The Battle that Forged Modern Baseball

The Battle that Forged Modern Baseball PDF Author: Daniel R. Levitt
Publisher: Ivan R. Dee
ISBN: 1566639050
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 332

Get Book Here

Book Description
In late 1913 the newly formed Federal League declared itself a major league in competition with the established National and American Leagues. Backed by some of America’s wealthiest merchants and industrialists, the new organization posed a real challenge to baseball’s prevailing structure. For the next two years the well-established leagues fought back furiously in the press, in the courts, and on the field. The story of this fascinating and complex historical battle centers on the machinations of both the owners and the players, as the Federals struggled for profits and status, and players organized baseball’s first real union. Award winning author, Daniel R. Levitt gives us the most authoritative account yet published of the short-lived Federal League, the last professional baseball league to challenge the National League and American League monopoly.

The Battle that Forged Modern Baseball

The Battle that Forged Modern Baseball PDF Author: Daniel R. Levitt
Publisher: Ivan R. Dee
ISBN: 1566639050
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 332

Get Book Here

Book Description
In late 1913 the newly formed Federal League declared itself a major league in competition with the established National and American Leagues. Backed by some of America’s wealthiest merchants and industrialists, the new organization posed a real challenge to baseball’s prevailing structure. For the next two years the well-established leagues fought back furiously in the press, in the courts, and on the field. The story of this fascinating and complex historical battle centers on the machinations of both the owners and the players, as the Federals struggled for profits and status, and players organized baseball’s first real union. Award winning author, Daniel R. Levitt gives us the most authoritative account yet published of the short-lived Federal League, the last professional baseball league to challenge the National League and American League monopoly.

Major League Challenge

Major League Challenge PDF Author: Jarl Waggoner
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780615654768
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 156

Get Book Here

Book Description
Think you know baseball? Here's your chance to prove it. MAJOR LEAGUE CHALLENGE tests your knowledge of baseball with a thousand questions, covering every aspect of the game. From Ruth to Aaron, from the historic to the dubious, from the tragic to the hilarious, from the familiar to the obscure, this quiz book takes you through more than a century of professional baseball. It's a delightful journey that will test you, frustrate you, remind you, and even inspire you.

America's Game

America's Game PDF Author: Bryan Soderholm-Difatte
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538110636
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 505

Get Book Here

Book Description
This comprehensive survey of major league baseball looks at the national pastime’s legendary figures, major innovations, and pivotal moments, from the beginning of the twentieth century through World War II. In America's Game: A History of Major League Baseball through World War II, Bryan Soderholm-Difatte provides a comprehensive narrative of the major developments and key figures in Major League Baseball, during a time when the sport was still truly the national pastime. Soderholm-Difatte details pivotal moments—including the founding of the American League, the 1919 Black Sox scandal, and navigating the Great Depression and two World Wars—and concludes with a chapter examining the exclusion of black ballplayers from the major leagues. Central personalities covered in this book include baseball executives Judge Landis and Branch Rickey, managers John McGraw and Joe McCarthy, and iconic players such as Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb. America’s Game isn’t simply about celebrating the exploits of great players and teams; it is just as much about the history of Major League Baseball as an institution and the evolution of the game itself. With significant changes taking place in baseball in recent times, this book will remind baseball fans young and old of the rich history of the game.

Baseball on Trial

Baseball on Trial PDF Author: Nathaniel Grow
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252095995
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 297

Get Book Here

Book Description
The controversial 1922 Federal Baseball Supreme Court ruling held that the "business of base ball" was not subject to the Sherman Antitrust Act because it did not constitute interstate commerce. In Baseball on Trial, legal scholar Nathaniel Grow defies conventional wisdom to explain why the unanimous Supreme Court opinion authored by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, which gave rise to Major League Baseball's exemption from antitrust law, was correct given the circumstances of the time. Currently a billion dollar enterprise, professional baseball teams crisscross the country while the games are broadcast via radio, television, and internet coast to coast. The sheer scope of this activity would seem to embody the phrase "interstate commerce." Yet baseball is the only professional sport--indeed the sole industry--in the United States that currently benefits from a judicially constructed antitrust immunity. How could this be? Drawing upon recently released documents from the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Grow analyzes how the Supreme Court reached this seemingly peculiar result by tracing the Federal Baseball litigation from its roots in 1914 to its resolution in 1922, in the process uncovering significant new details about the proceedings. Grow observes that while interstate commerce was measured at the time by the exchange of tangible goods, baseball teams in the 1910s merely provided live entertainment to their fans, while radio was a fledgling technology that had little impact on the sport. The book ultimately concludes that, despite the frequent criticism of the opinion, the Supreme Court's decision was consistent with the conditions and legal climate of the early twentieth century.

Smart Ball

Smart Ball PDF Author: Robert F. Lewis II
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1496800680
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 248

Get Book Here

Book Description
Smart Ball follows Major League Baseball's history as a sport, a domestic monopoly, a neocolonial power, and an international business. MLB's challenge has been to market its popular mythology as the national pastime with pastoral, populist roots while addressing the management challenges of competing with other sports and diversions in a burgeoning global economy. Baseball researcher Robert F. Lewis II argues that MLB for years abused its legal insulation and monopoly status through arrogant treatment of its fans and players and static management of its business. As its privileged position eroded eroded in the face of increased competition from other sports and union resistance, it awakened to its perilous predicament and began aggressively courting athletes and fans at home and abroad. Using a detailed marketing analysis and applying the principles of a "smart power" model, the author assesses MLB's progression as a global business brand that continues to appeal to a consumer's sense of an idyllic past in the midst of a fast-paced, and often violent, present.

