An ex-Wall Street trader improved on "Moneyball's" famed sabermetrics to place bets that would beat the Vegas odds on Major League Baseball games--with a 41 percent return in his first year. "Trading Bases" explains how he did it.
"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.
"In this biography, Richard Ben Cramer presents a stunning, often shocking portrait of the hero nobody knew. It is a story that sweeps through the twentieth century, bringing to light along the way not just America's national game, but her movie stars, mobsters, pols, writers...the birth (and the price) of modern national celebrity.". "This is the story Joe DiMaggio never wanted to tell - and never wanted anyone else to tell. It is the story of his grace - and greed; his dignity, pride - and hidden shame. After five years of relentless reporting, Cramer brings alive, for the first time, the story of DiMaggio the man."--BOOK JACKET.
Maybe driving home after a few (or more) shots of tequila had been a bad idea, but hell, he did it all the time. The cops had to have been freaking bored to have pulled him over. He wasn't even swerving! That's Cage York's story and he's sticking to it. Unfortunately, his baseball coach isn't buying it. Cage has a free ride to the local junior college for baseball -- or he did, until he'd gotten a DUI. Now, Cage has to decide: does he drop out and give up his dream of getting noticed by a college in the SEC, and possibly making it into the Major Leagues -- or does he give in to his coach's demands and spend his summer baling hay? Eva Brooks planned out her life step by step when she was eight years old. Not once over the years had she lost sight of her goals. Josh Beasley, her next door neighbor, had been the center of those goals. He'd been her first boyfriend at seven, her first kiss at ten, her first date at fifteen, and her first tragedy at eighteen. The moment she'd received the phone call from Josh's mother saying he'd been killed along with four other soldiers just north of Baghdad, Eva's carefully planned life imploded in the worst way possible. Cage isn't real happy with his closet-sized bedroom in the back of a foul smelling barn, or his daily interactions with cows, but he knows that if he doesn't make his coach happy then he can kiss his scholarship goodbye. Only a sick and twisted man would decide his punishment was to be working on a farm all summer. No hot babes in bikinis waiting to meet a Southern boy to make her vacation complete. Just him and the damned cows. Oh -- and an uptight, snarky brunette with the biggest blue eyes he's every seen. But she doesn't count, because as hard as he's tried to charm her out of her panties - he's pretty sure she'd rather see him hung from the rafters than let him get a taste of her pretty little lips.
