Guys Dolls And Curveballs Damon Runyon On Baseball

Author : Jim Reisler
Publisher : Da Capo Press
ISBN 13 : 9780786715404
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.05/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Guys, Dolls, and Curveballs: Damon Runyon on Baseball written by Jim Reisler and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 2005-03-17 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Guys, Dolls, and Curveballs is a delightful collection of ballpark dispatches from one of the game's most unique chroniclers—Damon Runyon, the legendary reporter and creator of such mythic gangster icons as Nathan Detroit and the Lemon Drop Kid. Best known as the bard of Broadway for turning two-bit hustlers and deadbeat horseplayers of Jazz Age New York City into literary legend, Runyon was first and foremost a newspaperman. After arriving in New York from Colorado in 1911, Runyon went to work for Hearst News Service as a baseball beat writer. It was at the ballpark that he honed his legendary skills for finding the story where no one else bothered to look. A master wordsmith, Runyon covered giants of the era such as Ty Cobb, and a Boston Red Sox pitcher named Babe Ruth. In addition, he brought an influential style to observing the rituals and rhythms of the ballpark, wryly commenting on everything from the gamblers and bookies doing business to the particular style of hat worn by a woman in the crowd. Editor Jim Reisler collects Runyon's writings on every facet of the game, making this a unique and indispensable look at our beloved pastime.

Author : Joseph James Reisler
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1493052217
Total Pages : 449 pages
Book Rating : 4.19/5 ( download)

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Download or read book I Got the Horse Right Here written by Joseph James Reisler and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-04-25 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Burned out by working the baseball beat for years, in the summer of 1922 Damon Runyon was looking for a new sport to cover for The New York American as a change of pace. Having pilloried golf just a few years before, he went to Saratoga that August to sample horse racing and found that “There, right in front of him, were so many of the characters he so loved from his time covering the comings and goings of the Manhattan night crowd.” This was just the tonic Runyon needed to emerge from his malaise. Runyon didn’t just cover the great races and which horse won: he would get to the track days before and roam along the backstretch, speaking with the trainers, the gamblers, the rich owners, and the wise guys, many of which became model characters in his fiction and in the musical Guys and Dolls. This book collects the best of Runyon’s horse racing columns to 1936, when he moved on to other beats.

Author : J. Brian Ross
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1442236078
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.73/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Baseball's Greatest Comeback written by J. Brian Ross and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2014-08-07 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1914 the Boston Braves experienced the greatest come-from-behind season in baseball history. A perennially woeful team, the Braves rose from the ashes of last place—fifteen games behind on July 4th—to battle in the World Series against the Philadelphia Athletics, one of the most dominant teams of all time.Baseball fans witnessed one of sport’s most spectacular comebacks, and Boston’s National League team earned a new designation: “The Miracle Braves.” Baseball’s Greatest Comeback: The Miracle Braves of 1914 follows the Boston Braves through this rollercoaster year, from their miserable start to their inspiring finish. A collection of likeable, determined, and highly unconventional ballplayers, the Braves endeared themselves to fans who rooted enthusiastically for the team. Sitting in last place midway through the season, the youthful group of castoffs and misfits, many of whom had been rejected by other major league teams, followed the lead of Walter “Rabbit” Maranville, Johnny “The Crab” Evers, and George “Big Daddy” Stallingsto turn things around. The Braves battled their way up the standings, finishing the second half of the season with a miraculous 52 and 14 record. They went on to defeat John McGraw’s powerful New York Giants for the pennant and found themselves face-to-face with the talented Philadelphia Athletics in the World Series. On the 100th anniversary of this memorable season, the 1914 Boston Braves are still remembered as one of the greatest comeback teams in baseball history. Full of timeless images and memorable characters—including a fanatically superstitious manager, a cheerfully madcap star, and an obsessively driven, yet highly sensitive captain—this book will inform and entertain baseball fans and sports historians alike.

Author : Ron Kaplan
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
ISBN 13 : 1496209885
Total Pages : 620 pages
Book Rating : 4.87/5 ( download)

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Download or read book 501 Baseball Books Fans Must Read Before They Die written by Ron Kaplan and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2018-08-01 with total page 620 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Propounding his "small ball theory" of sports literature, George Plimpton proposed that "the smaller the ball, the more formidable the literature." Of course he had the relatively small baseball in mind, because its literature is formidable--vast and varied, instructive, often wildly entertaining, and occasionally brilliant. From this bewildering array of baseball books, Ron Kaplan has chosen 501 of the best, making it easier for fans to find just the books to suit them (or to know what they're missing). From biography, history, fiction, and instruction to books about ballparks, business, and rules, anyone who loves to read about baseball will find in this book a companionable guide, far more fun than a reference work has any right to be.

Author : Edmund F. Wehrle
Publisher : University of Missouri Press
ISBN 13 : 0826274099
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.90/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Breaking Babe Ruth written by Edmund F. Wehrle and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 2018-05-31 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rather than as a Falstaffian figure of limited intellect, Edmund Wehrle reveals Babe Ruth as an ambitious, independent operator, one not afraid to challenge baseball’s draconian labor system. To the baseball establishment, Ruth’s immense popularity represented opportunity, but his rebelliousness and potential to overturn the status quo presented a threat. After a decades-long campaign waged by baseball to contain and discredit him, the Babe, frustrated and struggling with injuries and illness, grew more acquiescent, but the image of Ruth that baseball perpetuated still informs how many people remember Babe Ruth to this day. This new perspective, approaching Ruth more seriously and placing his life in fuller context, is long overdue.

