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Author: John Kruk
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780671897949
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 268
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Book Description
"There's a story, a funny story, about me sitting in a restaurant. I'm eating this big meal and maybe having a couple of beers and smoking a cigarette. A woman comes by the table. She recognizes me and she's shocked because it seems like I should be in training or something. She's getting all over me, saying that a professional athlete should take better care of himself." "I lean back and I say to her, "I ain't an athlete, lady. I'm a baseball player."" "That pretty much sums it up." "In an age when athletes are getting bigger and stronger and more imposing every day, John Kruk of the National League champion Philadelphia Phillies is a hero for the rest of us. He likes his food, he likes his beer, he doesn't see much point in combing his hair and he plays the game of baseball too well for anyone to get away with hassling him about any of it. A three-time all-star, Kruk has maintained a .309 average since coming to the Phillies in 1989 and has had more fun doing it than just about anybody in sports today." "You knew the World Series against Toronto was going to be an offensive series, and [the 15-14 game] sort of epitomized that. It sucked. It was a worthless game. I told Paul Molitor - it seemed like the eighth time he was on base that day - "This ain't a World Series. The World Series is supposed to be the two best teams in the world playing. I mean, you could go to Williamsport and get two little League teams to play better than we are tonight."" ""I Ain't an Athlete, Lady..." is John Kruk's loose, funny view of his life, his world, his game, and his teammates - the wildest and flakiest bunch of players since the Gashouse Gang of the 1930s. ("In our clubhouse, if you called somebody a psychopathic idiot, it was a pretty good compliment.") Kruk shares his stories of growing up in a small town in West Virginia ("People in West Virginia do have cars. We have indoor plumbing. We even use knives and forks"), passes along his diet tips ("The best diet is just to go into a restaurant and say, 'Give me the thing on your menu that tastes the worst.' It'll probably be good for you, because that's what everything else I've eaten that's supposed to be good for me tastes like"), takes us on a tour of the Phillies' locker room ("When Jim Eisenreich first came to the Phillies, I said to some of the guys, 'Look at that guy. He looks like a mass murderer, staring like he wants to kill one of us. He looks like Jeffrey Dahmer.' So I started calling him Dahmer, and he liked it"), and tells why he was looking forward to a post-World Series visit to the White House ("He may be President, but he's not pardoned from being ragged on. If I can get on Dale Murphy, I can rag Bill Clinton")." "Kruk's take-nothing-too-seriously-and-take-no-prisoners outlook shines through. "I Ain't an Athlete, Lady..." makes clear why Kruk is rapidly becoming the most popular player in the game today."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Author: John Kruk
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780671897949
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 268
Get Book Here
Book Description
"There's a story, a funny story, about me sitting in a restaurant. I'm eating this big meal and maybe having a couple of beers and smoking a cigarette. A woman comes by the table. She recognizes me and she's shocked because it seems like I should be in training or something. She's getting all over me, saying that a professional athlete should take better care of himself." "I lean back and I say to her, "I ain't an athlete, lady. I'm a baseball player."" "That pretty much sums it up." "In an age when athletes are getting bigger and stronger and more imposing every day, John Kruk of the National League champion Philadelphia Phillies is a hero for the rest of us. He likes his food, he likes his beer, he doesn't see much point in combing his hair and he plays the game of baseball too well for anyone to get away with hassling him about any of it. A three-time all-star, Kruk has maintained a .309 average since coming to the Phillies in 1989 and has had more fun doing it than just about anybody in sports today." "You knew the World Series against Toronto was going to be an offensive series, and [the 15-14 game] sort of epitomized that. It sucked. It was a worthless game. I told Paul Molitor - it seemed like the eighth time he was on base that day - "This ain't a World Series. The World Series is supposed to be the two best teams in the world playing. I mean, you could go to Williamsport and get two little League teams to play better than we are tonight."" ""I Ain't an Athlete, Lady..." is John Kruk's loose, funny view of his life, his world, his game, and his teammates - the wildest and flakiest bunch of players since the Gashouse Gang of the 1930s. ("In our clubhouse, if you called somebody a psychopathic idiot, it was a pretty good compliment.") Kruk shares his stories of growing up in a small town in West Virginia ("People in West Virginia do have cars. We have indoor plumbing. We even use knives and forks"), passes along his diet tips ("The best diet is just to go into a restaurant and say, 'Give me the thing on your menu that tastes the worst.' It'll probably be good for you, because that's what everything else I've eaten that's supposed to be good for me tastes like"), takes us on a tour of the Phillies' locker room ("When Jim Eisenreich first came to the Phillies, I said to some of the guys, 'Look at that guy. He looks like a mass murderer, staring like he wants to kill one of us. He looks like Jeffrey Dahmer.' So I started calling him Dahmer, and he liked it"), and tells why he was looking forward to a post-World Series visit to the White House ("He may be President, but he's not pardoned from being ragged on. If I can get on Dale Murphy, I can rag Bill Clinton")." "Kruk's take-nothing-too-seriously-and-take-no-prisoners outlook shines through. "I Ain't an Athlete, Lady..." makes clear why Kruk is rapidly becoming the most popular player in the game today."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Author: Robert Gordon
Publisher: Triumph Books
ISBN: 1623682266
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 189
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Book Description
The ultimate reference book for any “Phillie phanatic,” this book provides a behind-the-scenes peek into the private world of the players, managers, broadcasters, and executives, taking readers into the clubhouse and onto the field. Author Robert Gordon takes fans inside the 1993 Philadelphia Phillies' run to the World Series, when first baseman John Kruk once told a fan, “I ain't an athlete, lady, I'm a baseball player;” back to 1980, when Mike Schmidt, Steve Carlton, and Larry Bowa delivered the team's first World Series title; and to 2008, when a new generation experienced the ecstasy of a World Series win. Written for every fan who follows the Phillies, this unique book captures the memories and great stories from more than a century of the team's history.
