Staff Picks
Batter Up for the Next Season of Baseball
- Ariel H.
- Friday, April 16, 2021
Collection
Whether you watch on TV or attend the games in person, it's time to gear up and get your head back in the game. There's a mixture of books, videos, and eOption material for spectators and the aspiring/training athlete.
Batter UP!
Bad News Bears
Published in 2017
A grizzled former minor league baseball player is recruited to coach a woefully inept Little League team to a championship against their hated rivals, the Yankees.
Baseball America's Ultimate Draft Book
Published in 2016
"The Baseball America 50th Anniversary Draft Book combines all the information of a great reference title with all the great stories that make draft history so rich. For every year of the draft, from 1965-2015, you'll get a complete team by team draft list, with who signed and who didn't, who reached the big leagues and who washed out. And the draft lists are more than just lists; they also feature interesting tidbits on people who became prominent baseball or in other sports or other careers altogether. You'll get the story of the most prominent storylines and people for every year of the draft, as well as plenty of charts and photos to take you in-depth on every year. This book will feature lots of information that has never been publicly available before, especially with signing bonuses from the early days of the draft. It goes without saying that anyone who has an interest in the baseball draft will have to have this book, but anyone who loves good stories (longshots that became major league stars, touted phenoms who washed out) will find fun on every page of this book.''--Amazon.com
The Baseball Coaching Bible
Published in 2000
Baseball's Best Short Stories
Published in 1995
Brockmire. The Complete First Season
Published in 2019
"A famed major-league baseball announcer who suffers an embarrassing and very public meltdown live on the after discovering his beloved wife's serial infidelity decides to reclaim his career and love life in a small town a decade later."--Container.
Brockmire. The Complete Fourth Season
Published in 2020
The year is 2030, and Jim Brockmire is now the commissioner of baseball. Jim's struggles with sobriety are behind him, however, it is up to him to save baseball while juggling his love life and his relationship with his newfound daughter.
Brockmire. The Complete Second Season
Published in 2018
Now in New Orleans, Jim Brockmire strives to break back out of the minors and back into the major leagues while continuing his popular podcast. Jim faces a whole new level of drunken debauchery that The Big Easy makes so easy.
Brockmire. The Complete Third Season
Published in 2019
Attempting to rebuild his life while navigating his new sobriety, Brockmire moves to Florida, where he calls MLB Spring Training games for Oakland alongside former softball star Gabby Taylor
The Bronx is Burning
Published in 2007
Traces the arc of a city and a team reborn through one of the most dramatic events in New York City history - the 1977 World Series.
Eastbound & Down. The Complete First Season
Published in 2009
Kenny Powers, a washed-up former Major League Baseball star, is forced to return to his hometown to teach P.E. at his old middle school. While preparing for his triumphant return to the big leagues, Kenny moves in with his brother's family and proves adept at burning every bridge he crosses.
Eastbound & Down. The Complete Fourth Season
Published in 2014
Kenny Powers, a washed-up former Major League Baseball star, continues his ongoing pursuit of a comeback. While preparing for his triumphant return to the big leagues, Kenny becomes a family man, but still proves adept at burning every bridge he crosses.
Eastbound & Down. The Complete Second Season
Published in 2011
The second season of its outrageous, irreverent half-hour, hit comedy series about an arrogant, burned-out, former Major League pitcher named Kenny Powers. In Season 2, Kenny will take up residence in a small Mexican town; there, joined by his lackey Stevie Janowski and a new love interest, Vida, he'll fashion a comeback scenario that involves a local baseball team, the Charros, and its filthy-rich owner, Sebastian Cisneros.
Eastbound & Down. The Complete Third Season
Published in 2012
Picking up a year after Season 2 ends, the still-audacious Kenny goes to Myrtle Beach, SC, a tourist destination filled with fireworks stores, mini-golf and underage boozing and somehow resurrects his baseball career as the closer for the minor-league Myrtle Beach Mermen. Kenny struggles to come to terms with growing older, both in his personal life, and professionally.
Hardball
Published in 2017
Conor O'Neill is about to discover that redemption comes in all different sizes when he is called upon to coach a baseball team of underprivileged kids in one of the toughest parts of Chicago.
Only the Ball Was White
Published in 2007
Pays tribute to the many topflight players from the Negro Leagues in baseball when players were denied stardom by the color line.
