In The Big Bam Montville peels back the onion of legend and apocryphal stories to tell us the story – warts and booze and babes and all – of one of the most important figures of the 20th century... not just in sports, but in America.
This book is more than just the stories or the anecdotes. This book is a joy because of the way Montville writes. He is lyrical and poetic without being syrupy. Honest and probing without being cruel. When I grow up, I want to write like Leigh Montville.
He was the Sultan of Swat. The Caliph of Clout. The Wizard of Whack. The Bambino. And simply, to his teammates, the Big Bam.
Babe Ruth was more than baseball’s original superstar. For eighty-five years, he has remained the sport’s reigning titan. He has been named Athlete of the Century . . . more than once. But who was this large, loud, enigmatic man? Why is so little known about his childhood, his private life, and his inner thoughts? In The Big Bam, Leigh Montville, whose recent New York Times bestselling biography of Ted Williams garnered glowing reviews…
I’m a Taiwanese American children’s book author who was your classic, straight-A, Asian model minority stereotype student who did all the right things when I was a tween—yet I never really stuck my neck out to make change happen and fight for what I believed was right. I can’t rewrite my history, but I can—and hope to—inspire kids of today to do better than I did. And so I write books that feature strong, assertive kids who learn how to stand up and speak out against injustice to make the world a better place for everyone and anyone who’s ever been overlooked or misunderstood.
Lupe Wong needs to get straight A's in order to meet her favorite baseball player, but it’s a losing battle against the horror of square dancing for gym class! I loved how full of humor, heart, and conviction the sports-loving Lupe is, and I connected with Lupe’s struggles as she tries to fight her school, only to discover what’s actually worth fighting for—and what she’s truly capable of accomplishing.
There’s also a wit to Lupe that I found immensely appealing, and I laughed out loud at her sharp observations about adults, kids, and the state of the world she’s fighting to change.
My gym shorts burrow into my butt crack like a frightened groundhog.
Don't you want to read a book that starts like that??
Lupe Wong is going to be the first female pitcher in the Major Leagues.
She's also championed causes her whole young life. Some worthy...like expanding the options for race on school tests beyond just a few bubbles. And some not so much...like complaining to the BBC about the length between Doctor Who seasons.
Lupe needs an A in all her classes in order to meet her favorite pitcher, Fu Li Hernandez, who's Chinacan/Mexinese just like her. So…
I’ve loved baseball since I was six years old when I watched that ground ball go through Bill Buckner’s legs and propel my New York Mets to their second World Series. I’ve loved film for almost as long. The best way to love something is to think critically about it–put it to the test. That’s why I wrote Baseball: The Movie. It was an effort to avoid unexamined nostalgia, to think hard about these things I love, and to make sure I love them honestly. I’ve spent 10 years as a freelance writer on baseball and movies, but not until I wrote this book did I feel like they had truly passed my test.
I watched a lot of Jackie Robinson movies, and I read many books about him to write my book. None capture the totality of his character like Robinson’s autobiography.
Too much focus is usually put on his first season in the majors when he won over his teammates, fans, and a skeptical nation with his restraint and excellence on the field. In reality, Robinson was a complicated man who was court-martialed in the Army for refusing to sit in the back of a bus, had fantasies of anger against his harassers in the major leagues, and clashed with Black Power groups in the 1960s.
America needed its Robinson myth for a long time, but as usual, you get more truth from going right to the source.
The bestselling autobiography of American baseball and civil rights legend Jackie Robinson
Before Reggie Jackson, before Hank Aaron, baseball's stars had one undeniable trait in common: they were all white. In 1947, Jackie Robinson broke that barrier, striking a crucial blow for racial equality and changing the world of sports forever. I Never Had It Made is Robinson's own candid, hard-hitting account of what it took to become the first black man in history to play in the major leagues.
I Never Had It Made recalls Robinson's early years and influences: his time at UCLA, where he became the school's…
My father used to take me to watch the Twins play at Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, a twenty-minute drive from our house in suburban Minneapolis. As soon as the Twins announced their schedule each year, he would buy tickets for the doubleheaders. Our favorites were the twilight doubleheaders, when we watched one game by daylight, and the other under the night sky. Baseball was pure to me then: played outdoors on real grass. Seated beside my dad during those twin bills, I felt his love for the game seep into me and take root. All these years later, almost two decades after his death, that love remains strong.