Author: William C. Kashatus
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496214080
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 371
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Book Description
Colorful, shaggy, and unkempt, misfits and outlaws, the 1993 Phillies played hard and partied hard. Led by Darren Daulton, John Kruk, Lenny Dykstra, and Mitch Williams, it was a team the fans loved and continue to love today. Focusing on six key members of the team, Macho Row follows the remarkable season with an up-close look at the players’ lives, the team’s triumphs and failures, and what made this group so unique and so successful. With a throwback mentality, the team adhered to baseball’s Code. Designed to preserve the moral fabric of the game, the Code’s unwritten rules formed the bedrock of this diehard team whose players paid homage and respect to the game at all times. Trusting one another and avoiding any notions of superstardom, they consistently rubbed the opposition the wrong way and didn’t care. William C. Kashatus pulls back the covers on this old-school band of brothers, depicting the highs and lows and their brash style while also digging into the suspected steroid use of players on the team. Macho Row is a story of winning and losing, success and failure, and the emotional highs and lows that accompany them.
Author: Derek Gentile
Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal
ISBN: 1603763155
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 1308
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Book Description
This thoroughly revised edition of "Baseball's Best 1,000" includes updated listings plus new players, rankings, and photographs, all in a handier format that makes it a terrific pocket reference. A must-have book for baseball fans obsessed with stats, quick facts, and the age-old debates over who the best players are and why, "Baseball's Best 1,000" showcases the lives, legends, and lore of the game's top players, ranked in order. Sportswriter Derek Gentile has pared down the total list of players--tens of thousands of them--to an elite ranking of the thousand greatest, based on criteria including lifetime stats; player durability and consistency; All-Star participation; MVP, Gold Glove, and Cy Young awards; individual statistical championships; personal and professional contributions to the game; sportsmanship; and election to the Hall of Fame. Each entry includes positions played, teams played for, years played, lifetime stats, and a biography of the player featuring his great moments and little-known facts. *New players include Curt Schilling, Mike Mussina, and Manny Ramirez. *Barry Bonds has moved up from Number 19 to Number 6. *Roger Clemens has moved from Number 33 into the top 20. *Dozens of Negro League players are here, as well as rankings of the best Japanese players, women players, and "prehistoric" players (from the time before stats were formally recorded).
Author: Christopher Bell
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 9780786480227
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 196
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Book Description
Everyone wants to be able to perform well at important moments, especially in the world of sports, where both team and individual efforts are necessary for success. A person who does well for the team is praised for his or her contributions. But when the team suffers a loss, especially at a key point in the season, one person is often blamed for it even though the team is just as responsible. This work considers baseball players whose careers have been defined and misrepresented by one moment in which they botched a play, costing their teams an important victory (often a pennant or World Series win), and ever since have taken most of the blame for the team's breakdown. It covers Fred Merkle, whose controversial failure to tag second base after a game-winning single lost the pennant for the Giants in 1908; Fred Snodgrass whose dropped fly ball contributed to the Red Sox's second championship in the 1912 series; Mickey Owen, whose passed ball resulted in the Dodgers losing Game 4 of the 1941 World Series to the Yankees; Ralph Branca, who delivered one of the most talked about home runs in history to Bobby Thomson in the 1951 NLCS; Mike Torrez, whose home run pitch to Bucky Dent was the final, improbable event in the Sox' great collapse of '78; Tom Niedenfuer, whose blown save in the 1985 NLCS cost the Dodgers the pennant; Donnie Moore, the California Angels pitcher remembered for giving up a home run in Game 5 of the 1986 ALCS; Bill Buckner, whose E-3 caused him to be blamed for the Red Sox's World Series loss in 1986; and Mitch Williams, blamed for his three-run home run pitch to Joe Carter in Game 6 of the 1993 World Series that lost the world championship for the Phillies.
