So you think you're a die-hard Tiger fan

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Peter Morris

The Game Behind the Scenes continues and concludes Peter Morris's superb encyclopedia of the national pastime. The initial volume, The Game on the Field, was called by Library Journal "charming, densely packed, yet entirely accessible.... This is heaven for fans of the game and a required addition to all baseball collections." Endlessly fascinating, impeccably researched, and engagingly written, this treasure trove will surprise, delight, and educate even the most knowledgeable fan by dispelling cherished myths and revealing the source of many of baseball's features that we now take for granted. Together, both volumes of A Game of Inches contain nearly a thousand entries that illuminate the origins of items ranging from catchers' masks to hook slides to intentional walks to cork-center baseballs to the reserve clause of baseball's Basic Agreement. The volume on The Game Behind the Scenes concentrates on ballparks, fans, marketing, statistics, the building of teams, and other related aspects of the game--but this is much more than just a reference guide. Award-winning author Peter Morris explains the context that led each new item to emerge when it did, and chronicles the often surprising responses to these innovations. Of few books can it genuinely be said that once you start reading, it's hard to put it down, but A Game of Inches is one of them. It belongs in the pantheon of great baseball books, and will give any reader a deeper appreciation of why baseball matters so much to Americans. - Publisher.

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Abby Czeskleba

"Simple text and full-color photos illustrate facts about the rules, equipment, and records of basketball"--Provided by publisher.

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Amy Whorf McGuiggan

"For anyone who has ever sung "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the seventh-inning stretch and wondered why we sing it when we are already at the ball game, this entertaining book supplies the answers. And why did this song become the sport's anthem rather than one of hundreds of other baseball songs, such as George M. Cohan's "Take Your Girl to the Ball Game," written the same month? This story, told here in full for the first time, evokes the bright hope of turn-of-the-century America, the backstage drama of vaudeville, and the beguiling charm of baseball itself." "Amy Wharf McGuiggan supplies the fascinating details behind the song's beginnings in 1908, when Jack Norworth, a vaudeville headliner and Tin Pan Alley songwriter who had never even been to a game, was inspired by a subway advertisement to create the song that, though a hit in its day, did not become a time-honored tradition until broadcaster Harry Caray and team owner and marketing genius Bill Veeck Jr. reintroduced it during the 1970s. Here is America's game and the American century seen through the prism of one impossibly catchy tune and illustrated throughout with vintage photographs, advertising images, and sheet music culled from America's premier collections."--Jacket.

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Jim Langford

Traces the development of the Chicago Cubs from its beginnings in 1902 to the present, and portrays its managers and players