Showing results for "William" in Baseball & Softball

Of all the sports played across the globe, none has more curses, superstitions, or supernatural events like baseball, America's national pastime. While some of these can easily be explained, there are just as many that cannot. Field of Fantasies delves right into that superstition with short stories written by several key authors about baseball and the supernatural.

This is the true story of how organized baseball started, how gambling shaped the game from its earliest days, and how it became our national pastime and our national mirror. Baseball in the Garden of Eden draws on original research to tell how the game evolved from other bat-and-ball games and gradually supplanted them, how the New York game came to dominate other variants, and how gambling and secret professionalism promoted and plagued the game.

A boy with a golden arm but no money for lessons. A mother who wants to give her son his dream before she dies. A broken down World Series pitcher who cannot go on after the death of his wife. These are the elements of The Pitcher. A story of a man at the end of his dream and a boy whose dream is to make his high school baseball team. In the tradition of The Natural and The Field of Dreams, this is a mythic story about how a man and a boy meet in the crossroads of their life and find a way to go on.

He started out as a bat boy. Then a newspaper correspondent. A press agent. A traveling secretary. A general manager. A vice president. A president. And then part-owner of the Cincinnati Reds, Houston Colt 45s, Cleveland Indians, and New York Yankees. Twice Gabe Paul was named Major League Executive of the Year by The Sporting News, only the fifth baseball executive to win the award more than once.

As star players for the 1955 World Champion Brooklyn Dodgers, and prior to that as the first black players to be candidates to break professional baseball's color barrier, Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella would seem to be natural allies. But the two men were divided by a rivalry going far beyond the personality differences and petty jealousies of competitive teammates. Behind the bitterness were deep and differing beliefs about the fight for civil rights.

In Pinstripe Nation, Will Bishop explores the myriad of ways in which the Yankees and their successes (or spectacular failures) became interwoven with the nation's larger cultural narrative. As this informative and entertaining audiobook amply shows, the Yankees have, through all their ups and downs, retained a hold on the American imagination unmatched by any other sports franchise.

Appearance- and performance-enhancing drugs - specifically, anabolic steroids (APEDs) - provide a tempting competitive advantage for amateur baseball players. But this shortcut can exact a fatal cost on talented athletes. In his urgent book Suicide Squeeze, William Kashatus chronicles the experiences of Taylor Hooton and Rob Garibaldi, two promising high school baseball players who abused APEDs in the hopes of attracting professional scouts and Division I recruiters. However, as a result of their steroid abuse, they ended up taking their own lives.

Is the face of American baseball throughout the world that of goodwill ambassador or ugly American? Has baseball crafted its own image or instead been at the mercy of broader forces shaping our society and the globe? The Empire Strikes Out gives us the sweeping story of how baseball and America are intertwined in the export of “the American way."

In the small town of Champlain, Vermont, owner Roy Leary hopes to see one winning season of his minor league team - the Galaxy - before he dies. He attracts a former major league star Bull Dozier to his team. But the season that unfolds is something that no one could have predicted. Two of his daughters conspire to take the team from him. Leary begins showing signs of dementia. Will the team finally capture the crown?

This volume of poetry focuses on the game of baseball and the people involved in it. The verse delves into the sociological and psychological sides of the game, showing both its light and dark facets. It's a must-listen for baseball lovers.

Join Will (@wrhiv_72) and Alley (@eyefortigers) as we cover the Detroit Tigers throughout the season, regardless on how painful it may be!

Cutting 2 the Chase podcast, hosted by William Chase, features interviews from the world of sports.

Welcome to the SPORTS playlist of the Talking with Tarashuk Podcast. On this feed you will get clips and full shows anytime sports comes up. We talk a lot of baseball but WWE, NFL, NHL, NBA, and any other ESPN 8 "The Ocho" sport could come up as well. Want to get yourself in the game? Email will@apspodcast.com and let's talk some sports.