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Billy Ball
- Billy Martin and the Resurrection of the Oakland A's
- Narrated by: Barry Abrams
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
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Publisher's summary
In the early 1970s, the Oakland Athletics became only the second team in Major League Baseball history to win three consecutive World Series championships. But as the decade came to a close, the A's were in free fall, having lost 108 games in 1979 while drawing just 307,000 fans. Free agency had decimated the A's, and the team's owner, Charlie Finley, was looking for a buyer. First, though, he had to bring fans back to the Oakland Coliseum. Enter Billy Martin.
Dale Tafoya describes what, at the time, seemed like a match made in baseball heaven. The A's needed a leader to reignite interest in the team. Martin needed a job after his second stint as manager of the New York Yankees came to an abrupt end. Based largely on interviews with former players, team executives, and journalists, Billy Ball captures Martin's homecoming to the Bay area, his immediate embrace by Oakland fans, and the A's return to playoff baseball. In Oakland, Martin's aggressive style of play came to be known as Billy Ball. A's fans and the media loved it.
But, in life and in baseball, all good things must come to an end. Tafoya chronicles Martin's clash with the new A's management and the siren song of the Yankees that lured the manager back to New York in 1983. Still, as the book makes clear, the magical turnaround of the A's has never been forgotten in Oakland.
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The riveting story of four men - Larry Doby, Bill Veeck, Bob Feller, and Satchel Paige - whose improbable union on the Cleveland Indians in the late 1940s would shape the immediate postwar era of Major League Baseball and beyond.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Who will like this book?
- By Brian L. Quarton on 04-03-21
By: Luke Epplin
-
Big Hair and Plastic Grass
- A Funky Ride Through Baseball and America in the Swinging '70s
- By: Dan Epstein
- Narrated by: Dan Epstein
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 287
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 260
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 260
The Bronx Is Burning meets Chuck Klosterman in this wild pop-culture history of baseball's most colorful and controversial decade. The Major Leagues witnessed more dramatic stories and changes in the 70s than in any other era. The American popular culture and counterculture collided head-on with the national pastime, rocking the once-conservative sport to its very foundations. For the millions of fans who grew up during this time, Big Hair and Plastic Grass serves up a delicious trip down memory lane.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Excellent but biased
- By Andy on 02-25-21
By: Dan Epstein
-
Homegrown
- How the Red Sox Built a Champion from the Ground Up
- By: Alex Speier
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 73
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 66
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 66
The 2018 season was a coronation for the Boston Red Sox. The best team in Major League Baseball - indeed, one of the best teams ever - the Sox won 108 regular season games and then romped through the postseason, going 11-3 against the three next-strongest teams baseball had to offer. As Alex Speier reveals, the Sox’ success wasn’t a fluke - nor was it guaranteed. It was the result of careful, patient planning and shrewd decision-making that allowed Boston to develop a golden generation of prospects - and then build upon that talented core to assemble a juggernaut.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great read if you like the Red Sox or baseball ops
- By Amazon Customer on 01-11-20
By: Alex Speier
-
1954: The Year Willie Mays and the First Generation of Black Superstars Changed Major League Baseball Forever
- By: Bill Madden
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 35
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
Jackie Robinson heroically broke the color barrier in 1947. But how—and, in practice, when—did the integration of the sport actually occur? Bill Madden shows that baseball’s famous black experiment” did not truly succeed until the coming of age of Willie Mays and the emergence of some star players—Larry Doby, Hank Aaron, and Ernie Banks—in 1954. And as a relevant backdrop off the field, it was in May of that year that the US Supreme Court unanimously ruled, in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, that segregation be outlawed in America’s public schools.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Acumen bugaboo
- By steve finkelstein on 04-25-21
By: Bill Madden
-
The Best Team Money Can Buy
- The Los Angeles Dodgers’ Wild Struggle to Build a Baseball Powerhouse
- By: Molly Knight
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 11 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 215
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 190
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 190
In 2012 the Los Angeles Dodgers were bought out of bankruptcy in the most expensive sale in sports history. Los Angeles icon Magic Johnson and his partners hoped to put together a team worthy of Hollywood. By most accounts they have succeeded, if not always in the way they might have imagined.
