The Cactus League

The Cactus League PDF Author: Emily Nemens
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374720495
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
Named a Best Book of 2020 by NPR and Lit Hub. A Los Angeles Times Bestseller. A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice "In The Cactus League [Emily Nemens] provides her readers with what amounts to a miniature, self-enclosed world that is funny and poignant and lovingly observed." --Charles McGrath, The New York Times Book Review An explosive, character-driven odyssey through the world of baseball Jason Goodyear is the star outfielder for the Los Angeles Lions, stationed with the rest of his team in the punishingly hot Arizona desert for their annual spring training. Handsome, famous, and talented, Goodyear is nonetheless coming apart at the seams. And the coaches, writers, wives, girlfriends, petty criminals, and diehard fans following his every move are eager to find out why—as they hide secrets of their own. Humming with the energy of a ballpark before the first pitch, Emily Nemens's The Cactus League unravels the tightly connected web of people behind a seemingly linear game. Narrated by a sportscaster, Goodyear’s story is interspersed with tales of Michael Taylor, a batting coach trying to stay relevant; Tamara Rowland, a resourceful spring-training paramour, looking for one last catch; Herb Allison, a legendary sports agent grappling with his decline; and a plethora of other richly drawn characters, all striving to be seen as the season approaches. It’s a journey that, like the Arizona desert, brims with both possibility and destruction. Anchored by an expert knowledge of baseball’s inner workings, Emily Nemens's The Cactus League is a propulsive and deeply human debut that captures a strange desert world that is both exciting and unforgiving, where the most crucial games are the ones played off the field.

The Cactus League

The Cactus League PDF Author: Emily Nemens
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374720495
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 203

Get Book

Book Description
Named a Best Book of 2020 by NPR and Lit Hub. A Los Angeles Times Bestseller. A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice "In The Cactus League [Emily Nemens] provides her readers with what amounts to a miniature, self-enclosed world that is funny and poignant and lovingly observed." --Charles McGrath, The New York Times Book Review An explosive, character-driven odyssey through the world of baseball Jason Goodyear is the star outfielder for the Los Angeles Lions, stationed with the rest of his team in the punishingly hot Arizona desert for their annual spring training. Handsome, famous, and talented, Goodyear is nonetheless coming apart at the seams. And the coaches, writers, wives, girlfriends, petty criminals, and diehard fans following his every move are eager to find out why—as they hide secrets of their own. Humming with the energy of a ballpark before the first pitch, Emily Nemens's The Cactus League unravels the tightly connected web of people behind a seemingly linear game. Narrated by a sportscaster, Goodyear’s story is interspersed with tales of Michael Taylor, a batting coach trying to stay relevant; Tamara Rowland, a resourceful spring-training paramour, looking for one last catch; Herb Allison, a legendary sports agent grappling with his decline; and a plethora of other richly drawn characters, all striving to be seen as the season approaches. It’s a journey that, like the Arizona desert, brims with both possibility and destruction. Anchored by an expert knowledge of baseball’s inner workings, Emily Nemens's The Cactus League is a propulsive and deeply human debut that captures a strange desert world that is both exciting and unforgiving, where the most crucial games are the ones played off the field.

Spring Training

Spring Training PDF Author: Dan Shaughnessy
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780618213993
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Before the purpose-pitch that zips inches from the batter's head, before greenfly autograph-seekers stalk hotel lobbies, before thousands of fans stand up and boo in 50,000-seat stadiums, before the proverbial dog days of summer and the pressure-packed moments of October . . . there is sweet spring. The long hello. Baseball's early season. The words spring training have long held special power over baseball fans. They signal the arrival of fresh air and sunshine after a long winter devoid of bare feet and box scores. The chance to see the game up close and personal, in beautiful slow motion. No other sport undergoes this slow, glorious unfolding. And no other book captures baseball's rite of passage in all its magic. Come on a wild ride through spring training's many attractions and peculiarities, from Florida to Arizona, the National to the American League, the dugouts to Section D. Glimpse retirees in Hawaiian shirts singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," million-dollar players taking it easy on the field and in the bars, young rookies flashing their skills, grizzled vets going through the motions, wide-eyed children dressed from head to toe in their favorite team's garb. It's all here, from Alligator Alley to Cactus Way, sit-ups to sunblock, home runs to hangovers -- a lively tribute to America's favorite pastime in its purest, most wonderful form.

