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| athletics spring training schedule: The Cactus League Emily Nemens, 2020-02-04 Named a Best Book of 2020 by NPR and Lit Hub. A Los Angeles Times Bestseller. A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice In The Cactus League [Emily Nemens] provides her readers with what amounts to a miniature, self-enclosed world that is funny and poignant and lovingly observed. --Charles McGrath, The New York Times Book Review An explosive, character-driven odyssey through the world of baseball Jason Goodyear is the star outfielder for the Los Angeles Lions, stationed with the rest of his team in the punishingly hot Arizona desert for their annual spring training. Handsome, famous, and talented, Goodyear is nonetheless coming apart at the seams. And the coaches, writers, wives, girlfriends, petty criminals, and diehard fans following his every move are eager to find out why—as they hide secrets of their own. Humming with the energy of a ballpark before the first pitch, Emily Nemens's The Cactus League unravels the tightly connected web of people behind a seemingly linear game. Narrated by a sportscaster, Goodyear’s story is interspersed with tales of Michael Taylor, a batting coach trying to stay relevant; Tamara Rowland, a resourceful spring-training paramour, looking for one last catch; Herb Allison, a legendary sports agent grappling with his decline; and a plethora of other richly drawn characters, all striving to be seen as the season approaches. It’s a journey that, like the Arizona desert, brims with both possibility and destruction. Anchored by an expert knowledge of baseball’s inner workings, Emily Nemens's The Cactus League is a propulsive and deeply human debut that captures a strange desert world that is both exciting and unforgiving, where the most crucial games are the ones played off the field. |
| athletics spring training schedule: Cactus League Susie Steckner, The Mesa Historical Museum, 2012 Arizona's baseball roots run long and deep, but the star of the show is the Cactus League. The state's spring training history is filled with social, political, and cultural intrigue, not to mention a roster of baseball greats. Early on, fans watched Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Willie Mays, and the American League's first black player, Larry Doby. Beyond the field, baseball became part of the state's social fabric, as players and fans alike flocked to watering holes, hotels, parades, and a desert resort famous for its mineral baths. History also saw a political battle to save the Cactus League and fend off Florida's attempts to dominate spring training. Today, the Cactus League is a 15-team powerhouse that holds court in Arizona each spring. |
| athletics spring training schedule: Billy Ball Dale Tafoya, 2020-03-24 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 colorful owner, Charlie Finley, was looking for a buyer. First, though, he had to bring fans back to the Oakland Coliseum. Enter Billy Martin, the hometown boy from West Berkeley. In Billy Ball, sportswriter Dale Tafoya describes what, at the time, seemed like a match made in baseball heaven. The A’s needed a fiery leader to re-ignite 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 in 1980, his immediate embrace by Oakland fans, and the A’s return to playoff baseball. Tafoya describes the reputation that had preceded Martin—one that he fully lived up to—as the brawling, hard-drinking baseball savant with a knack for turning bad teams around. In Oakland, his 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. Neither have Billy Martin and Billy Ball. During a time of economic uncertainty and waning baseball interest in Oakland, Billy Ball filled the stands, rejuvenated fans, and saved professional baseball in the city. |
| athletics spring training schedule: A's Bad as It Gets John G. Robertson, Andy Saunders, 2014-03-26 This work is a game-by-game account of the Philadelphia Athletics' pitiful 1916 season, in which they won just 36 of 154 games. It starts with a brief biography of the team's living symbol--A's manager and co-owner Connie Mack--and moves through the birth of the franchise and into its first era of glory in which the A's won world championships in 1910, 1911, and 1913. Following the A's stunning defeat in the 1914 World Series to the underdog Boston Braves, Mack dismantled his championship club and finished last in the American League for seven straight seasons. The 1916 campaign was the nadir. The team's few solid veterans had a supporting cast of underachievers, college boys, raw rookies, no-hopers, and sub-par pitching. The book chronicles the daily grind of a team that had no chance to begin with and quickly became the laughingstock of the AL. Many humorous anecdotes, needless to say! |
