Josh Hamilton was the first player chosen in the first round of the
1999 baseball draft. He was destined to be one of those rare "high-character
" superstars. But in 2001, working his way from the minors to the majors,
all of the plans for Josh went off the rails in a moment of weakness. What
followed was a 4-year nightmare of drugs and alcohol, estrangement from
friends and family, and his eventual suspension from baseball.
BEYOND BELIEF details the events that led up to the derailment. Josh
explains how a young man destined for fame and wealth could allow his life
to be taken over by drugs and alcohol. But it is also the memoir of a spiritual
journey that breaks through pain and heartbreak and leads to the spectacular
rebirth of his major-league career.
Josh Hamilton makes no excuses and places no blame on anyone other
than himself. He takes responsibility for his poor decisions and believes
his story can help millions who battle the same demons. "I have been given
a platform to tell my story" he says. "I pray every night I am a good messenger."
Also, as part of the paperback edition of BEYOND BELIEF, Josh's journey
has been updated to include developments in his recovery.
The
Captain: The Journey of Derek Jeter by Ian O'Connor
Hardcover from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt ISBN: 0547327935 Every spring, Little Leaguers
across the country mimic his stance and squabble over the right to wear
his number, 2, the next number to be retired by the world's most famous
ball team. Derek Jeter is their hero. He walks in the footsteps of Ruth,
Gehrig, DiMaggio, and Mantle, and someday his shadow will loom just as
large. Yet he has never been the best player in baseball. In fact, he hasn't
always been the best player on his team. But his intangible grace and Jordanesque
ability to play big in the biggest of postseason moments make him the face
of the modern Yankee dynasty, and of America's game.In The Captain,
best-selling author Ian O'Connor draws on extensive reporting and unique
access to Jeter that has spanned some fifteen years to reveal how a biracial
kid from Michigan became New York's most beloved sports figure and the
enduring symbol of the steroid-free athlete. O'Connor takes us behind the
scenes of a legendary baseball life and career, from Jeter's early struggles
in the minor leagues, when homesickness and errors in the field threatened
a stillborn career, to his heady days as a Yankee superstar and prince
of the city who squired some of the world's most beautiful women, to his
tense battles with former best friend A-Rod. We also witness Jeter struggling
to come to terms with his declining skills and the declining favor of the
only organization he ever wanted to play for, leading to a contentious
contract negotiation with the Yankees that left people wondering if Jeter
might end his career in a uniform without pinstripes.Derek Jeter's march
toward the Hall of Fame has been dignified and certain, but behind that
leadership and hero's grace there are hidden struggles and complexities
that have never been explored, until now. As Jeter closes in on 3,000 hits,
a number no Yankee has ever touched, The Captain offers an incisive,
exhilarating, and revealing new look at one of the game's greatest players
in the gloaming of his career.Every spring, Little Leaguers across the
country mimic his stance and squabble over the right to wear his number,
2, the next number to be retired by the world's most famous ball team.
Derek Jeter is their hero. He walks in the footsteps of Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio,
and Mantle, and someday his shadow will loom just as large. Yet he has
never been the best player in baseball. In fact, he hasn't always been
the best player on his team. But his intangible grace and Jordanesque ability
to play big in the biggest of postseason moments make him the face of the
modern Yankee dynasty, and of America's game.In The Captain, best-selling
author Ian O'Connor draws on extensive reporting and unique
access to Jeter that has spanned some fifteen years to reveal how a
biracial kid from Michigan became New York's most beloved sports figure
and the enduring symbol of the steroid-free athlete. O'Connor takes us
behind the scenes of a legendary baseball life and career, from Jeter's
early struggles in the minor leagues, when homesickness and errors in the
field threatened a stillborn career, to his heady days as a Yankee superstar
and prince of the city who squired some of the world's most beautiful women,
to his tense battles with former best friend A-Rod. We also witness Jeter
struggling to come to terms with his declining skills and the declining
favor of the only organization he ever wanted to play for, leading to a
contentious contract negotiation with the Yankees that left people wondering
if Jeter might end his career in a uniform without pinstripes.Derek Jeter's
march toward the Hall of Fame has been dignified and certain, but behind
that leadership and hero's grace there are hidden struggles and complexities
that have never been explored, until now. As Jeter closes in on 3,000 hits,
a number no Yankee has ever touched, The Captain offers an incisive,
exhilarating, and revealing new look at one of the game's greatest players
in the gloaming of his career.
