by Abbi Glines (2013)
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.
Lorna Seilstad
Suffragette Emily Graham resists her relatives' attempts to find her a husband among the guests at the Lake Manawa resort, while Carter Stockton enjoys pitching for the Manawa Owls baseball team and dreads going into business.
John Eisenberg
"The fascinating story of baseball's most legendary "Iron Men," Cal Ripken Jr. and Lou Gehrig, who each achieved the coveted and sometimes confounding record of most consecutive games played. When Cal Ripken Jr. began his career with the Baltimore Orioles at age twenty-one, he had no idea he'd beat the historic record of playing 2,130 games in a row set by Lou Gehrig, the fabled "Iron Horse" of the New York Yankees. When Ripken beat that record by 502 games, the baseball world was floored. Few feats in sports history have generated more acclaim. But the record spawns an array of questions. Was his streak or Gehrig's the more difficult achievement? Who owned the record before Gehrig? When did someone first think it was a good idea to play in so many games without taking a day off? Through probing research, meticulous analysis, and colorful parallel storytelling, The Streak delves into this impressive but controversial milestone, unraveling Gehrig's at times unwitting pursuit of that goal and Ripken's fierce determination to play the game his way. Along the way Eisenberg dives deep into the history of the record and offers a portrait of the pastime in different eras, going back more than a century. The question looms: Was it harder for Ripken or Gehrig to play every day for so long? The length of seasons, the number of teams in the major leagues, the inclusion of non-white players, travel, technology, and even media are all part of the equation. Larger than all of this, however, is a book that captures the deeply American appreciation--as seen in the sport itself--for that workaday mentality and that desire to be there for the game they love, the job they are paid to do"-- When Cal Ripken Jr. began his career with the Baltimore Orioles he had no idea he'd beat the historic record of playing 2,130 games in a row set by Lou Gehrig, the fabled "Iron Horse" of the New York Yankees. When Ripken beat that record by 502 games, the baseball world was floored. Through probing research, meticulous analysis, and colorful parallel storytelling, Eisenberg unravels Gehrig's at times unwitting pursuit of that goal and Ripken's fierce determination to play the game his way.
Mary Pope Osborne
Their magic tree house takes Jack and Annie back to retrieve a lost story in ancient Greece, where they witness the original Olympic games and are surprised to find what girls of the time were not allowed to do.
Marvin Miller
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.