Pitch
The Complete Series
Published in 2018
The dramatic and inspirational story of a young pitcher who becomes the first woman to play Major League Baseball, under the glare of a white hot media spotlight.
The Softball Drill Book
Published in 2007
An Insider's Guide to Softball
Published in 2015
Presents a brief history of softball, looks at the game's rules and strategies, and discusses how people can become involved in the sport recreationally.
Big Book of Who
Baseball
Published in 2017
Highlights the careers of notable baseball players, including Josh Gibson, Jose Fernandez, Yogi Berra, Manny Ramirez, and Babe Ruth, dividing them into such categories as record breakers, prime pitchers, and cool characters.
The Last Hero
A Life of Henry Aaron
Published in 2010
In "The Last Hero", Bryant chronicles Aaron's childhood in segregated Alabama, his brief stardom in the Negro Leagues, his complicated relationship with celebrity, and his historic rivalry with Willie Mays--all culminating in the defining event of his life: his shattering of Babe Ruth's all-time home-run record. Bryant also examines Aaron's more complex second act: his quest to become an important voice beyond the ball field.
Baseball Cop
The Dark Side of America's National Pastime
Published in 2018
Describes the corruption, including drug use, theft, and human trafficking, witnessed by the author during his nine years working in security for the Boston Red Sox and his six years working for Major League Baseball to clean up the sport.
Bucky F*cking Dent
Published in 2016
"Ted Fullilove, aka Mr. Peanut, is not like other Ivy League grads. He shares an apartment with Goldberg, his beloved battery-operated fish, sleeps on a bed littered with yellow legal pads penned with what he hopes will be the next great American novel, and spends the waning malaise-filled days of the Carter administration at Yankee Stadium, waxing poetic while slinging peanuts to pay the rent. When Ted hears the news that his estranged father, Marty, is dying of lung cancer, he immediately moves back into his childhood home, where a whirlwind of revelations ensues. The browbeating absentee father of his youth is trying to make up for lost time, but his health dips drastically whenever his beloved Red Sox lose. And so, with help from a crew of neighborhood old-timers and the lovely Mariana--Marty's Nuyorican grief counselor--Ted orchestrates the illusion of a Sox winning streak, enabling Marty and the Red Sox to reverse the Curse of the Bambino and cruise their way to World Series victory. Well, sort of. David Duchovny's richly drawn Bucky F&%@ing Dent is a story of the bond between fathers and sons, Yankee fans and the Fenway faithful, and grapples with the urgent need to find our story in an age of irony and artifice. Culminating in that fateful moment in October of '78 when the meek Bucky Dent hit his way into baseball history with the unlikeliest of home runs, this tragicomic novel demonstrates that life truly belongs to the losers--that the long shots are the ones worth betting on. Bucky F&%@ing is a singular tale that brims with the hilarity, poignance, and profound solitude of modern life"-- Provided by publisher.
One Nation Under Baseball
How the 1960s Collided with the National Pastime
Published in 2017
"One Nation Under Baseball highlights the intersection between American society and America's pastime during the 1960s, when the hallmarks of the sport--fairness, competition, and mythology--came under scrutiny. John Florio and Ouisie Shapiro examine the events of the era that reshaped the game: the Koufax and Drysdale million-dollar holdout, the encroachment of television on newspaper coverage, the changing perception of ballplayers from mythic figures to overgrown boys, the arrival of the everyman Mets and their free-spirited fans, and the lawsuit brought against team owners by Curt Flood. One Nation Under Baseball brings to life the seminal figures of the era--including Bob Gibson, Marvin Miller, Tom Seaver, and Dick Young--richly portraying their roles during a decade of flux and uncertainty."-- Provided by publisher.
7
The Mickey Mantle Novel
Published in 2007
A fictional memoir inspired by the life of the iconic baseball star places a surprised late Mantle in heaven, where he confesses the truth about how he hurt his loved ones, alienated his fans, succumbed to alcoholism, and otherwise fell short of deserving the adulation directed toward him throughout his career.
The Proposal
Published in 2018
"When someone asks you to spend your life with him, it shouldn't come as a surprise--or happen in front of 45,000 people. When freelance writer Nikole Paterson goes to a Dodgers game with her actor boyfriend, his man bun, and his bros, the last thing she expects is a scoreboard proposal. Saying no isn't the hard part--they've only been dating for five months, and he can't even spell her name correctly. The hard part is having to face a stadium full of disappointed fans... At the game with his sister, Carlos Ibarra comes to Nik's rescue and rushes her away from a camera crew. He's even there for her when the video goes viral and Nik's social media blows up--in a bad way. Nik knows that in the wilds of LA, a handsome doctor like Carlos can't be looking for anything serious, so she embarks on an epic rebound with him, filled with food, fun, and fantastic sex. But when their glorified hookups start breaking the rules, one of them has to be smart enough to put on the brakes.."-- Provided by publisher.
