Going as far back as the mid-nineteenth century, to the early days of Cuban baseball, Wendel traces the spread of American baseball fever in the Caribbean and Mexico; discusses lesser-known historical standouts, including Adolfo Luque and Martin Dihigo; and describes the days when only light-skinned Latinos wereallowed to participate in Major League competition as well as the linguistic barrier many Latinos faced when playing on teams with "English only" rules.
Featuring interviews with Latino superstars past and present; a foreword by Bob Costas; the first-ever-published Latino...
Going as far back as the mid-nineteenth century, to the early days of Cuban baseball, Wendel traces the spread of American baseball fever in the Ca...
Recently widowed and now retired, Billy Bryan is "coming to the end of many things." Then a long-forgotten scrapbook stirs memories of a distant past-and beckons him and his grown daughter on a reluctant journey to relive his role in history. In 1947 Bryan was playing winter ball in Cuba, his future as uncertain as the island country's. Then one fateful night Bryan witnessed a young student radical named Fidel unleash an amazing curveball. So begins Bryan's tug-of-war with destiny. Tim Wendel is an award-winning writer whose articles and columns have appeared in the New York Times, the...
Recently widowed and now retired, Billy Bryan is "coming to the end of many things." Then a long-forgotten scrapbook stirs memories of a distant past-...
The extraordinary story of the 1968 baseball season--when the game was played to perfection even as the country was being pulled apart at the seams From the beginning, '68 was a season rocked by national tragedy and sweeping change. Opening Day was postponed and later played in the shadow of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s funeral. That summer, as the pennant races were heating up, the assassination of Robert Kennedy was later followed by rioting at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. But even as tensions boiled over and violence spilled into the streets, something...
The extraordinary story of the 1968 baseball season--when the game was played to perfection even as the country was being pulled apart ...
The distance between Cuba and the United States: tantalizingly close yet worlds apart. When a beautiful showgirl married to Cuba's most famous baseball player escapes to the sea, only a boy and a boat and a belief in the "American Dream" keep her afloat. Planning to rendezvous with her husband after an exhibition game in El Norte, the showgirl risks everything only to discover that crossing the straits might be easier than spanning allegiances. Set against the backdrop of actual games played between the Cuba National Team and the Baltimore Orioles, Habana Libre is the story of people caught...
The distance between Cuba and the United States: tantalizingly close yet worlds apart. When a beautiful showgirl married to Cuba's most famous basebal...
Never in baseball history had a team ranked last rebounded to take the pennant the following season. Yet in 1991 lightning struck twice as the Minnesota Twins and the Atlanta Braves, a pair of cellar dwellers the year before, faced each other in an unforgettable World Series. When the final out was recorded, the cover headline in Baseball Weekly read: "Best World Series Ever."
Never in baseball history had a team ranked last rebounded to take the pennant the following season. Yet in 1991 lightning struck twice as the Minneso...
When Eric Wendel was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 1966, the survival rate was 10 percent. Today, it is 90 percent. Even as politicians call for a "Cancer Moonshot," this accomplishment remains a pinnacle in cancer research.The author's daughter, then a medical student at Georgetown Medical School, told her father about this...
When Eric Wendel was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 1966, the survival rate was 10 percent. Today, it is 90 percent. Even as politicia...
