Swing Kings

"The best baseball book I’ve read in years." — Sam Walker • "An exhilarating story of innovation." — Ben Reiter • "Swing Kings feels like a spiritual successor to Moneyball." — Baseball Prospectus From the Wall Street Journal’s national baseball writer, the captivating story of the home run boom, following a group of players who rose from obscurity to stardom and the rogue swing coaches who helped them usher the game into a new age. We are in a historic era for the home run. The 2019 season saw the most homers ever, obliterating a record set just two years before. It is a shift that has transformed the way the game is played, contributing to more strikeouts, longer games, and what feels like the logical conclusion of the analytics era. In Swing Kings, Wall Street Journal national baseball writer Jared Diamond reveals that the secret behind this unprecedented shift isn’t steroids or the stitching of the baseballs, it’s the most elemental explanation of all: the swing. In this lively narrative romp, he tracks a group of baseball’s biggest stars—including Aaron Judge, J.D. Martinez, and Justin Turner—who remade their swings under the tutelage of a band of renegade coaches, and remade the game in the process. These coaches, many of them baseball washouts who have reinvented themselves as swing gurus, for years were one of the game’s best-kept secrets. Among their ranks are a swimming pool contractor, the owner of a billiards hall, and an ex-hippie whose swing insights draw from surfing and the technique of Japanese samurai. Now, as Diamond artfully charts, this motley cast has moved from the baseball margins to its center of power. They are changing the way hitting is taught to players of all ages, and major league clubs are scrambling for their services, hiring them in record numbers as coaches and consultants. And Diamond himself, whose baseball career ended in high school, enlists the tutelage of each swing coach he profiles, with an aim toward starring in the annual Boston-New York media game at Yankee Stadium. Swing Kings is both a rollicking history of baseball’s recent past and a deeply reported, character-driven account of a battle between opponents as old as time: old and new, change and stasis, the establishment and those who break from it. Jared Diamond has written a masterful chronicle of America’s pastime at the crossroads.

This series of book and compact disc packages offers informative and enjoyable histories of many diverse genres of music in a beautifully compact format. Readers will be able to listen to some of the greatest songs ever recorded as they read about the musicians who made them.

The remarkable story of Bluefield represents a unique combination of geology, geography, and opportunity. Once just the confluence of a handful of family farms in southern West Virginia, Bluefield was put on the map, literally, in the 1880s, when the Norfolk & Western Railway came to town. The company's influence on the rural landscape was overwhelming, and soon, Bluefield was transformed into the center of a coal-fired universe and became a major thoroughfare for the then-thriving mining industry. Though the company--not the coal--was king in Bluefield, enterprising men and women could, and did, share in its success. The city evolved into a successful supply center for the enormous network of towns that sprung up almost overnight throughout the region's coalfields. For the next 60 years, Bluefield experienced dramatic growth, enticing a diverse group of newcomers who helped to build the strong cultural heritage that continues to play a prominent role in the community to the present day.

Describes the history of the music of southern Louisiana and examines the influence of Cajun songs on American popular music

It was for stage bands, for dancing, and for a jiving mood of letting go. Throughout the nation swing re-sounded with the spirit of good times. But this pop genre, for a decade America's favorite, arose during the worst of times, the Great Depression. From its peak in the 1930s until bebop, r & b, and country swamped it after World War II, swing defined an American generation and measured America's musical heartbeat. In its heyday swing reached a mass audience of very disparate individuals and united them. They perceived in the tempers and tempos of swing the very definition of modernity. A survey of the thirties reveals that the time was indeed the Swing Era, America's segue into modernity. What social structures encouraged swing's creation, acceptance, and popularity? Swing, That Modern Sound examines the cultural and historical significance of swing and tells how and why it achieved its audience, unified its fans, defined its generation, and, after World War II, fell into decline. What fed the music? And, in turn, what did the music feed? This book shows that swing manifested the kind of up-to-date allure that the populace craved. Swing sounded modern, happy, optimistic. It flouted the hardship signals of the Great Depression. The key to its rise and appeal, this book argues, was its all-out appropriation of modernity--consumer advertising, the language and symbols of consumption, and the public's all-too-evident wish for goods during a period of scarcity. As it examines the role of race, class, and gender in the creation of this modern music, Swing, That Modern Sound tells how a music genre came to symbolize the cultural revolution taking place in America. Kenneth J. Bindas is an associate professor of history at Kent State University, Trumbull Campus, in Warren, Ohio. He is the author of All of This Music Belongs to the Nation: The WPA's Federal Music Project and American Society, 1935--1939.

