Baseball America
Video Game Review: Out Of The Park iOS App
The Out of The Park App for iPhones and iPads give a great baseball experience in a very convenient form factor.
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Book Review: Baseball State by State
Author Chris Jensen has compiled all-time all-star lineups for every state in the nation in his new book, "Baseball State by State." But the book is much more than a collection of lists. In fact, it's nearly 400 pages of history on the players and places each state is known for.
Book Review: One Patch of Grass
While many minor league cities can trace their history back to the 19th century, few can do it in one place. Andy Linker does just that in "One Patch of Grass," which details baseball's long run in Harrisburg, Pa.
Book Review: Summer of ’68
Tim Wendel, author of 2010's "High Heat," weaves the amazing accomplishments on the field in 1968 with the turmoil in the nation in an ambitious account of the unforgettable year in "Summer of '68: The Season that Changed Baseball, and America, Forever."
Book Review: ‘Bluegrass Baseball’
"Bluegrass Baseball" follows minor leaguers on the way up at and away from the field.
Book Review: ‘The Battle That Forged Modern Baseball’
Had the Federal League succeeded in its pursuit of Walter Johnson, Joe Jackson, and Rube Marquard, it might conceivably be preparing for a grand centennial celebration instead of having long ago been relegated to a footnote in baseball history. The renegade third "major" league threw money at virtually every significant player in 1914-15, even inking a number to contracts only to see them slip back into the clutches of their former clubs.
Book Review: Veeck’s Story Gets A Worthy Retelling
Paul Dickson's new book brings Bill Veeck's story to a new generation.
Book Review: Phillies’ Finish Can’t Dim ‘The Rotation’
When the Phillies added Cliff Lee to a rotation that already included Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt, Cole Hamels and Joe Blanton, fans rightfully wondered if it was one of the greatest assembled rotations in baseball history. By the end of the season, the Phillies pitchers had made a pretty strong argument that yes, they did deserve to be considered among the greats.
Bill Veeck’s Story Gets A Worthy Retelling
There's so much more to colorful visionary Bill Veeck to celebrate than midgets and Disco Demolition. He was a one of a kind owner whose impact reached beyond the ballpark. Author Paul Dickson has captured it all in entertaining fashion in "Bill Veeck: Baseball's Greatest Maverick."
Q&A: James Bailey’s New Novel Looks At The Durham Bulls
James Bailey's new novel, "The Greatest Show on Dirt," is packed with fascinating details on life in the old D.A.P. Those were the heady years after the film "Bull Durham" made the park a destination for baseball fans, and before the team moved to its new upscale digs. The novel depicts one crazy summer in the life of Lane Hamilton, an N.C. State grad who takes a job with the Bulls after getting fired from his going-nowhere sales job at a downtown bank. Bailey, now a contributing writer for Durham-based "Baseball America" magazine and editor with a legal publishing company in Syracuse, NY, released his self-published novel earlier this spring. He recently spoke about life at the old Durham ballpark and the joys of minor league baseball.
Book Review: Centennial Brings Flood Of Fenway Books
The 100th anniversary of Fenway Park has as expected brought a flood of books about the long-loved balpark.
Book Review: The Might Have Been
To tab Yates, or Edward Everett as he's called throughout, the hero of Joseph Schuster's "The Might Have Been" is to upsell his lot in the baseball landscape. There's little heroic about him, next to no glamour in his life once he returns to the bush leagues, never again to sniff major league air. As a young man his self-absorption sows the seeds of the loneliness that will plague him well into middle age.
Book Review: Banzai Babe Ruth
"Banzai Babe Ruth" tells the story of Babe Ruth and a team of American All-stars trip to Japan in 1934.
Book Review: Out Of My League
Dirk Hayhurst's case, his first book "The Bullpen Gospels" and now his equally excellent second book "Out Of My League" explain life in the minors and the major leagues like you've never read it before, in large part because he's an outsider trying to fit in.
Book Excerpt: Out Of My League, By Dirk Hayhurst
Dirk Hayhurst's first "Non-Prospect Diary" went live on BaseballAmerica.com on March 13, 2007. He chronicled three seasons on BA's website, a ride that took him to the major leagues, while also writing one of the best baseball books of the last decade: "The Bullpen Gospels: Major League Dreams of a Minor League Veteran" (Citadel Press, 2010). For an encore, Hayhurst has taken us back inside the game to the biggest year of his career, 2008. It's a season that started with the protagonist back in the minor leagues, living in spartan conditions in an apartment with two fellow minor league veterans. It ended with Hayhurst getting on ESPN's "SportsCenter" after giving up one of Manny Ramirez's longest home runs. Hayhurst takes us through his major league debut in "Out Of My League." Here's an excerpt, when Hayhurst was getting used to the on- and off-field duties of a rookie in a big league bullpen.
The Best Baseball Books Of 2011
In March 2010, Little, Brown outbid seven other publishers for the rights to an unemployed author's first book, paying $650,000 to publish Chad Harbach's tale about a slick-fielding shortstop at a fictional Division III college in Wisconsin. It was a highly unusual transaction for a debut novel targeted at a male audience. The publisher was vindicated, however, by a constant flow of praise in the months leading up to the release of "The Art of Fielding," certainly unprecedented among baseball novels. The book lived up to its hype, landing a coveted place on the New York Times' 10 Best Books of 2011 list. It also tops ours, the only work of fiction to win a spot.
Book Review: September Nights
In September Nights, Rays pitcher James Shields and author Bill Chastain detail with behind the scenes insight what the team went through on the field and inside the locker room as it pursued its second World Series appearance in three years.
Book Review: Major League Baseball Profiles, 1871-1900
David Nemec's obsession with 19th-century baseball dates back to his junior year of high school in the mid-1950s. His fascination hasn't wavered in the half century since. His ambitious undertaking to catalog the debut and finale dates of every 19th-century major leaguer expanded into something even greater: Write a short biography for every player who suited up in a major league contest from 1871-1900. While he eventually settled on anyone who had one year as a qualifier for a league's batting or ERA title, what was left still weighed in at over 1,200 pages, in a two-volume set entitled "Major League Baseball Profiles, 1871-1900" released this fall by University of Nebraska Press.
Book Review: Flip Flop Fly Ball
While many fans find both left- and right-brain appeal in baseball, few are better at wedding them than Craig Robinson, who joins baseball and infographics on his quirky Flip Flop Fly Ball website. Through his unique graphics, Robinson draws meaning out of a world of numbers and provides context for a boundless range of matters, many of which you never realized you were curious about—at least until you saw it sketched out in full color. He pulls off the same trick in a new book.
Book Review: Clark Griffith, The Old Fox Of Washington Baseball
A new book tries to explain the significance of former Washington Senators owner Clark Griffith.