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4 out of 5 stars
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BOTH BOOK AND TEAM NEED TO BE BETTER
- By Ray on 09-06-15
By: Molly Knight
-
Game Six
- Cincinnati, Boston, and the 1975 World Series: The Triumph of America's Pastime
- By: Mark Frost
- Narrated by: Andrew Garman
- Length: 13 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 96
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 74
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 75
Best-selling author Mark Frost takes listeners back to the 1975 World Series in this thrilling account of the greatest baseball game ever played. The Reds and Red Sox endured three soggy days of inactivity to reach game six. But all that downtime could not prepare them for what happened when the skies finally cleared.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
For the love of Baseball
- By Al on 03-23-10
By: Mark Frost
-
Ten Innings at Wrigley
- The Wildest Ballgame Ever, with Baseball on the Brink
- By: Kevin Cook
- Narrated by: Barry Abrams
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 55
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 47
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 47
It was a Thursday at Chicago's Wrigley Field, mostly sunny with the wind blowing out. Nobody expected an afternoon game between the Philadelphia Phillies and Chicago Cubs on May 17, 1979, to be much more than a lazy early-season contest matching two teams heading in opposite directions - the first-place Phillies and the Cubs, those lovable losers - until they combined for 13 runs in the first inning. Ten Innings at Wrigley is Kevin Cook's vivid account of a game that could only have happened at this ballpark, in this era, with this colorful cast of heroes and heels.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Baseball stars of my youth
- By Hebern on 05-26-20
By: Kevin Cook
-
The Last Innocents
- The Collision of the Turbulent Sixties and the Los Angeles Dodgers
- By: Michael Leahy
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 15 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 46
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 41
Legendary Dodgers Maury Wills, Sandy Koufax, Wes Parker, Jeff Torborg, Dick Tracewski, and Tommy Davis encapsulated 1960s America: white and black, Jewish and Christian, wealthy and working class, pro-Vietnam and anti-war, golden boy and seasoned veteran. The Last Innocents is a thoughtful, technicolor portrait of these seven players - friends, mentors, confidants, rivals, and allies - and their storied team that offers an intriguing look at a sport and a nation in transition.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Reliving my youth
- By PJ on 05-24-17
By: Michael Leahy
-
The Extra 2%
- How Wall Street Strategies Took a Major League Baseball Team from Worst to First
- By: Jonah Keri
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 217
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 181
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 182
In The Extra 2%, financial journalist and sportswriter Jonah Keri chronicles the remarkable story of one team's Cinderella journey from divisional doormat to World Series contender. By quantifying the game's intangibles, they were able to deliver to Tampa Bay an American League pennant. This is an informative and entertaining case study for any organization that wants to go from worst to first.
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2 out of 5 stars
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No Strategies or Insight
- By Victor Luera on 10-11-12
By: Jonah Keri
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Seasons in Hell
- With Billy Martin, Whitey Herzog and "The Worst Baseball Team in History"-The 1973-1975 Texas Rangers
- By: Mike Shropshire
- Narrated by: Peter Powlus
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 113
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 101
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 100
Offering wonderful perspectives on dozens of unique (and likely never-to-be-seen-again) baseball personalities, Seasons in Hell recounts some of the most extreme characters ever to play the game and brings to life the no-holds-barred culture of major league baseball in the mid-'70s.
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5 out of 5 stars
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If you followed MLB in the 70's or 80's !!!!
- By Eric on 03-09-16
By: Mike Shropshire
-
The Captain
- The Journey of Derek Jeter
- By: Ian O'Connor
- Narrated by: Nick Pollifrone
- Length: 14 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 282
-
Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 263
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 260
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.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Great book, terrible narrator.
