Pitchin' Man

Pitchin' Man PDF Author: Paige Satchel
Publisher: Gray & Company, Publishers
ISBN: 1938441060
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 117

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Book Description
The first autobiography by Leroy “Satchel” Paige, one of the best and most colorful pitchers in the history of professional baseball. Based on interviews conducted by Cleveland sports writer Hal Lebovitz, this book was first released shortly after Paige joined the Indians in 1948 (days after his 42nd birthday and after 22 years playing with various Negro League, minor league and Puerto Rican League teams). Told in a casual first-person style, Paige's stories provide a snapshot from a bygone era of Major League baseball. Paige tells how he began his pitching career by throwing rocks (”We had a pretty rough gang down on the South Side of Mobile, near the Bay, where I was born and raised”). He describes his early years in baseball, starting at age 17 with the Chattanooga Black Lookouts in 1926, and addresses the controversy over varying claims about his age and the source of his nickname. He talks about ballplayers he had known, in particular Josh Gibson (”the best of all”) of the Pittsburgh Crawfords and Homestead Grays, and Bob Feller (with whom Paige barnstormed years before joining the Indians). Includes a foreword by Indians owner Bill Veeck and a note from Indians player-manager Lou Boudreau. With Paige's help, the Indians went on to win the 1948 World Series.

Pitchin' Man

Pitchin' Man PDF Author: Paige Satchel
Publisher: Gray & Company, Publishers
ISBN: 1938441060
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 117

Get Book Here

Book Description
The first autobiography by Leroy “Satchel” Paige, one of the best and most colorful pitchers in the history of professional baseball. Based on interviews conducted by Cleveland sports writer Hal Lebovitz, this book was first released shortly after Paige joined the Indians in 1948 (days after his 42nd birthday and after 22 years playing with various Negro League, minor league and Puerto Rican League teams). Told in a casual first-person style, Paige's stories provide a snapshot from a bygone era of Major League baseball. Paige tells how he began his pitching career by throwing rocks (”We had a pretty rough gang down on the South Side of Mobile, near the Bay, where I was born and raised”). He describes his early years in baseball, starting at age 17 with the Chattanooga Black Lookouts in 1926, and addresses the controversy over varying claims about his age and the source of his nickname. He talks about ballplayers he had known, in particular Josh Gibson (”the best of all”) of the Pittsburgh Crawfords and Homestead Grays, and Bob Feller (with whom Paige barnstormed years before joining the Indians). Includes a foreword by Indians owner Bill Veeck and a note from Indians player-manager Lou Boudreau. With Paige's help, the Indians went on to win the 1948 World Series.

The Pitcher and the Dictator

The Pitcher and the Dictator PDF Author: Averell "Ace" Smith
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496206711
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
Soon after Satchel Paige arrived at spring training in 1937 to pitch for the Pittsburgh Crawfords, he and five of his teammates, including Josh Gibson and Cool Papa Bell, were lured to the Dominican Republic with the promise of easy money to play a short baseball tournament in support of the country’s dictator, Rafael Trujillo. As it turned out, the money wasn’t so easy. After Paige and his friends arrived on the island, they found themselves under the thumb of Trujillo, known by Dominicans for murdering those who disappointed him. In the initial games, the Ciudad Trujillo all-star team floundered. Living outside the shadow of segregation, Satchel and his recruits spent their nights carousing and their days dropping close games to their rivals, who were also stocked with great players. Desperate to restore discipline, Trujillo tapped the leader of his death squads to become part of the team management. The American players believed they might be lined up and shot if they lost the tournament. When Paige’s team ultimately rallied to win, it barely registered with Trujillo, who a few months later ordered the killings of fifteen thousand Haitians at the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Paige and his teammates returned to the states to face banishment from the Negro Leagues, but ironically they barnstormed across America wearing their Trujillo All-Stars uniforms. The Pitcher and the Dictator is an extraordinary story of race, politics, and some of the greatest baseball players ever assembled, playing high-stakes baseball in support of one of the Caribbean’s cruelest dictators. For more information about The Pitcher and the Dictator, visit thepitcherandthedictator.com.

