From Abba Dabba To Zorro

No sport has a richer history of nicknames than baseball. STATS reveals the unusual and funny stories behind these monikers with anecdotes about such players as Skoonj, Big Six and the Tabasco Kid. From the all-time greats to the obscure substitutes, or at least the obscure substitutes with colorful nicknames, From Abba-Dabba to Zorro: The World of Baseball Nicknames provides a wealth of intriguing and insightful information that both baseball fanatics and casual fans will appreciate and enjoy. Features: * A rousing look at baseball's most intriguing names * Nickname All-Star teams, The All-Body Parts team, The All-Animal team * Players with the most unusual nicknames * Baseball celebrities pick their favorite nicknames

Offering a fresh approach to the familiar concept of all-time baseball teams, this exhaustive work ranks more than 2,500 players by state of birth and includes both major league and Negro League athletes. Each chapter covers one state and opens with the all-time team, naming a top selection for each position followed by honorable mentions. Also included are all-time stat leaders in nine categories--games, hits, average, RBI, home runs, stolen bases, pitching wins, strikeouts and saves--a brief overview of the state's baseball history, notable player achievements, historic baseball places to see, potential future stars, a comprehensive list of player nicknames, and the state's all-time best player.

At his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame, former Negro League player Buck Leonard said, “Now, we in the Negro Leagues felt like we were contributing something to baseball, too, when we were playing.... We loved the game.... But we thought that we should have and could have made the major leagues.” The Negro Leagues had some of the best talent in baseball but from their earliest days the players were segregated from those leagues that received all the recognition. This history of the Negro Leagues begins with the second half of the 19th century and the early attempts by African American players to be allowed to play with white teammates, and progresses through the “Gentleman’s Agreement” in the 1890s which kept baseball segregated. The establishment of the first successful Negro League in 1920 is covered and various aspects of the game for the players discussed (lodgings, travel accommodations, families, difficulties because of race, off-season jobs, play and life in Latin America). In 1960, the Birmingham Black Barons went out of business and took the Negro Leagues with them. There are many stories of individual players, owners, umpires, and others involved with the Negro Leagues in the U.S. and Latin America, along with photos, appendices, notes, bibliography and index.

Baseball has had many outstanding Latin American pitchers since the early 20th century. This book profiles the greatest Hispanic hurlers to toe the rubber from the mounds of the major leagues, winter leagues and Negro leagues. The careers of the top major league pitchers to come from Central and South America and the Caribbean are examined in decade-by-decade portrayals, culminating with an all-time ranking by the author. The grand exploits of these athletes backdrop the evolving pitching eras of the game, from the macho, complete-game period that existed for the majority of the last century to the financially-driven, pitch-count sensitive culture that dominates baseball thinking today.

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.

Ever since there has been a professional game, baseball fans have enjoyed debating comparisons of one player to another--both contemporaries and players across various eras in the sport's history. The Baseball Same Game adds to those debates. However, rather than focus on the traditional "Who's better?" arguments (such as "Mantle or Mays?" or "Ruth or Aaron?") The Baseball Same Game takes on the particular cases of "Which players were the same?" Unique baseball metrics--apart from those common and conventional baseball statistics that one would typically see on the back of a player's bubble gum card--are used to analyze career performance. And, The Baseball Same Game gives consideration to relativity when comparing statistics of baseball players from different eras in the game. Which baseball all-time greats were the same in terms of their relative performance? Who are the recently retired players that match-up to the stars of baseball's past? What players not in the Baseball Hall of Fame measure up to those already in the Hall? The Baseball Same Game provides these answers and more.

Presents a series of lineups from each baseball franchise and explores the careers of baseball players both famous and obscure.

A wide-ranging compilation of facts, statistics, stories, and entertaining speculation, this book will surprise even the most avid fan of the Detroit Tigers. Published in the wake of the Tigers' American League centennial, it pays tribute to the team of Ty Cobb, Al Kaline, and Hank Greenberg, to name but a few of Detroit's Baseball Hall of Famers. Here two longtime Tigers experts—journalist Mark Pattison and statistician David Raglin—have distilled a hundred-plus years of Detroit baseball history into more than four hundred lists. In this entertaining and fascinating collection, readers will find information not available elsewhere, such as the starting eight Mayo Smith used for all seven games of the 1968 World Series, or the 1987 "Showdown Series" where the Tigers and the Toronto Blue Jays battled for the AL East pennant. "Inside this book," writes Dale Petroskey, "is the stuff that young baseball fans grew up on, and the stuff that older baseball fans get to relive their youth with."