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A Well-Paid Slave
- Curt Flood's Fight for Free Agency in Professional Sports
- Narrated by: Nnamdi Asomugha
- Length: 16 hrs and 19 mins
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A Well-Paid Slave
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Publisher's summary
After the 1969 season, the St. Louis Cardinals traded their star center fielder, Curt Flood, to the Philadelphia Phillies, setting off a chain of events that would change professional sports forever. At the time there were no free agents, no no-trade clauses. When a player was traded, he had to report to his new team or retire.
Unwilling to leave St. Louis and influenced by the civil rights movement, Flood chose to sue Major League Baseball for his freedom. His case reached the Supreme Court, where Flood ultimately lost. But by challenging the system, he created an atmosphere in which, just three years later, free agency became a reality.
Flood’s decision cost him his career, but as this dramatic chronicle makes clear, his influence on sports history puts him in a league with Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali.
Cover Photo: © The Sporting News/ZUMA Press
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The National Collegiate Athletic Association has come under fire. Fans have begun to realize that the athletes involved in the two biggest college sports, men's basketball and football, are little more than indentured servants. Millions of teenagers accept scholarships to chase their dreams of fame and fortune - at the price of absolute submission to the whims of an organization that puts their interests dead last.
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Ty Cobb is baseball royalty, maybe even the greatest player who ever lived. His lifetime batting average is still the highest of all time, and when he retired in 1928, after twenty-one years with the Detroit Tigers and two with the Philadelphia Athletics, he held more than ninety records. But the numbers don't tell half of Cobb's tale. The Georgia Peach was by far the most thrilling player of the era: "Ty Cobb could cause more excitement with a base on balls than Babe Ruth could with a grand slam," one columnist wrote.
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 54
The National Collegiate Athletic Association has come under fire. Fans have begun to realize that the athletes involved in the two biggest college sports, men's basketball and football, are little more than indentured servants. Millions of teenagers accept scholarships to chase their dreams of fame and fortune - at the price of absolute submission to the whims of an organization that puts their interests dead last.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An Armament agnst NCAA: Enlightening, Infuriating
- By W Perry Hall on 03-15-16
By: Joe Nocera, and others
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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
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 113
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 94
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 94
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
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Ty Cobb
- A Terrible Beauty
- By: Charles Leerhsen
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 15 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 814
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 741
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 739
Ty Cobb is baseball royalty, maybe even the greatest player who ever lived. His lifetime batting average is still the highest of all time, and when he retired in 1928, after twenty-one years with the Detroit Tigers and two with the Philadelphia Athletics, he held more than ninety records. But the numbers don't tell half of Cobb's tale. The Georgia Peach was by far the most thrilling player of the era: "Ty Cobb could cause more excitement with a base on balls than Babe Ruth could with a grand slam," one columnist wrote.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Two Cobb Books, One Review of a Maligned Legacy
- By Jonathan Love on 05-17-16
By: Charles Leerhsen
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The League
- How Five Rivals Created the NFL and Launched a Sports Empire
- By: John Eisenberg
- Narrated by: Daniel Thomas May
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 278
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 253
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 253
The National Football League's current dominance has obscured how professional football got its start. In The League, John Eisenberg reveals that Art Rooney, George Halas, Tim Mara, George Preston Marshall, and Bert Bell took an immense risk by investing in the professional game. At that time, the sport barely registered on the national scene. The five owners succeeded only because at critical junctures in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, each sacrificed the short-term success of his team for the longer-term good of the League.
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5 out of 5 stars
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what a great book. loved it completely.
- By Daniel Mosca on 11-08-18
By: John Eisenberg
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Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning
- 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City
- By: Jonathan Mahler
- Narrated by: Kyle Tait
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 56
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 49
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 49
By early 1977, New York City was in the grip of hysteria caused by a murderer dubbed "Son of Sam". And on a sweltering night in July, a citywide power outage touched off an orgy of looting and arson that led to the largest mass arrest in the city's history. As the turbulent year wore on, the city became absorbed in two epic battles: the fight between Yankee slugger Reggie Jackson and team manager Billy Martin, and the battle between Ed Koch and Mario Cuomo for the city's mayoralty.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent
- By pp on 04-22-21
By: Jonathan Mahler
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Fall from Grace
- The Truth and Tragedy of "Shoeless Joe" Jackson
- By: Tim Hornbaker
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 121
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 107
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 105
Considered by Ty Cobb as the "finest natural hitter in the history of the game," "Shoeless Joe" Jackson is ranked with the greatest players to ever step onto a baseball diamond. With a career .356 batting average - which is still ranked third all-time - the man from Pickens County, South Carolina, was on his way to becoming one of the greatest players in the sport's history. That is until the "Black Sox" scandal of 1919, which shook baseball to its core.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Entertaining and Educational
- By Colorfinger on 06-14-19
By: Tim Hornbaker
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Rising Tide
- Bear Bryant, Joe Namath, and Dixie's Last Quarter
- By: Randy Roberts, Ed Krzemienski
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 15 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 39
The extraordinary story of how Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant and Joe Namath, his star quarterback at the University of Alabama, led the Crimson Tide to victory and transformed football into a truly national pastime. During the bloodiest years of the civil rights movement, Bear Bryant and Joe Namath - two of the most iconic and controversial figures in American sports - changed the game of college football forever.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Love Alabama football? Read this!!
