"Imagine Ted Williams, Jackie Robinson, Bobby Doerr, and Willie Mays all on the same team, playing for the Boston Red Sox during the 194Os and 195Os. Think of how different those epic battles with the New York Yankees might have been with these four Hall of Famers playing together at Fenway Park. Think of how different Red Sox history would have been.". "It is not a dream, for it could have happened. It should have happened. Williams and Mays could have roamed the outfield together and formed a devastating offensive tandem. Robinson and Doerr could have turned double plays in the same infield." "It never came to pass, and racism is the only reason why.". "The Red Sox chose not to sign Jackie Robinson, who was humiliated during a 1945 tryout, and also the great Willie Mays four years later. Not only did the Red Sox fail to seize the chance to build a baseball Dream Team, argues Boston native and journalist Howard Bryant, but also compounded the mistake by continuing a disturbing pattern of ignoring talented black players, a decades-old legacy the Red Sox now fight to unlearn under new ownership and stars such as Pedro Martinez and Nomar Garciaparra.". "Controversial and gripping, Shut Out traces this haunting practice of racism - chronicling the policies and personality of the seventy-year dynasty of the Yawkey family as well as a conflicted press that wrestled with racial issues - against the backdrop of Boston's own difficult struggle with race. Once the crucible of abolition, the city of Boston would over time become a symbol of racial intolerance, highlighted by the shattering busing crisis of the 1970s. The duality of the city's historical ideals versus its bitter racial collisions, Bryant shows, is nowhere better exemplified than inside the front office, the clubhouse, and on the field at Fenway Park."--BOOK JACKET.
Marvin Miller was the first executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association. The story of his experiences in baseball is a compelling one. No one else can take fans into the conference room where headline-making deals of the past quarter century were hammered out. Many can cite the career statistics of such stars as Willie Mays, Tom Seaver and Reggie Jackson; no one but Miller can reveal how these players and other greats behave in their business suits, when facing their toughest opponents: the owners, general managers and commissioners who kept the wealth of major league baseball out of the player's pockets for a century.
In 1958 Frank Gifford was the golden boy on the glamour team in the most celebrated city in the NFL. When his New York Giants played the Baltimore Colts for the league championship that year, it became the single most memorable contest in the history of professional football. Broadcast to an audience of millions, it was the first title game ever to go into sudden-death overtime. Its drama, excitement, and controversy riveted the nation and helped propel football to the forefront of the American sports landscape.Now, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of 'The Greatest Game Ever Played,' New York Giants Hall of Famer and longtime television analyst Frank Gifford provides an inside-the-helmet account that will take its place in the annals of sports literature. Drawing on the poignant and humorous memories of every living player from the game — including fellow Hall of Famers Sam Huff, Andy Robustelli, Art Donovan, Lenny Moore, and Raymond Berry — as well as the author's own experiences and reflections, The Glory Game captures a magnificent moment in American sports history. It is the story of two very different cities and teams, filled with the joy, the disappointment, and the eternal pride of a day that will forever symbolize all that is great about sports.Told with gripping immediacy, The Glory Game is an indelible portrait of the NFL's most transcendent hours — a winter version of The Boys of Summer, told by one of football's true legends.
"Written so that the sports fan (even if neither a lawyer nor a Yankees' fan) will delight in reading these accounts of how the worlds of baseball and law intersect, the book regales the reader with stories about the players, the team, and the history of baseball. Anecdotes, personal reflections, baseball facts, players' and owners' peccadilloes, and the legal issues that have impacted the Yankees are skillfully woven together. Baseball aficionados will enjoy the insights provided by the discussion of various legal concepts, and lawyer sports fans will appreciate the application of familiar legal principles on and off the baseball diamond"--BOOK JACKET.
With the possible exception of Babe Ruth, there are more myths and legends about Leroy "Satchel" Paige than about anyone in baseball history. A slender, loose-limbed, slow-walking, hard-thrower from baseball's late pre-integration era, Paige was considered by many to be the greatest pitcher who ever lived. The claim is hard to dispute, since Paige was at least in his forties by the time the major leagues were willing to admit men of color, so his record is more anecdotal than statistical. (Even Satch's exact age is a figure of controversy, and some say he may have been fifty by the time he joined the Cleveland Indians.) His reputation is based on his years in the Negro leagues, and on the times he pitched for barnstorming teams that played against major leaguers. Satch's feats were legendary. He could warm up by throwing strikes not over home plate but over a matchbook. On a signal from Satch all his fielders would gather in the infield and sit and watch while he struck out the side, usually on nine pitches. He could pitch both ends of a doubleheader, and then do it again the next day in another city a couple of hundred miles down the road. He threw a blazing fastball with pinpoint control, a hesitation pitch that left hitters half-corkscrewed into the ground, and a baffling breaking ball he called the "Bat Dodger." His famous rules for living, published in Collier's magazine in the 1950s, included the advice to "Avoid fried foods, which angry up the blood" and "Don't look back, something might be gaining on you." All this describes the legend of Satchel Paige. But who was the man? At his peak, Satch was a star on a par with the great black entertainers such as Cab Calloway, Bill Bojangles Robinson, and Louis Armstrong. But he was never popular among his teammates and opponents; he insisted on the prerogatives of a star, he could not be counted on to show up on time, and he insisted on being paid top dollar, never hesitating to jump from one team to another if the price was right. When Satch was finally brought to the big leagues by Bill Veeck, it was hardly the culmination of a lifelong dream; Satch was mostly concerned that he not have to take a pay cut to do it, and that he could protect his right to barnstorm during the winter months. Mark Ribowsky strips away the caricature that has grown up around this great athlete, and shows the real Satchel Paige in the context of his times. In doing so, he gives the best picture yet of life in the Negro leagues, free of the well-meaning but overly romantic visions of recent historians and resurrectionists. Ribowsky shows us the gangsters and shady characters for whom Paige and all the others played for most of their careers, and the battles and cutthroat dealings among them that make today's sports structure like a tea party. By honoring Paige's greatness without shrouding him in condescending myth, Ribowsky does justice to the man who, yes, may well have been the greatest pitcher ever. In Don't Look Back, Ribowsky puts real flesh on the bones of a legend no smaller in stature than that of Babe Ruth - and does so in a book to rank with the best of baseball biography.