Loserville

Loserville PDF Author: Clayton Trutor
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 149622504X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 494

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Book Description
Clayton Trutor examines how Atlanta’s pursuit of the big leagues invented business-as-usual in the business of professional sports.

Breaking Into Baseball

Breaking Into Baseball PDF Author: Jean Hastings Ardell
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 9780809326273
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
While baseball is traditionally perceived as a game to be played, enjoyed, and reported from a masculine perspective, it has long been beloved among women—more so than any other spectator sport. Breaking into Baseball: Women and the National Pastime upends baseball’s accepted history to at last reveal just how involved women are, and have always been, in the American game. Through provocative interviews and deft research, Jean Hastings Ardell devotes a detailed chapter to each of the seven ways women participate in the game—from the stands as fans, on the field as professionals or as amateur players, behind the plate as umpires, in the front office as executives, in the press box as sportswriters and reporters, or in the shadows as Baseball Annies. From these revelatory vantage points, Ardell invites overdue appreciation for the affinity and talent women bring to baseball at all levels and shows us our national game anew. From its ancient origins in spring fertility rituals through contemporary marketing efforts geared toward an ever-increasing female fan base, baseball has always had a feminine side, and generations of women have sought—and been sought after—to participate in the sport, even when doing so meant challenging the cultural mores of their era. In that regard, women have been breaking into baseball from the very beginning. But recent decades have witnessed great strides in legitimizing women’s roles on the diamond as players and umpires as well as in vital management and media roles. In her thoughtfully organized and engagingly written survey, Ardell offers a chance for sports enthusiasts and historians of both genders to better appreciate the storied and complex relationship women have so long shared with the game and to glimpse the future of women in baseball. Breaking into Baseball is augmented by twenty-four illustrations and a foreword from Ila Borders, the first woman to play more than three seasons of men’s professional baseball.

Goodness and the Literary Imagination

Goodness and the Literary Imagination PDF Author: Toni Morrison
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813943639
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
What exactly is goodness? Where is it found in the literary imagination? Toni Morrison, one of American letters’ greatest voices, pondered these perplexing questions in her celebrated Ingersoll Lecture, delivered at Harvard University in 2012 and published now for the first time in book form. Perhaps because it is overshadowed by the more easily defined evil, goodness often escapes our attention. Recalling many literary examples, from Ahab to Coetzee’s Michael K, Morrison seeks the essence of goodness and ponders its significant place in her writing. She considers the concept in relation to unforgettable characters from her own works of fiction and arrives at conclusions that are both eloquent and edifying. In a lively interview conducted for this book, Morrison further elaborates on her lecture’s ideas, discussing goodness not only in literature but in society and history—particularly black history, which has responded to centuries of brutality with profound creativity. Morrison’s essay is followed by a series of responses by scholars in the fields of religion, ethics, history, and literature to her thoughts on goodness and evil, mercy and love, racism and self-destruction, language and liberation, together with close examination of literary and theoretical expressions from her works. Each of these contributions, written by a scholar of religion, considers the legacy of slavery and how it continues to shape our memories, our complicities, our outcries, our lives, our communities, our literature, and our faith. In addition, the contributors engage the religious orientation in Morrison’s novels so that readers who encounter her many memorable characters such as Sula, Beloved, or Frank Money will learn and appreciate how Morrison’s notions of goodness and mercy also reflect her understanding of the sacred and the human spirit.

The Cactus

The Cactus PDF Author: Sarah Haywood
Publisher: Harlequin
ISBN: 1488078726
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
“Fans of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine will love The Cactus.” —Red magazine In this charming and poignant debut, one woman’s unconventional journey to finding love means learning to embrace the unexpected. For Susan Green, messy emotions don’t fit into the equation of her perfectly ordered life. She has a flat that is ideal for one, a job that suits her passion for logic, and an “interpersonal arrangement” that provides cultural and other, more intimate, benefits. But suddenly confronted with the loss of her mother and the news that she is about to become a mother herself, Susan’s greatest fear is realized. She is losing control. Enter Rob, the dubious but well-meaning friend of her indolent brother. As Susan’s due date draws near and her dismantled world falls further into a tailspin, Susan finds an unlikely ally in Rob. She might have a chance at finding real love and learning to love herself, if only she can figure out how to let go.