When baseball fans voted on the top twenty-five players of the twentieth
century in 1999, Stan Musial didn't make the cut. This glaring omission--later
rectified by a panel of experts--raised an important question: How could
a first-ballot Hall of Famer, widely considered one of the greatest hitters
in baseball history, still rank as the most underrated athlete of all time?
In Stan Musial, veteran sports journalist George Vecsey finally
gives this twenty-time All-Star and St. Louis Cardinals icon the kind of
prestigious biographical treatment previously afforded to his more celebrated
contemporaries Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio. More than just a chronological
recounting of the events of Musial's life, this is the definitive portrait
of one of the game's best-loved but most unappreciated legends, told through
the remembrances of those who played beside, worked with, and covered "Stan
the Man" over the course of his nearly seventy years in the national spotlight.
Stan Musial never married a starlet. He didn't die young, live too
hard, or squander his talent. There were no legendary displays of temper
or moodiness. He was merely the most consistent superstar of his era, a
scarily gifted batsman who compiled 3,630 career hits (1,815 at home and
1,815 on the road), won three World Series titles, and retired in 1963
in possession of seventeen major-league records. Away from the diamond,
he proved a savvy businessman and a model of humility and graciousness
toward his many fans in St. Louis and around the world. From Keith Hernandez's
boyhood memories of Musial leaving tickets for him when the Cardinals were
in San Francisco to the little-known story of Musial's friendship with
novelist James Michener--and their mutual association with Pope John Paul
II--Vecsey weaves an intimate oral history around one of the great gentlemen
of baseball's Greatest Generation.
There may never be another Stan the Man, a fact that future Hall of
Famer Albert Pujols--reluctantly nicknamed "El Hombre" in Musial's honor--is
quick to acknowledge. But thanks to this long-overdue reappraisal, even
those who took his greatness for granted will learn to appreciate him all
over again.
The
Bullpen Gospels: Major League Dreams of a Minor League Veteran by Dirk Hayhurst
Paperback from Citadel Press ISBN: 0806531436 "After many minutes, hours,
days, weeks, months and years spent in the bullpen, I can verify that this
is a true picture of baseball."--Tim McCarver "There are great truths within,
of the kind usually unspoken. And as he expresses them, Dirk Hayhurst describes
himself as 'a real person who moonlights as a baseball player.' In much
the same manner, while The Bullpen Gospels chronicles how all of us face
the impact when we learn reality is both far meaner and far richer than
our dreams--it also moonlights as one of the best baseball books ever written."--Keith
Olbermann "A bit of Jim Bouton, a bit of Jim Brosnan, a bit of Pat Jordan,
a bit of crash Davis, and a whole lot of Dirk Hayhurst. Often hilarious,
sometimes poignant. This is a really enjoyable baseball read."--Bob Costas
"Fascinating. . .a perspective that fans rarely see."--Trevor Hoffman,
pitcher for the Milwaukee Brewers "The Bullpen Gospels is a rollicking
good bus ride of a book. Hayhurst illuminates a baseball life not only
with wit and humor, but also with thought-provoking introspection."--Tom
Verducci, Sports Illustrated "Dirk Hayhurst has written a fascinating,
funny and honest account on life in the minor leagues. I loved it. Writers
can't play baseball, but in this case, a player sure can write."--Tim Kurkjian,
Senior Writer, ESPN The Magazine, analyst/reporter ESPN television "Bull
Durham meets Ball Four in Dirk Hayhurst's hilarious and moving account
of life in baseball's glamour-free bush leagues."--Rob Neyer, ESPN.com
"If Holden Caulfield could dial up his fastball to 90 mph, he might
have written this funny, touching memoir about a ballplayer at a career--and
life--crossroads. He might have called it 'Pitcher in the Rye.' Instead,
he left it to Dirk Hayhurst, the only writer in the business who can make
you laugh, make you cry and strike out Ryan Howard."--King Kaufman, Salon
"The Bullpen Gospels is a funny bone-tickling, tear duct-stimulating, feel-good
story that will leave die-hard baseball fans--and die-hard human beings,
for that matter--well, feeling good."--Bob Mitchell, author of Once Upon
a Fastball
Baseball was different in earlier days--tougher, rawer, more intimate--when
giants like Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb ran the bases. In the monumental classic
The
Glory of Their Times, the golden era of our national pastime comes
alive through the vibrant words of those who played and lived the game.