From legendary master storyteller Stephen King, a riveting story about “an ordinary man in an extraordinary condition rising above hatred” (The Washington Post) and bringing the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine together—a “joyful, uplifting” (Entertainment Weekly) tale about finding common ground despite deep-rooted differences, “the sign of a master elevating his own legendary game yet again” (USA TODAY). Although Scott Carey doesn’t look any different, he’s been steadily losing weight. There are a couple of other odd things, too. He weighs the same in his clothes and out of them, no matter how heavy they are. Scott doesn’t want to be poked and prodded. He mostly just wants someone else to know, and he trusts Doctor Bob Ellis. In the small town of Castle Rock, the setting of many of King’s most iconic stories, Scott is engaged in a low grade—but escalating—battle with the lesbians next door whose dog regularly drops his business on Scott’s lawn. One of the women is friendly; the other, cold as ice. Both are trying to launch a new restaurant, but the people of Castle Rock want no part of a gay married couple, and the place is in trouble. When Scott finally understands the prejudices they face—including his own—he tries to help. Unlikely alliances, the annual foot race, and the mystery of Scott’s affliction bring out the best in people who have indulged the worst in themselves and others. “Written in masterly Stephen King’s signature translucent…this uncharacteristically glimmering fairy tale calls unabashedly for us to rise above our differences” (Booklist, starred review). Elevation is an antidote to our divisive culture, an “elegant whisper of a story” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), “perfect for any fan of small towns, magic, and the joys and challenges of doing the right thing” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

In the late ’90s, third-wave ska broke across the American alternative music scene like a tsunami. In sweaty clubs across the nation, kids danced themselves dehydrated to the peppy rhythms and punchy horns of bands like The Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Reel Big Fish. As ska caught fire, a swing revival brought even more sharp-dressed, brass-packing bands to national attention. Hell of a Hat dives deep into this unique musical moment. Prior to invading the Billboard charts and MTV, ska thrived from Orange County, California, to NYC, where Moon Ska Records had eager rude girls and boys snapping up every release. On the swing tip, retro pioneers like Royal Crown Revue had fans doing the jump, jive, and wail long before The Brian Setzer Orchestra resurrected the Louis Prima joint. Drawing on interviews with heavyweights like the Bosstones, Sublime, Less Than Jake, and Cherry Poppin' Daddies—as well as underground heroes like Mustard Plug, The Slackers, Hepcat, and The New Morty Show—Kenneth Partridge argues that the relative economic prosperity and general optimism of the late ’90s created the perfect environment for fast, danceable music that—with some notable exceptions—tended to avoid political commentary. An homage to a time when plaids and skankin’ were king and doing the jitterbug in your best suit was so money, Hell of a Hat is an inside look at ’90s ska, swing, and the loud noises of an era when America was dreaming and didn’t even know it.

The Mancini Sisters, Marie and Hortense, were born in Rome, brought to the court of Louis XIV of France, and strategically married off by their uncle, Cardinal Mazarin, to secure his political power base. Such was the life of many young women of the age: they had no independent status under the law and were entirely a part of their husband's property once married. Marie and Hortense, however, had other ambitions in mind altogether. Miserable in their marriages and determined to live independently, they abandoned their husbands in secret and began lives of extraordinary daring on the run and in the public eye. The beguiling sisters quickly won the affections of noblemen and kings alike. Their flight became popular fodder for salon conversation and tabloids, and was closely followed by seventeenth-century European society. The Countess of Grignan remarked that they were traveling "like two heroines out of a novel." Others gossiped that they "were roaming the countryside in pursuit of wandering lovers. "Their scandalous behavior -- disguising themselves as men, gambling, and publicly disputing with their husbands -- served as more than just entertainment. It sparked discussions across Europe concerning the legal rights of husbands over their wives. Elizabeth Goldsmith's vibrant biography of the Mancini sisters -- drawn from personal papers of the players involved and the tabloids of the time -- illuminates the lives of two pioneering free spirits who were feminists long before the word existed.