- By Butter on 05-09-14
By: Ian O'Connor
-
Summer of '68
- The Season That Changed Baseball - and America - Forever
- By: Tim Wendel
- Narrated by: Mark Ashby
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 51
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 44
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 44
From the beginning, ’68 was a season rocked by national tragedy and sweeping change. Opening Day was postponed and later played in the shadow of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s funeral. That summer, as the pennant races were heating up, the assassination of Robert Kennedy was later followed by rioting at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. But even as tensions boiled over and violence spilled into the streets, something remarkable was happening in major league ballparks across the country. Pitchers were dominating like never before, and with records falling and shut-outs mounting, many began hailing ’68 as “The Year of the Pitcher".
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5 out of 5 stars
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Detroit Upsets St. Louis in 1968 World Series.
- By Matthew Tsien on 05-01-18
By: Tim Wendel
-
The Grandest Stage
- A History of the World Series
- By: Tyler Kepner
- Narrated by: Tyler Kepner
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 40
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
The World Series is the most enduring showcase in American team sports. It’s the place where legends are made, where celebration and devastation can hinge on a fly ball off a foul pole or a grounder beneath a first baseman’s glove. And there’s no one better to bring this rich history to life than New York Times national baseball columnist Tyler Kepner, whose bestselling book about pitching, K, was lauded as “Michelangelo explaining the brush strokes on the Sistine Chapel” by Newsday.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A wonderful book, filled with tidbits of great information. Essential reading for any fan of baseball history!
- By Shawn Kaufman on 01-23-24
By: Tyler Kepner
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Glory Days
- The Summer of 1984 and the 90 Days That Changed Sports and Culture Forever
- By: L. Jon Wertheim
- Narrated by: Chris Abell
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 110
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 96
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 95
The summer of 1984 was a watershed moment in the birth of modern sports when the nation watched Michael Jordan grow from college basketball player to professional athlete and star. That summer also saw ESPN’s rise to media dominance as the country’s premier sports network and the first modern, commercialized, profitable Olympics. Magic Johnson and Larry Bird’s rivalry raged, Martina Navratilova and John McEnroe reigned in tennis, and Hulk Hogan and Vince McMahon made pro wrestling a business, while Donald Trump pierced the national consciousness as a pro football team owner.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A great sports summer
- By Hebern on 07-06-21
By: L. Jon Wertheim
-
A Band of Misfits
- Tales of the 2010 San Francisco Giants
- By: Andrew Baggarly
- Narrated by: Brian Troxell
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 46
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 43
For 53 years, San Francisco waited. Waited for a team like the 2010 Giants to come along. Waited for a team that could end a title drought that started in New York and carried on for more than five decades after a move to the West Coast. Waited for that one magical postseason run that could unleash more than a half-century of pent-up frustration. At long last, the 2010 Giants hopped on that magic carpet and made it happen. San Jose Mercury News beat reporter Andrew Baggarly captured the 2010 Giants' incredible run through the regular season, playoffs and World Series in his new book.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Relived that season!
- By jeff olson on 12-20-18
By: Andrew Baggarly
-
From Darkness to Dynasty
- The First 40 Years of the New England Patriots
- By: Jerry Thornton
- Narrated by: Chris Andrew Ciulla
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 133
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 120
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 121
From Darkness to Dynasty tells the unlikely history of the New England Patriots as it has never been told before. From their humble beginnings as a team bought with rainy-day money by a man who had no idea what he was doing, to the fateful season that saw them win their first Super Bowl, Jerry Thornton shares the wild, humiliating, unbelievable, and wonderful stories that comprised the first 40 years of what would ultimately become the most dominant franchise in NFL history.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
great narration, great book
- By BenRias on 01-25-18
By: Jerry Thornton
-
NFL Century
- The One-Hundred-Year Rise of America's Greatest Sports League
- By: Joe Horrigan
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 114
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 95
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 95
The NFL has come a long way from its founding in Canton, Ohio, in 1920. In the 100 years since that fateful day, football has become America’s most popular and lucrative professional sport. The former scrappy upstart league that struggled to stay afloat has survived a host of challenges to produce American icons like Vince Lombardi, Joe Montana, and Tom Brady. It is an extraordinary and entertaining history that could be told only by Joe Horrigan, former executive director of the Pro Football Hall of Fame and perhaps the greatest living historian of the NFL.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Details of the formation and growth of the NFL
- By Donald J. Bentley on 03-17-24
By: Joe Horrigan
-
Baseball
- A History of America's Game
- By: Benjamin G. Rader
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 45
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 41
A succinct history of baseball, newly revised and updated. In this third edition of his lively history of America's game, widely recognized as the best of its kind, Benjamin G. Rader expands his scope, covering record crowds and record income, construction of new ballparks, a change in the strike zone, a surge in recruiting Japanese players, and an emerging cadre of explosive long-ball hitters. The book is published by The University of Illinois Press.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Good book!