The voices of the game's distant past continue to reverberate with a
distinct freshness in Lawrence S. Ritter's The Glory of Their Times.
An oral history of the game in the first two decades of the century, Glory
sends out its impressive roster of players to tell their own stories, and
what stories they tell--the story of their times as well as of their game;
the scorecard includes Rube Marquard, Babe Herman, Stan Coveleski, Smoky
Joe Wood, and Wahoo Sam Crawford. A delight from cover to cover, Glory
is the next best thing to having been there in the days when the ball may
have been dead, but the personalities were anything but.
The
Yankee Years by Joe Torre, Tom Verducci
Paperback from Anchor Media Published: 2010- ISBN: 0767930428
The definitive story of one of the greatest dynasties in baseball history,
Joe Torre's New York Yankees.
When Joe Torre took over as manager of the Yankees in 1996, they had
not won a World Series title in eighteen years. In that time seventeen
others had tried to take the helm of America's most famous baseball team.
Each one was fired by George Steinbrenner. After twelve triumphant seasons--with
twelve straight playoff appearances, six pennants, and four World Series
titles--Torre left the Yankees as the most beloved manager in baseball.
But dealing with players like Jason Giambi, A-Rod, Derek Jeter, Mariano
Rivera, Roger Clemens, and Randy Johnson is what managing is all about.
Here, for the first time, Joe Torre and Tom Verducci take readers inside
the dugout, the clubhouse, and the front office, showing what it took to
keep the Yankees on top of the baseball world.
No immortal in the history of baseball retired so young, so well, or
so completely as Sandy Koufax. After compiling a remarkable record from
1962 to 1966 that saw him lead the National League in ERA all five years,
win three Cy Young awards, and pitch four no-hitters including a perfect
game, Koufax essentially disappeared. Save for his induction into the Hall
of Fame and occasional appearances at the Dodgers training camp, Koufax
has remained unavailable, unassailable, and unsullied, in the process becoming
much more than just the best pitcher of his generation. He is the Jewish
boy from Brooklyn, who refused to pitch the opening game of the 1965 World
Series on Yom Kippur, defining himself as a man who placed faith over fame.
This act made him the standard to which Jewish parents still hold their
children. Except for his autobiography (published in 1966), Koufax has
resolutely avoided talking about himself. But through sheer doggedness
that even Koufax came to marvel at, Jane Leavy was able to gain his trust
to the point where they talked regularly over the three years Leavy reported
her book. With Koufax's blessing, Leavy interviewed nearly every one of
his former teammates, opponents, and friends, and emerged with a portrait
of the artist that is as thorough and stylish as was his command on the
pitching mound.
No owner has changed the landscape of sports more than New York Yankees
owner George Steinbrenner. From the moment he bought the team in 1973 for
$10 million, Steinbrenner's monomaniacal pursuit was to restore the most
fabled franchise in baseball history to its former glory. Today the New
York Yankees are worth more than $1 billion and are once again world champions.
Award-winning sportswriter Bill Madden traces Steinbrenner from his
early days in Cleveland through his years as a shipping magnate, a Nixon
fund-raiser, and a champion horse breeder to the fateful moment when he
bought the Yankees, even though his father disparaged George's desire to
own a professional sports team as a "hobby." Over the next four decades,
Steinbrenner's tumultuous reign included his epic battles with Billy Martin,
Reggie Jackson, Dave Winfield, even beloved Yankee captain Derek Jeter.
His ruthless and free-spending tactics made him a lightning rod for controversy
but they also paid off: Steinbrenner's Yankees have won seven championships
and remain the gold standard in all sports. In the last few years, with
his health declining, the Boss ceded control of the team to his sons, but
not before lording over the team's historic transition from the House That
Ruth Built to the House That George Built.
Throughout his three decades of covering the Yankees, Bill Madden has
cultivated hundreds of sources at every level in the organization, from
the many managers and front-office personnel Steinbrenner has fired to
the bat boys who are ever present in the locker room. All of them have
colorful stories about the man with whom they have enjoyed a love-hate
relationship, but it is the Boss himself whose voice rises above the rest.
And when Steinbrenner decided to give his final print interview, he spoke
to Madden to set the record straight on his extraordinary life and career.
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