The Lineup

The Lineup PDF Author: Paul Aron
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476646929
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
Focusing on the ten most influential baseball books of all time, this volume explores how these landmark works changed the game itself and made waves in American society at large. Satchel Paige's Pitchin' Man informed the dialog surrounding integration. Ring Lardner's You Know Me Al changed the way Americans viewed their baseball heroes and influenced the work of Hemingway and Fitzgerald. Bill James's Baseball Abstract transformed the way managers--including those in fields other than baseball--analyzed numbers. Pete Rose's My Story and My Prison Without Bars exposed and deepened a cultural divide that paved the way for Donald Trump.

Sports in America from Colonial Times to the Twenty-First Century: An Encyclopedia

Sports in America from Colonial Times to the Twenty-First Century: An Encyclopedia PDF Author: Steven A. Riess
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317459466
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 2636

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Book Description
A unique new reference work, this encyclopedia presents a social, cultural, and economic history of American sports from hunting, bowling, and skating in the sixteenth century to televised professional sports and the X Games today. Nearly 400 articles examine historical and cultural aspects of leagues, teams, institutions, major competitions, the media and other related industries, as well as legal and social issues, economic factors, ethnic and racial participation, and the growth of institutions and venues. Also included are biographical entries on notable individuals—not just outstanding athletes, but owners and promoters, journalists and broadcasters, and innovators of other kinds—along with in-depth entries on the history of major and minor sports from air racing and archery to wrestling and yachting. A detailed chronology, master bibliography, and directory of institutions, organizations, and governing bodies—plus more than 100 vintage and contemporary photographs—round out the coverage.

Satchel

Satchel PDF Author: Larry Tye
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ISBN: 0812977971
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The superbly researched, spellbindingly told story of athlete, showman, philosopher, and boundary breaker Leroy “Satchel” Paige “Among the rare biographies of an athlete that transcend sports . . . gives us the man as well as the myth.”—The Boston Globe Few reliable records or news reports survive about players in the Negro Leagues. Through dogged detective work, award-winning author and journalist Larry Tye has tracked down the truth about this majestic and enigmatic pitcher, interviewing more than two hundred Negro Leaguers and Major Leaguers, talking to family and friends who had never told their stories before, and retracing Paige’s steps across the continent. Here is the stirring account of the child born to an Alabama washerwoman with twelve young mouths to feed, the boy who earned the nickname “Satchel” from his enterprising work as a railroad porter, the young man who took up baseball on the streets and in reform school, inventing his trademark hesitation pitch while throwing bricks at rival gang members. Tye shows Paige barnstorming across America and growing into the superstar hurler of the Negro Leagues, a marvel who set records so eye-popping they seemed like misprints, spent as much money as he made, and left tickets for “Mrs. Paige” that were picked up by a different woman at each game. In unprecedented detail, Tye reveals how Paige, hurt and angry when Jackie Robinson beat him to the Majors, emerged at the age of forty-two to help propel the Cleveland Indians to the World Series. He threw his last pitch from a big-league mound at an improbable fifty-nine. (“Age is a case of mind over matter,” he said. “If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.”) More than a fascinating account of a baseball odyssey, Satchel rewrites our history of the integration of the sport, with Satchel Paige in a starring role. This is a powerful portrait of an American hero who employed a shuffling stereotype to disarm critics and racists, floated comical legends about himself–including about his own age–to deflect inquiry and remain elusive, and in the process methodically built his own myth. “Don’t look back,” he famously said. “Something might be gaining on you.” Separating the truth from the legend, Satchel is a remarkable accomplishment, as large as this larger-than-life man.

Baseball State by State

Baseball State by State PDF Author: Chris Jensen
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786468955
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
Offering a fresh approach to the familiar concept of all-time baseball teams, this exhaustive work ranks more than 2,500 players by state of birth and includes both major league and Negro League athletes. Each chapter covers one state and opens with the all-time team, naming a top selection for each position followed by honorable mentions. Also included are all-time stat leaders in nine categories--games, hits, average, RBI, home runs, stolen bases, pitching wins, strikeouts and saves--a brief overview of the state's baseball history, notable player achievements, historic baseball places to see, potential future stars, a comprehensive list of player nicknames, and the state's all-time best player.

Color Blind

Color Blind PDF Author: Tom Dunkel
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
ISBN: 0802121373
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
Taking readers back in time to 1947, an award-winning journalist chronicles an integrated baseball team in Bismarck, North Dakota that rose above a segregated society to become champions, delving into the history of the players, the town and baseball itself.

