"Even the most die-hard baseball fans don't know the true story of William "Blockade Billy" Blakely. He may have been the greatest player the game has ever seen, but today no one remembers his name. He was the first--and only--player to have his existence completely removed from the record books. Even his team is long forgotten, barely a footnote in the game's history. Every effort was made to erase any evidence that William Blakely played professional...

An introduction to the life and career of baseball's Jackie Robinson.

"From New York Times bestselling author Stephen King comes the haunting story of Blockade Billy, the greatest Major League baseball player to be erased from the game. Even the most die-hard baseball fans don't know the true story of William "Blockade Billy" Blakely. He may have been the greatest player the game has ever seen, but today no one remembers his name. He was the first--and only--player to have his existence completely removed from the record...

The Natural, Bernard Malamud's first novel, published in 1952, is also the first--and some would say still the best--novel ever written about baseball. In it Malamud, usually appreciated for his unerring portrayals of postwar Jewish life, took on very different material--the story of a superbly gifted "natural" at play in the fields of the old daylight baseball era--and invested it with the hardscrabble poetry, at once grand and altogether believable,...

How two courageous sports figures changed the world

As the first great Jewish player in the major leagues and the first African American to play in organized baseball during the twentieth century, respectively, Hank Greenberg and Jackie Robinson are forever linked because of the barriers they encountered, the discrimination they endured, and the athletic gifts they exhibited. Both suffered ridicule and abuse as they participated in the national

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"Just uttering the word "wedding" makes Jodi Carlyle break out into a cold sweat. So a year after she'd been dumped at the altar, and two days after turning the big 3-0, she decides to break some rules--by dressing to the nines, hiring a limo,and crashing a swanky wedding...where she catches the eye of the Dallas Gunslingers' new star hitter Jake Coronnado. He's hot. He's sexy. He sticks by her side all evening. He's the perfect fling. After a wild...

Henry Aaron's reputation has only grown in magnitude: he broke existing records (RBIs, total bases, extra-base hits) and set new ones (hitting at least thirty home runs per season fifteen times, becoming the first player in history to hammer five hundred home runs and three thousand hits). In this biography the author chronicles Aaron's childhood in segregated Alabama, his brief stardom in the Negro Leagues, his complicated relationship with celebrity,...

A great player, a greater man. "Hammerin'" Hank Aaron was unquestionably one of baseball's greatest icons, revered for his powerful bat, intense resolve and unwavering generosity. The Braves legend's passing in 2021 was mourned across baseball, inspiring countless tributes to Aaron and his 23-year Hall of Fame career. Hank Aaron: A Tribute to the Hammer is a celebration of Aaron's incomparable presence in Atlanta, Milwaukee, and beyond. It traces...

Presents the inspiring stories of baseball players who overcame obstacles in the course of their careers due to race, religion, ethnicity, or gender, including Jackie Robinson, Hank Greenburg, Fernando Valenzuela, and Ila Borders.

"Meet Puerto Rican Baseball Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente--once just a kid from Carolina, Puerto Rico, who loved to play baseball on the streets of his hometown with friends and family. As a right fielder, Roberto played eighteen seasons with Major League Baseball, but his life was tragically cut short when a plane he chartered to bring earthquake relief supplies to Nicaragua crashed. The first Latin American player to be inducted into the National...