Lights, Camera, Fastball

Lights, Camera, Fastball PDF Author: Dan Taylor
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538138638
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 399

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Book Description
The Hollywood Stars were the most inventive team in baseball history, known for their celebrity ownership and movie star following during the Golden Age of Hollywood. In Lights, Camera, Fastball: How the Hollywood Stars Changed Baseball, Dan Taylor delivers a fascinating look at the Hollywood Stars and their glorious twenty-year run in the Pacific Coast League. Led by Bob Cobb, owner of the heralded Brown Derby restaurant and known more famously as the creator of the Cobb salad, the Hollywood Stars took professional baseball to a new and innovative level. The team played in short pants, instigated rule changes, employed cheerleaders and movie-star beauty queens, pioneered baseball on television, eschewed trains for planes, and offered fans palatable delicacies not before served at ballparks. On any given night, Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, Barbara Stanwyck, Humphrey Bogart, and dozens more cheered on their favorite team from the boxes and grandstands of Gilmore Field. During the Hollywood Stars’ history, its celebrity owners pushed boundaries, challenged existing baseball norms, infuriated rivals, and produced an imaginative product, the likes of which the game had never before seen. Featuring interviews with former players, Lights, Camera, Fastball is an inside look at a team that was far ahead its time, whose innovations are still seen in professional baseball today.

Lights, Camera, Fastball

Lights, Camera, Fastball PDF Author: Dan Taylor
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538138638
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 399

Get Book

Book Description
The Hollywood Stars were the most inventive team in baseball history, known for their celebrity ownership and movie star following during the Golden Age of Hollywood. In Lights, Camera, Fastball: How the Hollywood Stars Changed Baseball, Dan Taylor delivers a fascinating look at the Hollywood Stars and their glorious twenty-year run in the Pacific Coast League. Led by Bob Cobb, owner of the heralded Brown Derby restaurant and known more famously as the creator of the Cobb salad, the Hollywood Stars took professional baseball to a new and innovative level. The team played in short pants, instigated rule changes, employed cheerleaders and movie-star beauty queens, pioneered baseball on television, eschewed trains for planes, and offered fans palatable delicacies not before served at ballparks. On any given night, Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, Barbara Stanwyck, Humphrey Bogart, and dozens more cheered on their favorite team from the boxes and grandstands of Gilmore Field. During the Hollywood Stars’ history, its celebrity owners pushed boundaries, challenged existing baseball norms, infuriated rivals, and produced an imaginative product, the likes of which the game had never before seen. Featuring interviews with former players, Lights, Camera, Fastball is an inside look at a team that was far ahead its time, whose innovations are still seen in professional baseball today.

Baseball's Endangered Species

Baseball's Endangered Species PDF Author: Lee Lowenfish
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496214811
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
"A comprehensive look at professional baseball scouting from post WWII to the present day"--

Baseball at the Abyss

Baseball at the Abyss PDF Author: Dan Taylor
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538174014
Category : Baseball
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
Baseball at the Abyss is the story of one of baseball's darkest days and how innovative, behind-the-scenes work of the first-ever player agent pushed the game's greatest player to a history making season, one which rescued a tarnished game.

Walking Alone

Walking Alone PDF Author: Dan Taylor
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538154374
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
The inspirational story of African American trailblazer Kenny Washington, the first player to reintegrate the NFL. On September 29, 1946, football star Kenny Washington made history. When he trotted onto the field for the Los Angeles Rams, Washington broke the color barrier in the NFL. In Walking Alone: The Untold Journey of Football Pioneer Kenny Washington, Dan Taylor reveals Washington’s immeasurable impact on his sport and beyond. Legends of the game hailed Washington as one of the greatest players in football history. He was also a baseball star, and Taylor recounts never-before-told details of the efforts to make Washington the first Black player in big league baseball along with Jackie Robinson. Taylor also delves into the heinous verbal and physical abuse Washington was subjected to, his refusal to play in the South, and how he positively impacted ignorant teammates and rivals through his character and talent. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, there was no more popular athlete in Los Angeles than Kenny Washington. Walking Alone chronicles for the first time the life story of this trailblazing football legend.

The Baseball Codes

The Baseball Codes PDF Author: Jason Turbow
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 030727862X
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
An insider’s look at baseball’s unwritten rules, explained with examples from the game’s most fascinating characters and wildest historical moments. Everyone knows that baseball is a game of intricate regulations, but it turns out to be even more complicated than we realize. All aspects of baseball—hitting, pitching, and baserunning—are affected by the Code, a set of unwritten rules that governs the Major League game. Some of these rules are openly discussed (don’t steal a base with a big lead late in the game), while others are known only to a minority of players (don’t cross between the catcher and the pitcher on the way to the batter’s box). In The Baseball Codes, old-timers and all-time greats share their insights into the game’s most hallowed—and least known—traditions. For the learned and the casual baseball fan alike, the result is illuminating and thoroughly entertaining. At the heart of this book are incredible and often hilarious stories involving national heroes (like Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays) and notorious headhunters (like Bob Gibson and Don Drysdale) in a century-long series of confrontations over respect, honor, and the soul of the game. With The Baseball Codes, we see for the first time the game as it’s actually played, through the eyes of the players on the field. With rollicking stories from the past and new perspectives on baseball’s informal rulebook, The Baseball Codes is a must for every fan.