The Business of Baseball

The Business of Baseball PDF Author: Albert Theodore Powers
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476616744
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 421

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Book Description
The crack of the bat, the cheering of fans and the agility and athleticism of the players are all characteristics that many people fondly associate with Major League Baseball. However, the players' strike and owners' lockout in 1994 and 1995 brought the game under great scrutiny, revealing a side of baseball that is not admirable, honorable, or enjoyable. Nor is this darker side of "America's Pastime" a recent development. The majority of problems in today's Major Leagues are a continuation of ills that have plagued organized baseball since its inception. This book examines the business of baseball, addressing its most significant problems and proposing solutions. It covers some of Major League Baseball's greatest players and their effect on the game and its business. Among the many topics analyzed are the roles of franchise owners, commissioners, and players' unions in organized baseball. The book also examines Major League ballparks and baseball fans, and considers how they are relevant to baseball as a game and a business.

The Negro Leagues, 1869-1960

The Negro Leagues, 1869-1960 PDF Author: Leslie A. Heaphy
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476603057
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 1035

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Book Description
At his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame, former Negro League player Buck Leonard said, "Now, we in the Negro Leagues felt like we were contributing something to baseball, too, when we were playing.... We loved the game.... But we thought that we should have and could have made the major leagues." The Negro Leagues had some of the best talent in baseball but from their earliest days the players were segregated from those leagues that received all the recognition. This history of the Negro Leagues begins with the second half of the 19th century and the early attempts by African American players to be allowed to play with white teammates, and progresses through the "Gentleman's Agreement" in the 1890s which kept baseball segregated. The establishment of the first successful Negro League in 1920 is covered and various aspects of the game for the players discussed (lodgings, travel accommodations, families, difficulties because of race, off-season jobs, play and life in Latin America). In 1960, the Birmingham Black Barons went out of business and took the Negro Leagues with them. There are many stories of individual players, owners, umpires, and others involved with the Negro Leagues in the U.S. and Latin America, along with photos, appendices, notes, bibliography and index.

Satch, Dizzy, and Rapid Robert

Satch, Dizzy, and Rapid Robert PDF Author: Timothy M. Gay
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439176310
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
Before Jackie Robinson integrated major league baseball in 1947, black and white ballplayers had been playing against one another for decades—even, on rare occasions, playing with each other. Interracial contests took place during the off-season, when major leaguers and Negro Leaguers alike fattened their wallets by playing exhibitions in cities and towns across America. These barnstorming tours reached new heights, however, when Satchel Paige and other African- American stars took on white teams headlined by the irrepressible Dizzy Dean. Lippy and funny, a born showman, the native Arkansan saw no reason why he shouldn’t pitch against Negro Leaguers. Paige, who feared no one and chased a buck harder than any player alive, instantly recognized the box-office appeal of competing against Dizzy Dean’s "All-Stars." Paige and Dean both featured soaring leg kicks and loved to mimic each other’s style to amuse fans. Skin color aside, the dirt-poor Southern pitchers had much in common. Historian Timothy M. Gay has unearthed long-forgotten exhibitions where Paige and Dean dueled, and he tells the story of their pioneering escapades in this engaging book. Long before they ever heard of Robinson or Larry Doby, baseball fans from Brooklyn to Enid, Oklahoma, watched black and white players battle on the same diamond. With such Hall of Fame teammates as Josh Gibson, Turkey Stearnes, Mule Suttles, Oscar Charleston, Cool Papa Bell, and Bullet Joe Rogan, Paige often had the upper hand against Diz. After arm troubles sidelined Dean, a new pitching phenom, Bob Feller—Rapid Robert—assembled his own teams to face Paige and other blackballers. By the time Paige became Feller’s teammate on the Cleveland Indians in 1948, a rookie at age forty-two, Satch and Feller had barnstormed against each other for more than a decade. These often obscure contests helped hasten the end of Jim Crow baseball, paving the way for the game’s integration. Satchel Paige, Dizzy Dean, and Bob Feller never set out to make social history—but that’s precisely what happened. Tim Gay has brought this era to vivid and colorful life in a book that every baseball fan will embrace.