I love the books that go behind the scenes and show us more of a story we thought we knew. This is one of those. Josh Prager pulls back the curtain on Bobby Thomsen’s "shot heard round the world" with startling revelations from his research.
I was left with mixed emotions and uncertainty about a feat that had initially appeared nothing but heroic.
This is the untold story of the secret scandal behind baseball's most legendary moment:The Shot Heard Round the World. A Washington Post Best Book of the Year.
At 3:58 p.m. on October 3, 1951, Bobby Thomson hit a home run off Ralph Branca. The ball sailed over the left field wall and into history. The Giants won the pennant. That moment—the Shot Heard Round the World—reverberated from the West Wing of the White House to the Sing Sing death house to the Polo Grounds clubhouse, where hitter and pitcher forever turned into hero and goat. It was also in that…
A sidekick is someone who knows you better than you know yourself. Someone who will travel 750 miles on your wedding day, and then help you escape out of a window before you make a huge mistake. A sidekick is someone who will have your back, even when you’re making some of the most ridiculous decisions of your life. We're best friends, writing partners, and each other’s sidekicks. We write books that reward every struggle with a happy ending because life is not always kind. We create characters who inspire us to keep laughing and encourage readers to laugh with us. Here’s hoping everyone has a humorous sidekick in his or her life.
This is the first book in the series and by far the best one. Lyssa Kay Adams flips the typical all-female book club dynamic on its back and upside down in the most surprising way in this romance. Not only are all the book club members men, but they are “manly” men who are secretly using steamy Harlequin romances as relationship manuals. Their book club quickly develops into a support group where the men are free from societal restraints to become honest and vulnerable with one another. The result is hilarious and charming. It’s a wonder why this Bromance Book Club isn’t a real trend among men. If only every woman could have a Bromance Book Club for her partner.
The first rule of book club: You don't talk about book club.
Nashville Legends second baseman Gavin Scott's marriage is in major league trouble. He’s recently discovered a humiliating secret: his wife Thea has always faked the Big O. When he loses his cool at the revelation, it’s the final straw on their already strained relationship. Thea asks for a divorce, and Gavin realizes he’s let his pride and fear get the better of him.
Welcome to the Bromance Book Club.
Distraught and desperate, Gavin finds help from an unlikely source: a secret romance book club made up of Nashville's…
Before he became a bestselling author with his debut novel, Before We Ever Spoke, Dan Largent spent the better part of two decades as a high school baseball coach. In 2010, he guided Olmsted Falls High School to its first-ever State Final Four and was subsequently named Greater Cleveland Division I Coach of the Year. Dan stepped away from his duties as a baseball coach in 2017 to spend more time with his wife, April, and their three children Brooke, Grace, and Luke. He has, however, remained close to the game he loves by turning doubles into singles as a member of Cleveland’s finest 35 and over baseball league.
My list could not be complete without a book about my beloved Tribe, and like most Clevelanders, watching the Indians of the mid-90’s was as good as it gets. Whether you are a Cleveland fan, or not, Glory Days in Tribe Town is a phenomenal book that chronicles one of the most intriguing Major League Baseball teams of the past 30 years.
The Indians had 455 consecutive sold-out crowds home, many of whom stayed until the final out regardless of the score because they knew that the Tribe’s potent offensive could always overcome a deficit in the bottom of the 9th.
The combination of two of Cleveland’s most iconic voices in Terry Pluto and Tom Hamilton makes this a must-read for any baseball fan.
Relive the most thrilling seasons of Cleveland Indians baseball in recent memory! Remember the excitement of those first years at Jacobs Field? When it seemed the Indians could find a way to win almost any game? When screaming fans rocked the jam-packed stands every night? When a brash young team snapped a forty-year slump and electrified the city? Those weren’t baseball seasons, they were year-long celebrations. Step back into the glory days with sportswriter Terry Pluto and broadcaster Tom Hamilton as they share behind-the-scenes stories about a team with all-stars at nearly every position . . . a sparkling new…
Ever since I started playing Strat-O-Matic baseball as a 13-year-old and then realized that they actually pay people to write about Major League Baseball, it’s been my dream to be a baseball beat writer. I’ve been lucky enough to do it for 25 years. I’ve seen thousands of baseball games and I’ve spent thousands of hours talking to players, managers, coaches, and executives about the sport, but I still learn things from every baseball book I read. Hopefully these books teach you something and help you enjoy the game more.