Author : Lee Congdon
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1442277521
Total Pages : 171 pages
Book Rating : 4.26/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Legendary Sports Writers of the Golden Age written by Lee Congdon and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-05-05 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the 1920s—the Golden Age of sports—sports writers gained their own recognition while covering such athletes as Babe Ruth, Bobby Jones, Jack Dempsey, and Red Grange. The top journalists of the era were the primary means by which fans learned about their favorite teams and athletes, and their popularity and importance in the sports world continued for decades. Legendary Sports Writers of the Golden Age: Grantland Rice, Red Smith, Shirley Povich, and W. C. Heinz details the lives and careers of four sports-writing greats and the iconic athletes and events they covered. Although these writers established themselves during the 1920s, their careers extended well into the decades that followed. They reported on Jesse Owens, Joe Louis, Sandy Koufax, Arnold Palmer, and many other stars from the 1920s and beyond. Lee Congdon examines not only the lives and careers of Rice, Smith, Povich, and Heinz, but the distinctive writing style that each of them developed. Taken together, these four writers lifted sports reporting to heights that it is unlikely to reach again. This book brings to life the greatest era in sports history, as seen through the eyes of four legendary sports writers. Sports fans, historians, and those interested in sports journalism will all find this a fascinating and informative look at a time when the sports world was at its peak.

Author : Steven P. Gietschier
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
ISBN 13 : 1496236068
Total Pages : 625 pages
Book Rating : 4.67/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Baseball written by Steven P. Gietschier and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2023-07 with total page 625 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Baseball: The Turbulent Midcentury Years explores the history of organized baseball during the middle of the twentieth century, examining the sport on and off the field and contextualizing its development as both sport and business within the broader contours of American history. Steven P. Gietschier begins with the Great Depression, looking at how those years of economic turmoil shaped the sport and how baseball responded. Gietschier covers a then-burgeoning group of owners, players, and key figures—among them Branch Rickey, Larry MacPhail, Hank Greenberg, Ford Frick, and several others—whose stories figure prominently in baseball’s past and some of whom are still prominent in its collective consciousness. Combining narrative and analysis, Gietschier tells the game’s history across more than three decades while simultaneously exploring its politics and economics, including, for example, how the game confronted and barely survived the United States’ entry into World War II; how owners controlled their labor supply—the players; and how the business of baseball interacted with the federal government. He reveals how baseball handled the return to peacetime and the defining postwar decade, including the integration of the game, the demise of the Negro Leagues, the emergence of television, and the first efforts to move franchises and expand into new markets. Gietschier considers much of the work done by biographers, scholars, and baseball researchers to inform a new and current history of baseball in one of its more important and transformational periods.

Author : Pat O’Neill
Publisher : McFarland
ISBN 13 : 1476642605
Total Pages : 286 pages
Book Rating : 4.04/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ted Sullivan, Barnacle of Baseball written by Pat O’Neill and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2021-10-15 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his day, perhaps no one in baseball was better known than Irish-born Timothy Paul "Ted" Sullivan. For 50 years, America's sportswriters sang his praises, genuflected to his genius and bought his blarney by the barrel. Damon Runyon dubbed him "The Celebrated Carpetbagger of Baseball." Cunning, fast-talking, witty and sober, Sullivan was the game's first player agent, a groundbreaking scout who pulled future Hall of Famers from the bushes, an author, a playwright and a baseball evangelist who promoted the game across five continents. He coined the term "fan" and was among the first to suggest the designated hitter--because pitchers were "a lot of whippoorwill swingers." But he was also a convert to the Jim Crow attitudes of his day--black ballplayers were unimaginable to him. Unearthing thousands of contemporaneous newspaper accounts, this first exhaustive biography of "Hustlin'" Ted Sullivan recounts the life and career of one of the greatest hucksters in the history of the game.

Author : Steve Steinberg
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
ISBN 13 : 1496238966
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.62/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Mike Donlin written by Steve Steinberg and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2024 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Biography of baseball player and actor Mike Donlin, who played for the New York Giants from 1899 to 1914 and was one of the best hitters of the Deadball Era. A playboy and showman, he later went into Vaudeville and appeared in more than one hundred films"--

Author : Robert Weintraub
Publisher : Little, Brown
ISBN 13 : 031617517X
Total Pages : 325 pages
Book Rating : 4.73/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The House That Ruth Built written by Robert Weintraub and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2011-04-04 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The untold story of Babe Ruth's Yankees, John McGraw's Giants, and the extraordinary baseball season of 1923. Before the 27 World Series titles -- before Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Derek Jeter -- the Yankees were New York's shadow franchise. They hadn't won a championship, and they didn't even have their own field, renting the Polo Grounds from their cross-town rivals the New York Giants. In 1921 and 1922, they lost to the Giants when it mattered most: in October. But in 1923, the Yankees played their first season on their own field, the newly-built, state of the art baseball palace in the Bronx called "the Yankee Stadium." The stadium was a gamble, erected in relative outerborough obscurity, and Babe Ruth was coming off the most disappointing season of his career, a season that saw his struggles on and off the field threaten his standing as a bona fide superstar. It only took Ruth two at-bats to signal a new era. He stepped up to the plate in the 1923 season opener and cracked a home run to deep right field, the first homer in his park, and a sign of what lay ahead. It was the initial blow in a season that saw the new stadium christened "The House That Ruth Built," signaled the triumph of the power game, and established the Yankees as New York's -- and the sport's -- team to beat. From that first home run of 1923 to the storybook World Series matchup that pitted the Yankees against their nemesis from across the Harlem River -- one so acrimonious that John McGraw forced his Giants to get to the Bronx in uniform rather than suit up at the Stadium -- Robert Weintraub vividly illuminates the singular year that built a classic stadium, catalyzed a franchise, cemented Ruth's legend, and forever changed the sport of baseball.