- By Miss Faulk on 07-16-15
By: Randy Roberts, and others
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The Year of the Pitcher
- Bob Gibson, Denny McLain, and the End of Baseball’s Golden Age
- By: Sridhar Pappu
- Narrated by: Leon Nixon
- Length: 12 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 38
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 35
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 35
The Year of the Pitcher is the story of the remarkable 1968 baseball season, which culminated in one of the greatest World Series contests ever, with the Detroit Tigers coming back from a 3-1 deficit to beat the Cardinals in Game Seven of the World Series. In 1968, two remarkable pitchers would dominate the game as well as the broadsheets. One was black, the other white. Bob Gibson, together with the St. Louis Cardinals, embodied an entire generation's hope for integration at a heated moment in American history. Denny McLain, his adversary, was a crass self-promoter.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Misleading Title
- By Paul on 01-25-19
By: Sridhar Pappu
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42 Faith
- The Rest of the Jackie Robinson Story
- By: Ed Henry
- Narrated by: Ed Henry
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 121
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 112
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 111
Journalist and baseball lover Ed Henry reveals for the first time the backstory of faith that guided Jackie Robinson into not only the baseball record books but the annals of civil rights advancement as well. Through recently discovered sermons, interviews with Robinson's family and friends, and even an unpublished book by the player himself, Henry details a side of Jackie's humanity that few have taken the time to see.
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5 out of 5 stars
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42Faith
- By Phillip L. on 04-11-17
By: Ed Henry
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Raise a Fist, Take a Knee
- Race and the Illusion of Progress in Modern Sports
- By: John Feinstein, Doug Williams
- Narrated by: John Feinstein
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 92
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 82
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Story5 out of 5 stars 80
Based on dozens of shocking interviews with some of the most influential names in sports, this is the urgent and revelatory examination of racial inequality in professional athletics America has been waiting for. With an encyclopedic knowledge of professional sports, and shrewd cultural criticism, John Feinstein uncovers not just why, but how, pro sports continue to perpetuate racial inequality.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Another Feinstein triumph
- By Glenn Canning on 12-06-21
By: John Feinstein, and others
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What's My Name, Fool?
- Sports and Resistance in the United States
- By: Dave Zirin
- Narrated by: Aaron Abano
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 29
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 26
Here Edgeofsports.com sportswriter Dave Zirin shows how sports express the worst, as well as the most creative and exciting, features of American society. Zirin explores how Janet Jackson's Super Bowl flash-time show exposed more than a breast, why the labor movement has everything to learn from sports unions, and why a new generation of athletes is no longer content to "play one game at a time" and is starting to get political.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Interesting read
- By sosnows8 on 08-16-20
By: Dave Zirin
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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
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 113
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 101
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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
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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
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 46
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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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
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Pete Rose
- An American Dilemma
- By: Kostya Kennedy
- Narrated by: Ben Bartolone
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 134
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 120
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Story4 out of 5 stars 122
Pete Rose played baseball with a singular and headfirst abandon that endeared him to fans and peers, even as it riled others--a figure at once magnetic, beloved and polarizing. Rose has more base hits than anyone in history, yet he is not in the Hall of Fame. Twenty-five years ago he was banished from baseball for gambling, then ruled ineligible for Cooperstown; today, the question "Does Pete Rose belong in the Hall of Fame?" has evolved into perhaps the most provocative in sports, a layered, slippery and ever-relevant moral conundrum.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good book, not so good production.
- By david d. on 05-01-14
By: Kostya Kennedy
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Tigerland
- 1968-1969: A City Divided, a Nation Torn Apart, and a Magical Season of Healing
- By: Wil Haygood
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 16 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 35
Against the backdrop of one of the most tumultuous periods in recent American history, as riots and demonstrations spread across the nation, the Tigers of poor, segregated East High School in Columbus, Ohio, did something no team from one school had ever done before: They won the state basketball and baseball championships in the same year. They defeated bigger, richer, whiter teams across the state and along the way brought blacks and whites together, eased a painful racial divide throughout the state, and overcame extraordinary obstacles on their road to success.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Flashback to the Late 1960s
- By Toni Bowes on 09-05-19
By: Wil Haygood
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Opening Day
- The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season
- By: Jonathan Eig
- Narrated by: Richard Allen
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 59
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 33
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 34
Drawing on interviews with surviving players, sportswriters, and eyewitnesses, as well as newly discovered material from archives around the country, Jonathan Eig presents a fresh portrait of a ferocious competitor who embodied integration's promise and helped launch the modern civil-rights era. Full of new details and thrilling action, Opening Day brings to life baseball's ultimate story.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Great book, not so great reading
- By Joe Baseball on 08-30-07
By: Jonathan Eig
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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
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 110
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 96
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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