Under the March Sun

Under the March Sun PDF Author: Charles Fountain
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780199743704
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
There is nothing in all of American sport quite like baseball's spring training. This annual six-week ritual, whose origins date back nearly a century and a half, fires the hearts and imaginations of fans who flock by the hundreds of thousands to places like Dodgertown to glimpse superstars and living legends in a relaxed moment and watch the drama of journeyman veterans and starry-eyed kids in search of that last spot on the bench. In Under the March Sun, Charles Fountain recounts for the first time the full and fascinating history of spring training and its growth from a shoestring-budget roadtrip to burn off winter calories into a billion-dollar-a-year business. In the early days southern hotels only reluctantly admitted ballplayers--and only if they agreed not to mingle with other guests. Today cities fight for teams by spending millions in public money to build ever-more-elaborate spring-training stadiums. In the early years of the 20th century, the mayor of St. Petersburg, Florida, Al Lang, first realized that coverage in northern newspapers every spring was publicity his growing city could never afford to buy. As the book demonstrates, cities have been following Lang's lead ever since, building identities and economies through the media exposure and visitors that spring training brings. An entertaining cultural history that taps into the romance of baseball even as it reveals its more hard-nosed commercial machinations, Under the March Sun shows why spring training draws so many fans southward every March. While the prices may be growing and the intimacy and accessibility shrinking, they come because the sunshine and sense of hope are timeless.

Baseball Fantography

Baseball Fantography PDF Author: Andy Strasberg
Publisher: ABRAMS
ISBN: 1613123248
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 531

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Book Description
A treasury of candid photos and behind-the-scenes trivia covering decades of baseball history. Baseball Fantography is a celebration of baseball through the eyes of fans, via photos they’ve taken of players, ballparks, and related subjects over the past nine decades, along with essays, sidebars, and quotes. The project originated when the author discovered an old 1960s snapshot of himself as a teenager with his idol, Roger Maris, at Yankee Stadium. Realizing he couldn’t be the only one with these hidden photographic gems, he began collecting baseball photos taken by fans. The book contains: More than 250 never-before-published images of such players as Roberto Clemente, Mickey Mantle, Derek Jeter, and Josh Hamilton Chapters on subjects like ballparks, spring training, broadcasters, dugouts, and baseball cards Contributions from baseball aficionados and notables like Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith, a thirty-five-year veteran Topps baseball photographer, and a former president of the Baseball Hall of Fame A foreword by Bob Costas

NFL Football

NFL Football PDF Author: Richard C. Crepeau
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252052463
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
The new NFL Centennial Edition A multi-billion-dollar entertainment empire, the National Football League is a coast-to-coast obsession that borders on religion and dominates our sports-mad culture. But today's NFL also provides a stage for playing out important issues roiling American society. The updated and expanded edition of NFL Football observes the league's centennial by following the NFL into the twenty-first century, where off-the-field concerns compete with touchdowns and goal line stands for headlines. Richard Crepeau delves into the history of the league and breaks down the new era with an in-depth look at the controversies and dramas swirling around pro football today: Tensions between players and Commissioner Roger Goodell over collusion, drug policies, and revenue; The firestorm surrounding Colin Kaepernick and protests of police violence and inequality; Andrew Luck and others choosing early retirement over the threat to their long-term health; Paul Tagliabue's role in covering up information on concussions; The Super Bowl's evolution into a national holiday. Authoritative and up to the minute, NFL Football continues the epic American success story.

Let's Hit 'em All

Let's Hit 'em All PDF Author: Dayna Haferkamp
Publisher: Mascot Books
ISBN: 9781631776670
Category : Baseball fans
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"Let's Hit 'Em All tells the vivid story of a family's journey to hit all the Major League ballparks -- a good, old-fashioned family road trip to watch America's favorite pastime from coast to coast."--Jacket.