- By Judy Ellis on 04-15-18
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Great research!
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Cobb
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 181
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As a boy in the 1890s he went looking for thrills in a rural Georgia that still burned with humiliation from the Civil War. As an old man in the 1960s he dared death, picked fights, refused to take his medicine, and drove off all his friends and admirers. He went to his deathbed alone, clutching a loaded pistol and a bag containing millions of dollars worth of cash and securities. During the years in between, he became, according to Al Stump, "the most shrewd, inventive, lurid, detested, mysterious, and superb of all baseball players." He was Ty Cobb. In Cobb, Stump tells how he was given a fascinating window into the Georgia Peach's life and times when the dying Cobb hired him in 1960 to ghostwrite his autobiography.
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5 out of 5 stars
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What a man -- what a book!
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Doc, Donnie, the Kid, and Billy Brawl
- How the 1985 Mets and Yankees Fought for New York’s Baseball Soul
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Never before had both the Yankees and the Mets been in contention for the playoffs so late in the same season. For months New York fans dreamed of the first Subway Series in nearly 30 years, and the Mets and the Yankees vied for their hearts. While the drama inside the Mets' clubhouse only made the team more endearing to fans, the drama inside the Yankees' clubhouse had the opposite effect. The result was the most attention-grabbing and exciting season New York would see in generations.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Yankees
- By Kindle Customer on 09-24-20
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They Bled Blue
- Fernandomania, Strike-Season Mayhem, and the Weirdest Championship Baseball Had Ever Seen: The 1981 Los Angeles Dodgers
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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They Bled Blue is the rollicking yarn of the Los Angeles Dodgers' crazy 1981 season, a watershed campaign that cemented the team's place and reputation as fitting thoroughly within the surrounding LA culture. That it culminated in an unlikely World Series win - during a split season demarcated by a strike, no less - is not even the most interesting thing about this team.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Dodgers history smeared by a Giants fan...
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The Wax Pack
- On the Open Road in Search of Baseball's Afterlife
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 174
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Is there life after baseball? Starting from this simple question, The Wax Pack ends up with something much bigger and unexpected - a meditation on the loss of innocence and the gift of impermanence, for both Brad Balukjian and the former ballplayers he tracked down. To get a truly random sample of players, Balukjian followed this wildly absurd but fun-as-hell premise: he took a single pack of baseball cards from 1986 (the first year he collected cards), opened it, chewed the nearly 30-year-old gum inside, gagged, and then embarked on a quest to find all the players in the pack.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Clever idea, lackluster results
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As a boy in the 1890s he went looking for thrills in a rural Georgia that still burned with humiliation from the Civil War. As an old man in the 1960s he dared death, picked fights, refused to take his medicine, and drove off all his friends and admirers. He went to his deathbed alone, clutching a loaded pistol and a bag containing millions of dollars worth of cash and securities. During the years in between, he became, according to Al Stump, "the most shrewd, inventive, lurid, detested, mysterious, and superb of all baseball players." He was Ty Cobb. In Cobb, Stump tells how he was given a fascinating window into the Georgia Peach's life and times when the dying Cobb hired him in 1960 to ghostwrite his autobiography.