If you think this book is just about the trash can-banging Houston Astros and how they stole signs on the way to winning the 2017 World Series, you’re wrong. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Drellich was covering the Astros long before all of that started, so he gives you a deep look at the organizational culture that led to the scandal.
The reporter who broke the Houston Astros' cheating scandal reveals how a baseball team could so dramatically descend into corruption, with never-before-told details of a broken management culture, the once-revered leaders who enabled it and the scandal itself.
Baseball, that old romantic game, has been defaced and consumed by corporate America. As Moneyball-thinking and Ivy League graduates grabbed hold of the sport, the Astros set out to build a cost-efficient winning machine on the principles of the outside business world, squeezing every dollar out of every transaction, player and employee.
In less than a decade, ex-Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow…
As the author of 73 published books, I have four goals for writing. I want to write more women into history, emphasize how everyday activities children accomplish are important, empower young readers, and tell a story that moves readers, either through an emotional response or the knowledge that they can do what whoever I wrote about did. My biographies cover role models who have been groundbreakers in their time and place. Readers can be, too.
I love to read (and write) about talented, dedicated females.
This middle-grade biography about Dottie Kamenshek tells of how one talented woman of many dazzled spectators in the groundbreaking All-American Girls Softball League. Her talent lifted the spirits of a nation worried about men drafted into the military to fight during World War II.
What started as a stunt to keep viewers while male players were away turned into an amazing experiment where female athletes could shine. Go Kammie!
Dorothy Mary Kamenshek was born to immigrant parents in Norwood, Ohio. As a young girl, she played pickup games of sandlot baseball with neighborhood children; no one, however, would have suspected that at the age of seventeen she would become a star athlete at the national level.
The outbreak of World War II and the ensuing draft of able-bodied young men severely depleted the ranks of professional baseball players. In 1943, Philip K. Wrigley, owner of the Chicago Cubs, led the initiative to establish a new league-a women's league-to fill the ballparks while the war ground on in Europe and…
I’m intrigued by baseball. The passion and drama of the games and the way the sport is nearly always linked to a meaningful relationship with someone dear. That curiosity has only been fueled by the books I’ve read over the years and inspired me to write a baseball story of my own. The All-American is my ninth novel and I couldn’t feel more privileged to have been able to write it.
This book is a pure delight and a joy-filled tribute to the women who played for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League in the 1940s and 1950s.
The history of the League and stories from the women are paired with charming illustrations by the author, making this an engaging and entertaining book. Orrock’s storytelling inspired me to write a book about a girl who aspires to play for the AAGPBL. I can only imagine that this book will be an influence on anyone who picks it up!
This book chronicles the history of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League and the stories of the first women to play professional baseball in a league of their own.
In 1941, the world was at war, and with able-bodied American men fighting overseas, professional baseball was in danger of becoming a quaint relic-until women stepped up to the plate.
Essential reading for fans of A League of Their Own Amazon Prime series and the 1992 Penny Marshall movie!
In this heartwarming illustrated history, the League's story is told by the ones who know it best: the players. Author Anika Orrock…
I love books on the making of movies, reading a couple a year. This book is the best I’ve read, period. Not because it talks about a movie that I could quote all day long, but because it explores all the decisions and compromises Shelton made while creating the movie, and that’s something to learn from as a writer.
Knowing what a creator didn’t choose to do is as valuable as knowing what they did so you can consider what you would do in the same situation because that’s all writing really is: making decisions and compromises, large and small.
LA TIMES BESTSELLER • From the award-winning screenwriter and director of cult classic Bull Durham, the extremely entertaining behind-the-scenes story of the making of the film, and an insightful primer on the art and business of moviemaking.
"This book tells you how to make a movie—the whole nine innings of it—out of nothing but sheer will.” —Tony Gilroy, writer/director of Michael Clayton and The Bourne Legacy
"The only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the church of baseball."—Annie in Bull Durham
Bull Durham, the breakthrough 1988 film about a minor league baseball team, is widely…