The Art of Fielding
A Novel
Published in 2011
"At Westish College, a small school on the shore of Lake Michigan, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for big-league stardom. But when a routine throw goes disastrously off course, the fates of five people are upended."--from publisher's description.
Willie Mays
The Life, the Legend
Published in 2010
Authorized by Willie Mays and written by a "New York Times" bestselling author, this is the definitive biography of one of baseball's immortals.
The Resisters
Published in 2020
An audacious wonder of a novel about baseball and a future America, from the always inventive and exciting author of The Love Wife and Who's Irish. The time: Some thirty-five years hence. The place: AutoAmerica--governed by "Aunt Nettie," an iBurrito of AI algorithms and the internet, in a land half under water. The people: Divided into the angelfair "Netted," whose fate it is to have jobs and live on high ground, and the mostly coppertoned "Surplus," whose jobs have been stripped and whose sole duty now is to consume, living in plastic houses that talk and multi-colored houseboats at the water's edge. Neither group is happy. The story: A Surplus family--he was once a professor, she is still a lawyer--has a girl child, Gwen, who's born with a golden arm. By two she can throw her toy animals straight to the same spot every time. When AutoAmerica and ChinRussia decide to revive the Olympics, suddenly Gwen, who's been playing in the Resisters League her parents have organized, is in great demand. Soon she's at angelfair university, Net U, falling in love with her baseball coach and facing questions of "crossing over," while her mother and her "group" are bringing charges before the botjudge about Surplus rights. An amazing story of a world that looks only too possible, and a family struggling to maintain its humanity in circumstances that daily threaten their every value as well as their very existence.
Baseball Buzz
Published in 2017
Jackson loves baseball, but a bee in the outfield causes him to miss a fly ball, and the game is stopped until the bee finally departs.
Baseball
Published in 2010
Young readers will learn about baseball through simple sentences and highly supportive pictures.
Butterfly Winter
A Novel
Published in 2013
Follows the story of Julio and Esteban Pimental, twins from a Caribbean country called Courteguay, who both want to play Major League Baseball in the United States.
Baseball--rules of the Game
Published in 1997
Surveys the rules of baseball, covering such aspects as strikes, walks, outs, innings, and runs.
Softball Switch-Up
Published in 2019
Raisa Kumar has been playing softball for years, and thanks to the support and encouragement of her team, the Silver Stars, she's one of the best pitchers in the league. When a new girl, Annie, joins the team and wants to learn how to pitch, Raisa is eager to help. But Raisa is sure her way is the best way, what words for her has to work for Annie. Can Raisa lean to step back and share the mound for the good of her team?
Molina
The Story of the Father Who Raised an Unlikely Baseball Dynasty
Published in 2015
"The inspiring true story of the poor Puerto Rican factory worker, Benjamin Molina Santana, who against all odds raised the greatest baseball dynasty of all time: Molina's three sons--Bengie, Jose, and Yadier--have each earned two World Series rings, which is unprecedented in the sport, and his story is told by one of them, Bengie. A baseball rules book. A tape measure. A lottery ticket. These were in the pocket of Bengie Molina's father when he died of a heart attack on the rutted Little League field in his Puerto Rican barrio. The items serve as thematic guideposts in Molina's beautiful memoir about his father, who through baseball taught his three sons about loyalty, humility, courage, and the true meaning of success. Bengie and his two brothers--Jose and six-time All-Star Yadier--became famous catchers in the Major Leagues and have six World Series championships among them. Only the DiMaggio brothers can rival the Molinas as the most accomplished siblings in baseball history. Bengie was the least likely to reach the Majors. He was too slow, too sensitive, and too small. But craving his beloved father's respect, Bengie weathered failure after deflating failure until one day he was hoisting a World Series trophy in a champagne-soaked clubhouse. All along he thought he was fulfilling his father's own failed dream of baseball glory--only to discover it had not been his father's dream at all. Written with the emotional power of sports classics such as Field of Dreams and Friday Night Lights, Molina is a love story between a formidable but flawed father and a son who, in unearthing answers about his father's life, comes to understand his own"-- Provided by publisher.