Author: Robert W. Cohen
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 149306696X
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 389
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Book Description
In The 50 Greatest Players in Philadelphia Phillies History, sports historian Robert W. Cohen ranks the top 50 players ever to perform for one of Major League Baseball's most iconic and historic franchises. This work includes quotes from the subjects themselves and former teammates, photos, recaps of memorable performances, as well as a statistical summary of each player's career with the Phillies. The team's best are profiled here in what is sure to be a much discussed book among the Phillies' broad fan base. An added bonus is the "honorable mentions," the next 25 players who have contributed to the Phillies' astounding run as one of America's great sports teams.
Author: Howard Bryant
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1440649553
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 481
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Book Description
In Juicing the Game, award-winning journalist Howard Bryant offers the only big-picture look at the insidious manner in which performance-enhancing drugs infested baseball as the game’s leaders stood idly by, reaping the rewards. Combining hard-hitting investigative journalism with interviews with baseball heavyweights such as Jason Giambi, Commissioner Bud Selig, union head Donald Fehr, and Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson among many others, Juicing the Game is the definitive book on both the steroid scandal and the era it has irreversibly tainted. BACKCOVER: “A rich and measured tale of the last dishonest decade . . . No more comprehensive, balanced or fair account exists. Bryant carefully and powerfully builds his case. The self-inflicted catastrophe could have no better chronicler.” —Los Angeles Times “If there ever was a ‘must read’ sports book of its time, this is it. Because of the undeniable truths it tells, Bryant’s book is essential reading.” —The Washington Post Book World
Author: Clayton DuVall
Publisher: Ball Puzzle
ISBN: 9780977436408
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 148
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Book Description
Grandstand Baseball Puzzles is a celebration of Americas pastime. It enthusiastically takes the puzzle solver through a year of baseball by presenting crosswords and logic puzzles of varying difficulty with themes relevant to each month of the year. The puzzles are like no other sports puzzle book before it as they contain an unprecedented amount of trivia, statistics, and commentary. You will, without a doubt find yourself picking up your favorite baseball reference book or searching through baseball statistics websites as you attempt to conquer each of these puzzles. How well do you remember the 1980s? Who are the heroes and goats of the great Fall Classic? Do you know those Yankees or Red Sox legends as well as you think you do? Find out the answers in the most elaborate accumulation of baseball trivia puzzles to date, Grandstand Baseball Puzzles.
Author: Thomas Porky McDonald
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1467075655
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 288
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Book Description
Certain individuals find a singular moment in life used to portray them and/or define them, if not basically brand them. In the world of sports, particularly baseball, this practice is raised to a level that is questionable at best, laughable in most instances and blatantly unfair as a rule. The sports media, along with a growing portion of the general public that refuses to form their own opinions, goes to extremes to constantly relive an individuals weak moments. Curiously, they often then close their ridiculing diatribes by mentioning that labeling a particular person is really unfair. In Never These Men, Thomas Porky McDonald, whose previous works stressed the notion that a game like baseball is there for the joy it gives to those who truly love it and understand it, takes a peek at a small collection of the most famous (or is it infamous?) of these media-fueled characters. The idea that someone who cannot possibly do something (play professional sports) might then play judge and jury on those that can (athletes) seems absurd to McDonald, who clearly feels that the ever-growing rash of media outlets, in concert with an unthinking generation of spectators, has only bloated the array of unfounded criticisms and hypocritical rhetoric within our midst. From Fred Merkle, an early media creation, through to Bill Buckner, a truly fine and underrated ballplayer, Never These Men fundamentally asks the reader to imagine how it feels to be branded for a singular moment in ones life. McDonald, foremost a poet, liberally spreads a few relevant original verses throughout this volume, which is fundamentally a call for fair play. The idea of balanced and proper reporting is considered as well, as in the cases of Ralph Branca, Mitch Williams and Ralph Terry. Though all three were solid Major Leaguers who gave up famous home runs, only the former two are constantly cited, a point of contention here. In the area of authority figures, why Charles Comiskey and Judge Landis are barely scrutinized for their truly abhorrent behavior, while a lifetime baseball man like Gene Mauch is merely brushed aside by far too many is a question that clearly haunts this writer. Never These Men asserts that working in a world with little or no accountability, while demanding total accountability from those whose skill and expertise literally creates your professional existence, is an absurdity that needs to be addressed.
Author: Derek Gentile
Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal
ISBN: 0316553506
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 1147
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Book Description
Using various (and completely subjective) criteria including lifetime statistics, personal and professional contributions to the game at large, sportsmanship, character, popularity with the fans, and more, sports writer Derek Gentile ranks the best players of all time. Along with a ranking, information on each player is presented, including the teams on which he has played throughout his career, positions played, lifetime statistics, and a brief biography -- as well as a photograph. Baseball's Best 1,000 is sure to spark controversy and debate among fans.
