Greatest Baseball Stories Ever Told: Thirty Unforgettable Tales From The Diamond / Edition 1

by Jeff Silverman

Overview

At a 1931 barnstorming exhibition game in Tennessee, a seventeen-year-old pitcher for the Chattanooga Lookouts struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig back to back. Her name was Jackie Mitchell—"organized baseball's first girl pitcher." On September 9, 1965, Sandy Koufax made baseball history by pitching his fourth perfect game. In July 1970, a stripper rushed onto the field at Riverfront Stadium to kiss Johnny Bench, temporarily disrupting a game attended by President Nixon and his family. These are just some of the great, quirky, and comic moments in the annals of baseball recorded in THE GREATEST BASEBALL STORIES EVER TOLD. Here also are profiles of such legendary figures as Joe DiMaggio, Pete Rose, and Yogi Berra, essays that explore the complexities and pleasures of the game, even an excerpt from the movie Bull Durham. This is the perfect book for anyone who has ever played so much as a game of catch.

Contributors include:

John Updike
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Abbott & Costello
Ring Lardner
Bill Barich
Zane Grey
David James Duncan
Al Stump
Pete Hamill
P.G. Wodehouse
Damon Runyan
Roy Blount, Jr.
Richard Ben Cramer
Gay Talese
A. Bartlett Giamatti and many more

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781592280834
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	01/01/2004
Series:	Greatest
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	265,544
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Jeff Silverman, a former columnist for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, has written for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and several national magazines. He is also editor of The Greatest Baseball Stories Ever Told, Lardner on Baseball, The Greatest Golf Stories Ever Told, Classic Golf Stories, Bernard Darwin on Golf, and The Greatest Boxing Stories Ever Told.

Table of Contents

	Introduction	ix
	Who's on First?	1
	Wait Till Next Year	9
	The Web of the Game	15
	Alibi Ike	33
	Ty Cobb's Wild, Ten-Month Fight to Live	51
	Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu	73
	Casey at the Congress	87
	Going to the Moon	91
	The Birth of Joe Hardy	103
	A Scotchman, a Phantom, and a Shiny Blue Jacket	111
	On Jackie Robinson	127
	A Mickey Mantle Koan	139
	The Catch	151
	Old Well-Well	155
	His Most Prized Possession Was That '54 Eddie	165
	Keith	171
	Baseball Players Called Her Ma	185
	The Pitcher and the Plutocrat	193
	One Down, 713 to Go	205
	Roger Maris	209
	Home run Fever	213
	Woman Whiffs Ruth and Gehrig	225
	The Silent Season of a Hero	229
	A Native Son's Thoughts	249
	K as in Koufax	263
	The Rocky Road of Pistol Pete	267
	One Vote for Morganna	285
	Yogi	289
	The Thrill of the Grass	309
	The Green Fields of the Mind	319
	About the Editor	323
	Permissions Acknowledgments	325

Editorial Reviews

"Every once in a while, a book publisher comes up with a great concept for a series of books that deserve more than superficial recognition. Such a series is "The Greatest (fill in the blank) Stories Ever Told", anthologies that should win places on many bedside tables. On the long winter nights that lie ahead, such stories make great reading." —The Lexington County Chronicle

From the Publisher