Double Switch
A Novel
Published in 2016
Relief pitcher/private investigator Johnny Adcock doesn't have an office; he has the bullpen. That's where he sits shelling sunflower seeds when in walks a femme-fatale blonde claiming to be a TV reporter. She is Tiff Tate, the highly-paid stylist responsible for half the looks in Major League Baseball, from Brian Wilson's beard to Big Papi's gold ropes. Tiff has a problem. Yonel Ruiz-the rookie phenom who infamously escaped from Cuba by surviving for a week on the open sea in an inflatable raft-is her new prize client . . . but there is much more to his story than the media know. With his life threatened by a cartel of people smugglers and his family still vulnerable in Cuba, Ruiz can't go to the cops or the press. Johnny Adcock is his only hope.
The Cactus League
Published in 2020
"A novel about baseball spring training set in Arizona"-- Provided by publisher.
Papi
My Story
Published in 2017
David "Big Papi" Ortiz is a baseball icon and one of the most popular figures ever to play the game. As a key part of the Boston Red Sox for 14 years, David has helped the team win 3 World Series, bringing back a storied franchise from "never wins" to "always wins." He helped them upend the doubts, the naysayers, the nonbelievers and captured the imagination of millions of fans along the way, as he launched balls into the stands again, and again, and again. He made Boston and the Red Sox his home, his place of work, and his legacy. In Papi, his ultimate memoir, Ortiz opens up as never before about his life in baseball and about the problems he sees in Major League Baseball, about former teammates, opponents, coaches, and executives, and about the weight of expectation whenever he stepped up to the plate. The result is a revelatory, fly-on-the wall story of a career by a player with a lot to say at the end of his time in the game, a game to which he gave so much and which gave so much to him.
Let's Play Two
The Legend of Mr. Cub, the Life of Ernie Banks
Published in 2019
"The definitive and revealing biography of Chicago Cubs legend Ernie Banks, one of America's most iconic, beloved, and misunderstood baseball players, by acclaimed journalist Ron Rapoport"-- Provided by publisher.
Jackie Robinson
American Hero
Published in 2013
Chronicles the life and career of the pioneering baseball player, discussing his impact on civil rights.
Straw
Finding My Way
Published in 2009
Former baseball slugger Darryl Strawberry, whose achievements on the field were often overshadowed by his struggles off the field, recounts the highs, the lows, and the lessons of hope and survival he learned along the way. Darryl grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Los Angeles, where he channeled his energy into baseball and basketball. The New York Mets drafted him in 1980, and he won Rookie of the Year in 1983. Throughout the eighties and nineties, however, Strawberry faced many personal challenges, including drug use, tax evasion, solicitation, and allegations of domestic violence. His seasons with the Dodgers, Giants, and Yankees were interrupted by suspensions, visits to rehab, and treatment for colon cancer. But in 2006, Strawberry's life changed course dramatically. With his wife, Tracy, he devoted himself to his church and to his work with children and adults affected by autism and other developmental disorders. Here, for the first time, Darryl Strawberry delivers his own inspirational story.--From publisher description.
The Baseball Codes
Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-clearing Brawls
Published in 2010
Everyone knows that baseball is a game of complicated rules, but it turns out to be even more complex than we realize. Jason Turbow and Michael Duca take us behind the scenes of the great American pastime. Players talk about the game as they never have before, breaking the code of secrecy that surrounds so much of baseball, both on the field and in the clubhouse. We learn why pitchers sometimes do retaliate when one of their teammates is hit by a pitch and other times let it go. We hear about the subtle forms of payback that occur when a player violates the rules out of ignorance instead of disrespect. We find out why cheating is acceptable (but getting caught at cheating is not), and how off-field tensions can get worked out on the diamond. These tacit rules are illuminated with often incredible stories about everyone from national heroes true eccentrics.--From publisher description.
The Bona Fide Legend of Cool Papa Bell
Speed, Grace, and the Negro Leagues
Published in 2021
Documents the life of the Negro League star and Hall of Famer, tracing Bell's sharecropping heritage, his extraordinary switch-hitting talents, and how Major League Baseball's racial barriers impacted his career.
Béisbol!
Latino Baseball Pioneers and Legends
Published in 2001
Presents profiles of fourteen Latino baseball players who, from 1900 through the 1960s, were pioneers of the sport in their home countries and the United States.