Baseball's Reserve System

Baseball's Reserve System PDF Author: Neil F. Flynn
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 348

Get Book Here

Book Description
On October 8, 1969, the St. Louis Cardinals traded center fielder Curt Flood to the Philadelphia Phillies. At the time of the trade, Flood was thirty-one years old, at the top of his game and in the prime of his life. In professional baseball, trades are not uncommon. What was different about this trade was that Curtis Charles Flood refused to recognize the - right - of the Cardinals to trade him to another team without his consent. In doing so, Flood challenged a practice that was designed and enforced by professional baseball owners for over eighty years - a practice commonly referred to as the - reserve system. It was the late 1960s - a decade of great racial tension and unrest; the Vietnam War was dividing the country; and now Curt Flood, a black man was challenging the lily-white major league baseball establishment.On January 16, 1970, Curt Flood filed suit in the Federal District Court in New York against major league baseball alleging that baseball?s reserve system violated the Sherman Antitrust Act and Flood?s rights under federal law. Flood argued that once he signed a contract (in his case, when he was eighteen years old), he was owned by (this team) for life and that the reserve system was tantamount to slavery.Flood?s decision to challenge major league baseball cost him his baseball career and much more. Despite the U.S. Supreme Court?s denial of Flood?s claims and ruling (in 1972) that professional baseball was exempt from federal antitrust regulation, professional baseball players had (free agency) by 1975. This is the story of Curt Flood?s case and trial against major league baseball and its aftermath.

The Arrival of the American League

The Arrival of the American League PDF Author: Warren N. Wilbert
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786430133
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Get Book Here

Book Description
In 1901, Charles Comiskey and Ban Johnson launched a brazen challenge to the National League's supremacy. This book covers the American League's origins in the Western League, the decisions and planning that laid the groundwork for the American League, and in detail, the 1901 season that established the AL as a new major league.

Save Baseball

Save Baseball PDF Author: Larry Hausner
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 147668992X
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 211

Get Book Here

Book Description
Major League Baseball has been in crisis in recent years. Game attendance is down by millions and fan interest is in free fall. The future of the game is in jeopardy. While the League acknowledges the issues, many are stumped as to how to address them. This book explores in detail the critical challenges facing MLB, and their ramifications, along with some potential solutions. Interviews with baseball insiders, players to executives, give a perspective on baseball's struggle to reinvent itself for future generations.

Major Leagues

Major Leagues PDF Author: David Pietrusza
Publisher: Church & Reid
ISBN:
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 404

Get Book Here

Book Description
New major leagues have sprung up throughout the history of baseball, both long-term successes (the American and National leagues) and the transitory, of which the Federal League (1914-15) and the Mexican League (1946) were two. Some leagues were born of noble motives (the Union Association, 1884, to abolish the reserve clause); others, farcical (the Global League, 1969). And many were stillborn, never playing that first inning (such as the Continental League, 1959-60). Here is their history and an analysis of the conditions that determined success or failure. “This is a first class work in the comprehensive baseball history category and belongs on the shelf along with those impressive volumes of Harold Seymour and David Voigt.”— Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) Bibliography Committee Newsletter “Well-researched . . . worthy” — Library Journal

The Extra 2%

The Extra 2% PDF Author: Jonah Keri
Publisher: ESPN
ISBN: 0345517652
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Get Book Here

Book Description
What happens when three financial industry whiz kids and certified baseball nuts take over an ailing major league franchise and implement the same strategies that fueled their success on Wall Street? In the case of the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays, an American League championship happens—the culmination of one of the greatest turnarounds in baseball history. In The Extra 2%, financial journalist and sportswriter Jonah Keri chronicles the remarkable story of one team’s Cinderella journey from divisional doormat to World Series contender. When former Goldman Sachs colleagues Stuart Sternberg and Matthew Silverman assumed control of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 2005, it looked as if they were buying the baseball equivalent of a penny stock. But the incoming regime came armed with a master plan: to leverage their skill at trading, valuation, and management to build a model twenty-first-century franchise that could compete with their bigger, stronger, richer rivals—and prevail. Together with “boy genius” general manager Andrew Friedman, the new Rays owners jettisoned the old ways of doing things, substituting their own innovative ideas about employee development, marketing and public relations, and personnel management. They exorcized the “devil” from the team’s nickname, developed metrics that let them take advantage of undervalued aspects of the game, like defense, and hired a forward-thinking field manager as dedicated to unconventional strategy as they were. By quantifying the game’s intangibles—that extra 2% that separates a winning organization from a losing one—they were able to deliver to Tampa Bay something that Billy Beane’s “Moneyball” had never brought to Oakland: an American League pennant. A book about what happens when you apply your business skills to your life’s passion, The Extra 2% is an informative and entertaining case study for any organization that wants to go from worst to first.