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Clever idea, lackluster results
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Rickey
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 232
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 215
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 214
Few names in the history of baseball evoke the excellence and dynamism that Rickey Henderson’s does. He holds the record for the most stolen bases in a single game, and he’s scored more runs than any player ever. “If you cut Rickey Henderson in half, you’d have two Hall of Famers,” the baseball historian Bill James once said. But perhaps even more than his prowess on the field, Rickey Henderson’s is a story of Oakland, California, the town that gave rise to so many legendary athletes like him.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An All Time Grewt
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War on the Basepaths
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- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 30
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 24
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 24
During his 24-year career, Ty Cobb was an MVP, a Triple Crown-winner, and a 12-time batting champion and was elected in the inaugural ballot for the National Baseball Hall of Fame (along with Honus Wagner, Babe Ruth, Christy Mathewson, and Walter Johnson). As someone who retired from the game over 85 years ago, he is still the leader for career batting average; second in runs, hits, and triples; and a mainstay in dozens of other categories.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Two Cobb Books, One Review of a Maligned Legacy
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The Book of Joe
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- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 75
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 66
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 66
No one sees baseball like Joe Maddon. He sees it through his trademark glasses and irrepressible wit. Raised in the “shot and beer” town of Hazleton, PA, and forged by 15 years in the minors, Maddon over 19 seasons in Tampa Bay, Chicago, and Anaheim has become one of the most successful, most colorful, and most quoted managers in Major League Baseball. He is a workplace culture expert, having engineered two of the most stunning turnarounds in the past quarter century.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Enjoyable listen of a baseball life lifer
- By PB on 04-05-24
By: Joe Maddon, and others
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Ballpark
- Baseball in the American City
- By: Paul Goldberger
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 48
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Story5 out of 5 stars 39
From the earliest corrals of the mid-1800s (Union Grounds in Brooklyn was a "saloon in the open air"), to the much mourned parks of the early 1900s (Detroit's Tiger Stadium, Cincinnati's Palace of the Fans), to the stadiums we fill today, Paul Goldberger makes clear the inextricable bond between the American city and America's favorite pastime. In the changing locations and architecture of our ballparks, Goldberger reveals the manifestations of a changing society.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fantastic book!
- By S. O. on 12-27-19
By: Paul Goldberger
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The Greatest Baseball Stories Ever Told
- Thirty Unforgettable Tales from the Diamond
- By: Jeff Silverman
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain, Hillary Huber
- Length: 14 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 115
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 102
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Story4 out of 5 stars 102
At a 1931 barnstorming exhibition game in Tennessee, a 17-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." 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.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Not what I was expecting... at all
- By keith on 04-16-17
By: Jeff Silverman
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Eight Men Out
- The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series
- By: Eliot Asinof
- Narrated by: Harold N. Cropp
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 637
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 567
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 563
In 1919, American headlines proclaimed the fix and cover-up of the World Series as "the most gigantic sporting swindle in the history of America." In this painstaking review, Eliot Asinof has reconstructed the entire scene-by-scene story of the scandal, in which eight Chicago White Sox players arranged with the nation’s leading gamblers to throw the series to Cincinnati. Asinof vividly describes the tense meetings, the hitches in the conniving, the actual plays in which the Series was thrown, the Grand Jury indictment, and the famous 1921 trial.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Awesome
- By TOM WORKING on 03-17-14
By: Eliot Asinof
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Mantle
- The Best There Ever Was
- By: Tony Castro
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 30
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
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Story4 out of 5 stars 26
In Mantle: The Best There Ever Was, Mickey Mantle biographer Tony Castro brings to life the man who is arguably not only the greatest ballplayer of his time but also the greatest ballplayer of all time. Castro offers illuminating new insight into Mantle's extraordinary career, including the head-turning conclusion based on the evolution of analytics that the beloved Yankee switch-hitting slugger may ultimately win acclaim as having fulfilled the weighty expectations once placed on him: of being greater than even Babe Ruth.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Loved this presentation.
