Sports & Recreation : Baseball

Part campaign memoir, part manifesto—from the new rising star of the Republican Party. Mike Huckabee’s run for the Republican presidential nomination was truly amazing. But beyond the headlines, few understand his transformation from a long-shot Evangelical candidate into a viable contender. Huckabee now presents the inside story of his low-budget, grassroots campaign. He treated middle-class and working-class voters with respect and spoke to their concerns about the economy, society, and the way our country is run. They responded nationwide with great passion, volunteering and making small donations, transforming his campaign into a true movement. His fans included not only Evangelical Christians, but also others who felt he was the only Republican who really shared their values. This book will remind the four million Huckabee voters that their support and hard work were not in vain. It will also be fun to read, full of unreported anecdotes from the campaign trail. Huckabee also lays out his optimistic vision for America’s future. He explains how the Republican Party can unify its factions and win over middle-class and working-class voters. No matter what happens on election day 2008, Huckabee’s fans will be looking to him for leadership as their movement rolls on. more...

Price: $25.95

Authorized by the future Hall of Famer himself, and written by a clinical psychologist and an award-winning investigative journalist, Becoming Manny is the incredible story behind one of the greatest baseball sluggers of all time. Manny Ramirez ranks seventeenth in career home runs and eighth in career slugging percentage -- the only players above him on both lists are Barry Bonds, Jimmie Foxx, and Babe Ruth.Becoming Manny brings an unusually thoughtful analysis to the territory of sports biography, examining Manny's life through the lens of larger issues such as mentoring and immigration, while also telling the story of a great career. more...

Price: $25.00

Snyder looks at the roots of Jackie Robinson's integration of major league baseball, but examines that historic event from a variety of angles. This well-documented and enjoyable account illuminates the life of Sam Lacy, a crusading black journalist for a Washington, D.C., black weekly, and his efforts to force major league baseball to integrate. But the book is also a fascinating and largely untold story about the unholy but profitable alliance between Clark Griffith, owner of the Washington Senators, and the dynamic but shady Negro League team owner Cum Posey, founder of the Homestead Grays, a storied Negro League franchise founded in Pittsburgh. Using the burgeoning black middle class of WWII Washington, D.C., as a social backdrop, Snyder details how Negro League owners like Posey allied themselves financially with white Major League owners, renting segregated Major League ballparks (at exorbitant rates) for their Negro League teams while the white teams were on the road. The practice became particularly profitable in Washington after Posey moved his Homestead Grays (and such black stars as Buck Leonard and Josh Gibson) to D.C. from Pittsburgh in 1940. more...

Price: $24.95

The myth of the natural black athlete is widespread, though it’s usually only talked about when a sports commentator or celebrity embarrasses himself by bringing it up in public. Those gaffes are swiftly decried as racist, but apart from their link to the long history of ugly racial stereotypes about black people—especially men—they are also harmful because they obscure very real, hard-fought accomplishments. As Black Men Can’t Shoot demonstrates, such successes on the basketball court don’t just happen because of natural gifts—instead, they grow out of the long, tough, and unpredictable process of becoming a known player.Scott N. Brooks spent four years coaching summer league basketball in Philadelphia. And what he saw, heard, and felt working with the young black men on his team tells us much about how some kids are able to make the extraordinary journey from the ghetto to the NCAA. To show how good players make the transition to greatness, Brooks tells the story of two young men, Jermaine and Ray, following them through their high school years and chronicling their breakthroughs and frustrations on the court as well as their troubles at home. We witness them negotiating the pitfalls of forging a career and a path out of poverty, we see their triumphs and setbacks, and we hear from the network of people—their families, the neighborhood elders, and Coach Brooks himself—invested in their fates.Black Men Can’t Shoot has all the hallmarks of a classic sports book, with a climactic championship game and a suspenseful ending as we wait to find out if Jermaine and Ray will be recruited. Brooks’s moving coming-of-age story counters the belief that basketball only exploits kids and lures them into following empty dreams—and shows us that by playing ball, some of these young black men have already begun their education even before they get to college. more...

Price: $22.00

An inspiring look at the heroism and heartbreak of the 1975 World Series. In a year when the nation sorely needed a diversion from the harsh news of the day, it arrived in the form of a Fall Classic that would live up to its name and never be forgotten. The Boys of October takes the reader back to those 12 exhilarating days in 1975, when the field was guarded by greatness--Carl Yastrzemski, Carlton Fisk, Pete Rose, Johnny Bench--as the ragtag Boys from Beantown faced Cincinnati's ''Big Red Machine.''. Their triumphs and tribulations are all here, from Fisk's historic winning homer in the wee hours of Game Six, to the series' nail-biting finale, decided by a single, heart-stopping run. Through it all, the Boston Red Sox embodied the spirit of the game, in victory and defeat, to give us the series we needed-- and one we'll never forget. Against the backdrop of one turbulent summer, The Boys of October celebrates baseball and the heroes who made it what it is. more...

Price: $24.95