If you love baseball, be prepared for a thrill! Flipping through these pages is like taking a stroll through history. Superstars and record-breakers of today share space with yesterday's heroes. Unforgettable stories and historic photos bring the golden age of baseball to life. Get to know the greatest players of all time through fascinating facts and statistics as well as hilarious quotations. Meet the sluggers and the speedsters, the hotshots and the legends. See Babe Ruth's famous "called shot," and capture the excitement of Barry Bonds's 73rd home run. Relive memorable moments and classic World Series games. You'll almost hear the roar of the crowd and thrill to the sight of your hero digging in at the plate. The history of baseball is rich and colorful. It seems everyone from American presidents to the stars themselves has something to say about America's game, and it's all right here. The Love of Baseball is so much more than just a book about baseball; it is the very essence of the game itself. Book jacket.

Written by and for baseball fans (or those trying to live with one), this collection of essays joins a perennial conversation all fans have--"Why do we love baseball?" Thirty contributors share personal narratives of how they found an abiding passion for the sport and how their relationship to it changed over the years. Tracing the thematic arc of a typical season, the essays begin with stories of spring training optimism, followed by the guts and grind of the regular season, and ending with the glory (or heartbreak) of the playoffs.

Players belonging to the Baseball Hall of Fame reminisce about their careers and explain what baseball has meant to them at various stages in their lives

This series provides information on the equipment, positions, and superstars of kids' favorite sports. The basics of each sport are presented in colorful and striking images. Each title provides diagrams of the playing field and essential techniques, emph

NEW YORK TIMES bestseller WALL STREET JOURNAL bestseller #1 New York Times bestselling author Joe Posnanski is back with a masterful ode to the game: a countdown of 50 of the most memorable moments in baseball’s history, to make you fall in love with the sport all over again. Posnanski writes of major moments that created legends, and of forgotten moments almost lost to time. It's Willie Mays’s catch, Babe Ruth’s called shot, and Kirk Gibson’s limping home run; the slickest steals; the biggest bombs; and the most triumphant no-hitters. But these are also moments raw with the humanity of the game, the unheralded heroes, the mesmerizing mistakes drenched in pine tar, and every story, from the immortal to the obscure, is told from a unique perspective. Whether of a real fan who witnessed it, or the pitcher who gave up the home run, the umpire, the coach, the opposing player—these are fresh takes on moments so powerful they almost feel like myth. Posnanski’s previous book, The Baseball 100, portrayed the heroes and pioneers of the sport, and now, with his trademark wit, encyclopedic knowledge, and acute observations, he gets at the real heart of the game. From nineteenth-century pitchers’ duels to breaking the sport’s color line in the ’40s, all the way to the greatest trick play of the last decade and the slide home that became a meme, Posnanski’s illuminating take allows us to rediscover the sport we love—and thought we knew. Why We Love Baseball is an epic that ends too soon, a one-of-a-kind love letter to the sport that has us thrilled, torn, inspired, and always wanting more.

Written by and for baseball fans (or those trying to live with one), this collection of essays joins a perennial conversation all fans have--"Why do we love baseball?" Thirty contributors share personal narratives of how they found an abiding passion for the sport and how their relationship to it changed over the years. Tracing the thematic arc of a typical season, the essays begin with stories of spring training optimism, followed by the guts and grind of the regular season, and ending with the glory (or heartbreak) of the playoffs.

From the author of Baseball 100 “A fascinating account of a man who outlasted the ignorance of a nation and persevered to become a beloved figure...One of the best baseball books in years, filled with depth style and clarity." —Cleveland Plain Dealer An award-winning sports columnist and a baseball legend tour the country to recapture the joys and wonders of two of America’s greatest pastimes When legendary Negro League player Buck O’Neil asked sports columnist Joe Posnanski how he fell in love with baseball, that simple question eventually led the pair on a cross-country quest to recapture the love that first drew them to the game. Baseball & Jazz recounts their emotional quest to find the heart of America’s beloved sport that still beats despite the scandal-ridden, steroid-shooting, money hungry athletes who currently seem to define the sport. At its heart is the story of 94-year-old Buck O’Neil—a man that truly played for the love of the game. After an impressive career in the Negro Baseball Leagues in which he earned two hitting titles and one championship, O’Neil made baseball history by becoming the first African-American coach in major league baseball. Posnanski writes about that love and the one thing that O’Neil cherishes almost as much as baseball: jazz. This heartwarming and insightful journey is an endearing step back in time to the days when the crack of a bat and the smokey notes of a midnight jam session were the sounds that brought the most joy to a man’s heart.