In 1906 the baseball world saw something that had never been done. Two teams from the same city squared off against each other in a World Series that pitted the heavily favored Cubs of the National League against the hardscrabble American League champion White Sox. Now, more than a century later, noted historian Bernard A. Weisberger tells the tale of a unique time in baseball, a unique time in America, and a time when Chicago was at the center of it all.

When Chicago Ruled Baseball brings to life a dazzling epoch in a land of the self-made man--where A. G. Spalding helped...

Baseball has witnessed more than 125,000 home runs. Many have altered the outcome of games, and some have decided pennants and become legend. But no dinger has had greater impact than Hank Aaron's 715th home run. His historic blast on April 8, 1974, lifted him above Babe Ruth on the all-time list, an achievement that shook not only baseball but our nation itself. Aaron's magnificent feat provoked bigotry and shattered prejudice, inspired a generation, emboldened a flagging civil rights movement, and called forth the demons that haunted Aaron's every step and turned what should have been a...

This is a book about young men who learned to play baseball during the 1930s and 1940s, and then went on to play for one of the most exciting major-league ball clubs ever fielded, the team that broke the color barrier with Jackie Robinson. It is a book by and about a sportswriter who grew up near Ebbets Field, and who had the good fortune in the 1950s to cover the Dodgers for the Herald Tribune. This is a book about what happened to Jackie, Carl Erskine, Pee Wee Reese, and the others when their glory days were behind them. In short, it is a book about America, about fathers and...

With incredible skill, passion, and insight, Pulitzer Prize-winningauthor David Halberstam returns us to a glorious time when the dreams of a now almost forgotten America rested on the crack of a bat.

The year was 1949, and a war-weary nation turned from the battlefields to the ball fields in search of new heroes. It was a summer that marked the beginning of a sports rivalry unequaled in the annals of athletic competition. The awesome New York Yankees and the indomitable Boston Red Sox were fighting for supremacy of baseball's American League, and an aging Joe DiMaggio and a brash,...

From the perspective of 2007, the unintentional irony of Chance's boast is manifest--these days, the question is when will the Cubs ever win a game they have to have. In October 1908, though, no one would have laughed: The Cubs were, without doubt, baseball's greatest team--the first dynasty of the 20th century.

Crazy '08 recounts the 1908 season--the year when Peerless Leader Frank Chance's men went toe to toe to toe with John McGraw and Christy Mathewson's New York Giants and Honus Wagner's Pittsburgh Pirates in the greatest pennant race the National League has ever seen....

Banks to Sandberg to Grace brings together more than 60 first-person accounts from the past 50 years of Cubs baseball. Each of the storytellers whose voices are heard throughout shares his or her personal, revealing account of what it was like to play or work for the Cubs. Hank Sauer laughs about fans in the bleachers throwing tobacco at him. The team's longtime equipment manager, Yosh Kawano, talks about gaining the trust and friendship of players such as Ryne Sandberg. And WGN-TV producer Arne Harris reminisces about sharing an earpiece with Jack Brickhouse and Harry Caray....

"Roger Kahn has spun everyday sports stories into gilded literature."
--San Diego Union Tribune

"Kahn's fly-on-the-wall style brings to life players most of us knew only from their bubblegum cards."
--Dallas Morning News

A. G. Spalding was a key figure in the professionalization and commercialization of American sports. Co-founder of baseball's National League, owner of the Chicago White Stockings (later the Cubs), and founder of a sporting goods business that made him a millionaire, Spalding not only willed baseball to be our national pastime but also contributed to making sport a significant part of American life.

This biography captures the zest, flamboyance, and creativity of Albert Goodwell Spalding, a man of insatiable ego, a showman and entrepreneur, whose life illuminated the hopes and fears of...

Daniel A. Nathan's wide-ranging, interdisciplinary cultural history is less concerned with the details of the scandal than with how it has been represented and remembered...

This is the story of the 1953 Hoosiers, NCAA champions, coached by Branch McCracken and boldly led by star players Bobby Leonard and Don Schlundt. This legendary Indiana University team from the pre Bob Knight era has begun to fade from memory, but Mac s Boys brings it vividly back to life.

One of the Hoosier state s most beloved basketball teams, the 1953 Hoosiers was also one of the best in the history of college hoops. It was a squad that had a great coach, a pair of star players, and teammates who accepted their roles and executed them flawlessly. With Leonard and Schlundt...