- By Amazon Customer on 09-17-22
By: Tony Castro
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How Baseball Happened
- Outrageous Lies Exposed! The True Story Revealed
- By: Thomas W. Gilbert
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 98
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 88
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 87
The fascinating, true origin story of baseball - how America’s first great sport developed and how it conquered a nation.
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5 out of 5 stars
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superb reading. ate it up in 2 days.
- By Bill on 01-13-22
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Why Baseball Matters
- By: Susan Jacoby
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 5 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 16
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 15
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Story4 out of 5 stars 15
Baseball, first dubbed the "national pastime" in print in 1856, is the country's most tradition-bound sport. Despite remaining popular and profitable into the 21st century, the game is losing young fans. Furthermore, baseball's greatest charm - a clockless suspension of time - is also its greatest liability in a culture of digital distraction. These paradoxes are explored by the historian and passionate baseball fan Susan Jacoby in a book that is both a love letter to the game and a tough-minded analysis of the current challenges to its special position in American culture.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Worth a listen
- By Michael W. on 01-20-19
By: Susan Jacoby
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A Pastime of Their Own
- The Story of Negro League Baseball
- By: Louis Moore, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Louis Moore
- Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins
- Original Recording
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 10
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 9
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 9
Satchel Paige. Josh Gibson. Jackie Robinson. These all-star baseball players conjure up a golden age of the game, as well as a time in America when the world was divided between white and Black. Most of us know the story of Robinson breaking the color barrier to become the first Black major league player, but the history leading up to that dramatic moment is a powerful story of athletic prowess, business development, and cultural change. A Pastime of Their Own: The Story of Negro League Baseball is your chance to delve into this fascinating history.
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3 out of 5 stars
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A Solid Baseline History for the Negro Leagues
- By wildbillhagy on 02-12-24
By: Louis Moore, and others
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The Glory of Their Times
- The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It
- By: Lawrence S. Ritter
- Narrated by: Lawrence S. Ritter, Fred Snodgrass, Sam Crawford, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 52 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 411
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 322
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 321
Baseball's Golden Age comes alive through the voices of men who were there. Selected from the original tapes on which Lawrence S. Ritter based his classic book of baseball history, The Glory of Their Times is a collection of wonderful tales that paint a vivid and evocative picture of a lively young America and the giants who starred on her ballfields, legends like Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Walter Johnson, and many others.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Game Winning, Grand Slam!!!
- By Richard on 09-28-05
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Bouton
- The Life of a Baseball Original
- By: Mitchell Nathanson
- Narrated by: Barry Abrams
- Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 24
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 19
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 19
From the day he first stepped into the Yankee clubhouse, Jim Bouton (1939-2019) was the sports world's deceptive revolutionary. Underneath the crew cut and behind the all-American boy-next-door good looks lurked a maverick with a signature style. Whether it was his frank talk about player salaries and mistreatment by management, his passionate advocacy of progressive politics, or his efforts to convince the United States to boycott the 1968 Olympics, Bouton confronted the conservative sports world and compelled it to catch up with a rapidly changing American society.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Rabbi Kirschbaum
- By Eric on 02-23-23
What listeners say about Billy Ball
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Mark
- 03-08-22
Better Options
Unfortunately this book is very mediocre. As a fan of BB and Billy I wanted to like it but there are far better books about Billy and the Oakland A’s.
The narrator spoke like he was reading a kids book trying not to frighten a group of four year olds.
The most annoying aspect was how repetitive the story was. Often within several minutes.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Dr. Mike McCann
- 02-07-24
Repetitive and Surprisingly Drab
Billy Martin was an exciting, brilliant, engaging and complicated character. I looked forward to this book. Unfortunately, the author seemed pressed to fill pages and rambles on repeating storyline and themes. The book is overly focused on backroom ownership politics ad nauseum and the real story is drowned out.
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