Great Baseball Feats, Facts, and Firsts (2009 Edition)

Coming Soon on April 7 - Preorder Now! add to cart

David Nemec
Scott Flatow
Signet

Deep Drive
A Long Journey to Finding the Champion Within

Coming Soon to paperback on April 7 - Preorder Now! add to cart

Mike Lowell
Rob Bradford
Josh Beckett
Celebra Trade

Synopsis:
The nationally bestselling, inspiring memoir from Red Sox hero and MVP of the 2007 World Series, third baseman Mike Lowell— now in trade paperback. In 2007, the Red Sox third baseman Mike Lowell triumphed over a lifetime of adversity when he led the world’s most zealously followed baseball team to their second World Series title in four years. But there was much more to the story than what happened that night in October.

From his battle with testicular cancer, to the ups and downs of his baseball career, to the extraordinary journey and struggles of his Cuban family under the Castro regime, this is the story of a man who overcame every challenge thrown at him to become one of the best third basemen in baseball—and a true role model for his millions of fans.

Praise:
“Mike Lowell is such an honest man, a man who plays the game hard, and plays the game right, the whole time.”
—Red Sox Outfielder Manny Ramirez

“It is players like Mike Lowell who are the heart and soul of the [Boston Red Sox]…An inspiring read.”
—The Tampa Tribune

Synopsis:
The thrilling inside story behind a crucial chapter in Red Sox lore—and a turbulent time in a troubled city.

George Steinbrenner called it the greatest game in the history of American sports. On a bright October day in 1978, the Boston Red Sox met the New York Yankees for an epic playoff game that would send one team to the World Series, and render the other cursed for almost a quarter of a century.

In this book, award-winning sports columnist Bill Reynolds masterfully tells the story of the team and the players at this pivotal moment. This cultural history takes readers through the social issues that divided Boston that summer, and masterfully depicts their influence on one game beyond the realm of sports.

add to cart

Synopsis:
If ever there was a figure who changed the game of baseball, it was Walter O’Malley. Criticized in New York and beloved in Los Angeles, O’Malley is one of the most controversial owners in the history of American sports. He remade the major leagues and altered the course of history in both Brooklyn and Los Angeles when he moved the Dodgers to California. But while many New York critics attacked him, O’Malley looked to the future, declining to argue his case. As a result, fans across the nation have been unable to stop arguing about him—until now.

Praise:
“To comprehend baseball's grip on America, you've got to understand the dramatic tale of Walter O'Malley and the Dodgers. With meticulous reporting and elegant prose, D'Antonio brushes away the dust and brings O'Malley's story to life like never before. This is the definitive book on one of baseball's most fascinating and controversial figures.”
—Jonathan Eig, author of Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season and Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig

“Meticulously researched and artfully written, Forever Blue isn't merely a biography of Walter O'Malley, but a thoughtful and riveting piece of social history, told through the prism of perhaps the most controversial owner in the annals of American sport.”
— Wayne Coffey, author of The New York Times bestseller, The Boys of Winter


add to cart

Synopsis:
A Season on the Mound with Minor League Baseball’s Most Unlikely Pitcher

Matt McCarthy never expected to get drafted by a Major League Baseball team. A molecular biophysics major at Yale, he was a decent left-handed starter for a dismal college team. But good southpaws are hard to find, and when the Anaheim Angels selected him in the twenty-first round of the 2002 draft, McCarthy jumped at the chance to live every boy’s dream.

In Odd Man Out, McCarthy tells the captivating and hilarious story of his year with the Provo Angels, Anaheim’s Class A minor league affiliate in the heart of Mormon country. He quickly discovers the dirty truths of the minors: the Americans and Dominicans don’t speak to each other, the allure of steroids is ever present, and everyone puts his own stats ahead of the team’s success. With a brilliant eye for baseball’s character, McCarthy takes readers through the ups and downs of an antic, grueling season filled with cross-country road trips, bizarre rivalries, and players competing with cutthroat intensity for the ultimate prize—a call up to the majors.

In the spirit of Ball Four, McCarthy recounts inside-the-locker-room tales of teammates who would go on to stardom, including Bobby Jenks, Joe Saunders, and Ervin Santana. Odd Man Out is one of the great books about baseball life, capturing with rare perfection the gritty essence of our national pastime as it is played outside the spotlight.

add to cart

Synopsis:
The 2009 edition of the New York Times bestselling guide to major league baseball that is simply “the best book of its kind” (Rob Neyer)

Now in its fourteenth edition, the Baseball Prospectus annual is the industry leader among annual baseball guides and the rightful successor to Bill James’s legendary bestselling Baseball Abstracts. The 2009 edition contains critical essays on each of the thirty teams and player comments for some sixty players for each of those teams. Each player’s statistics are projected for the coming season using the groundbreaking PECOTA projection system, called “perhaps the game’s most accurate projection model” (Sports Illustrated). Baseball Prospectus 2009 also contains cutting-edge essays on performance analysis, the likes of which have inspired twenty-nine of the thirty major league teams to hire current and former Baseball Prospectus writers and analysts as consultants. The baseball bible for fantasy players and devoted fans, Baseball Prospectus can be relied upon to once again hit it out of the park.

add to cart

Synopsis:
Game of Shadows meets Ball Four in this explosive inside account of baseball’s steroid era

On a quiet street on Long Island early on a December morning in 2005, more than fifty federal agents stood outside a lovely new home waiting for the front door to be opened. When it did, there stood the central figure in one of the biggest scandals in sports history: Kirk Radomski.

Radomski was a regular New York kid who, from the age of fifteen had the amazing fortune of working in the Mets clubhouse. The focus of his job was to give the players whatever they wanted or needed—he got their uniforms ready, packed up their homes at the end of the season, cashed their checks, and helped them beat the drug tests that would have led to suspension. And at the end of the 1986 season he even led the World Champions down Broadway during their victory parade. Eventually, he graduated to helping in other ways: providing them with steroids and human growth hormones. By the time the Feds knocked on his door, he was the main clubhouse supplier of performance-enhancing drugs to almost three hundred baseball players.

Under threat of a long prison sentence—and after being identified by players he’d helped—he cooperated with Senator George Mitchell to produce the Mitchell Report, providing names and dates. Now he’s ready to tell the whole story to the world. Radomski made little money from these transactions, and in this stunning book he will recount what baseball knew about the problem, his life since the report came out, and who took what. This is the tale of a young man seeing his heroes turn into clay, and the degradation of a once great sport into the drug-addicted spectacle it has become.

add to cart