Fast Pitch

Fast Pitch PDF Author: Nic Stone
Publisher: Crown Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 1984893017
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Nic Stone comes a challenging and heartwarming coming-of-age story about a softball player looking to prove herself on and off the field. Shenice Lockwood, captain of the Fulton Firebirds, is hyper-focused when she steps up to the plate. Nothing can stop her from leading her team to the U12 fast-pitch softball regional championship. But life has thrown some curveballs her way. Strike one: As the sole team of all-brown faces, Shenice and the Firebirds have to work twice as hard to prove that Black girls belong at bat. Strike two: Shenice’s focus gets shaken when her great-uncle Jack reveals that a career-ending—and family-name-ruining—crime may have been a setup. Strike three: Broken focus means mistakes on the field. And Shenice’s teammates are beginning to wonder if she’s captain-qualified. It's up to Shenice to discover the truth about her family’s past—and fast—before secrets take the Firebirds out of the game forever.

Curveball: The Year I Lost My Grip (Sneak Peek)

Curveball: The Year I Lost My Grip (Sneak Peek) PDF Author: Jordan Sonnenblick
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
ISBN: 0545461197
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 24

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Book Description


Castro's Curveball

Castro's Curveball PDF Author: Tim Wendel
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803259577
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
When an old scrapbook stirs memories, Billy Bryan looks back to the year 1947 when he was playing winter ball in Cuba, enjoying Havana's decadent nightlife, and dreaming of a major-league career.

All Day Everyday

All Day Everyday PDF Author: Ronnie Chaps
Publisher: Strategic Book Publishing
ISBN: 1618976176
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 149

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Book Description
All Day Everyday is a stunning tribute to the old-timers of the world who still believe they have something to contribute.Washed-up TV reporter Richard Chimes is an alcoholic who hasn't done any serious work in ten years. He gets a call from the network to do an interview with a former baseball player and coach named Ronnie "Screwdriver" Thompson.Ronnie hasn't spoken to the media since his last year of coaching. But even in his heyday, he only spoke to one reporter, the man who was Richard Chime's mentor and who has long since passed away.Richard agrees to do the interview and flies out to Iowa, where he meets the baseball legend and conducts a life-changing interview. Ronnie provides a tell-all on what made him a great baseball ballplayer and coach. He talks about his first year in college and the hardship of moving from Iowa to Arizona. He reminisces that he made life-long friends with his fellow college players. And for all the anxiety he went through, it was all worth it because he found out what he wanted out of life, going on to become a star player for the Pittsburgh Pirates.As the reporter listens to the old ballplayer tell his story, he realizes that there are always new challenges to be met. Is it too late for his life to have meaning?

Roger Maris

Roger Maris PDF Author: Tom Clavin
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 9781416596820
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
Tom Clavin and Danny Peary chronicle the life and career of baseball’s “natural home run king” in the first definitive biography of Roger Maris—including a brand-new chapter to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of his record breaking season. Roger Maris may be the greatest ballplayer no one really knows. In 1961, the soft-spoken man from the frozen plains of North Dakota enjoyed one of the most amazing seasons in baseball history, when he outslugged his teammate Mickey Mantle to become the game’s natural home-run king. It was Mantle himself who said, "Roger was as good a man and as good a ballplayer as there ever was." Yet Maris was vilified by fans and the press and has never received his due from biographers—until now. Tom Clavin and Danny Peary trace the dramatic arc of Maris’s life, from his boyhood in Fargo through his early pro career in the Cleveland Indians farm program, to his World Series championship years in New York and beyond. At the center is the exciting story of the 1961 season and the ordeal Maris endured as an outsider in Yankee pinstripes, unloved by fans who compared him unfavorably to their heroes Ruth and Mantle, relentlessly attacked by an aggressive press corps who found him cold and inaccessible, and treated miserably by the organization. After the tremendous challenge of breaking Ruth’s record was behind him, Maris ultimately regained his love of baseball as a member of the world champion St. Louis Cardinals. And over time, he gained redemption in the eyes of the Yankee faithful. With research drawn from more than 130 interviews with Maris’s teammates, opponents, family, and friends, as well as 16 pages of photos, some of which have never before been seen, this timely and poignant biography sheds light on an iconic figure from baseball’s golden era—and establishes the importance of his role in the game’s history.