endeared him to...
"An exhilarating, splendidly illustrated, entirely new look at the history of baseball: told through the stories of the vibrant and ever-changing ballparks where the game was and is staged, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning architectural critic. From the earliest corrals of the mid-1800s (Union Grounds in Brooklyn was a 'saloon in the open air'), to the much mourned parks of the early 1900s (Detroit's Tiger Stadium, Cincinnati's Palace of the Fans), to...
"The memoir of the life of one of the most beloved baseball players of his generation, a raw, compelling story of baseball, family, fame, addiction, loss, and a champion's resilience"--
Veeck's sportswriter father became president of the Chicago Cubs when Bill was four, and America's pastime became his lifelong passion. He changed the business and conscience of baseball, leaving his mark on it as few ever did.
"Traces the ... story of Merl Eberly and his Clarinda A's baseball team, which he tended over the course of five decades, transforming them from a town team to a collegiate summer league powerhouse. Along with Ozzie Smith, future manager Bud Black, and star player Von Hayes, Merl developed scores of major league players (six of which are currently playing). In the process, Merl taught them to be men, insisting on hard work, integrity, and responsibility"--Dust...