| athletics spring training schedule: Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game Michael Lewis, 2004-03-17 Michael Lewis’s instant classic may be “the most influential book on sports ever written” (People), but “you need know absolutely nothing about baseball to appreciate the wit, snap, economy and incisiveness of [Lewis’s] thoughts about it” (Janet Maslin, New York Times). One of GQ's 50 Best Books of Literary Journalism of the 21st Century Just before the 2002 season opens, the Oakland Athletics must relinquish its three most prominent (and expensive) players and is written off by just about everyone—but then comes roaring back to challenge the American League record for consecutive wins. How did one of the poorest teams in baseball win so many games? In a quest to discover the answer, Michael Lewis delivers not only “the single most influential baseball book ever” (Rob Neyer, Slate) but also what “may be the best book ever written on business” (Weekly Standard). Lewis first looks to all the logical places—the front offices of major league teams, the coaches, the minds of brilliant players—but discovers the real jackpot is a cache of numbers?numbers!?collected over the years by a strange brotherhood of amateur baseball enthusiasts: software engineers, statisticians, Wall Street analysts, lawyers, and physics professors. What these numbers prove is that the traditional yardsticks of success for players and teams are fatally flawed. Even the box score misleads us by ignoring the crucial importance of the humble base-on-balls. This information had been around for years, and nobody inside Major League Baseball paid it any mind. And then came Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland Athletics. He paid attention to those numbers?with the second-lowest payroll in baseball at his disposal he had to?to conduct an astonishing experiment in finding and fielding a team that nobody else wanted. In a narrative full of fabulous characters and brilliant excursions into the unexpected, Michael Lewis shows us how and why the new baseball knowledge works. He also sets up a sly and hilarious morality tale: Big Money, like Goliath, is always supposed to win . . . how can we not cheer for David? |
| athletics spring training schedule: The Kansas City Athletics John E. Peterson, 2015-09-17 The Athletics spent thirteen seasons in Kansas City before moving to Oakland--a colorful history despite one of the worst records in baseball history. Even so, many of the players who were part of the world championship teams in Oakland in the 1970s began their careers in Kansas City. This work presents the relatively short history of the Kansas City franchise from 1954, when Arnold Johnson purchased the Philadelphia Athletics and moved the team to Kansas City because of the financial benefits the city provided, to 1967, when Charles Finley moved the team to Oakland (after unsuccessful attempts to move it to Dallas, Atlanta, Louisville, Milwaukee and Seattle). In the 1950s, the team was called a Yankee farm team because of the numerous trades with the Yankees that favored the latter. The author re-evaluates these trades and concludes that they were not as one-sided as previously thought and really did benefit the team. The author also carefully considers Charles Finley's intentions to keep the team in Kansas City and his reasons for having to move them to Oakland. |
| athletics spring training schedule: The Grand Old Man of Baseball Norman L. Macht, 2015-10-01 In The Grand Old Man of Baseball, Norman L. Macht chronicles Connie Mack’s tumultuous final two decades in baseball. After Mack had built one of baseball’s greatest teams, the 1929–31 Philadelphia Athletics, the Depression that followed the stock market crash fundamentally reshaped Mack’s legacy as his team struggled on the field and at the gate. Among the challenges Mack faced: a sharp drop in attendance that forced him to sell his star players; the rise of the farm system, which he was slow to adopt; the opposition of other owners to night games, which he favored; the postwar integration of baseball, which he initially opposed; a split between the team’s heirs (Mack’s sons Roy and Earle on one side, their half brother Connie Jr. on the other) that tore apart the family and forced Mack to choose—unwisely—between them; and, finally, the disastrous 1951–54 seasons in which Roy and Earle ran the club to the brink of bankruptcy. By now aged and mentally infirm, Mack watched in bewilderment as the business he had built fell apart. Broke and in debt, Roy and Earle feuded over the sale of the team. In a never-before-revealed series of maneuvers, Roy double-crossed his father and brother and the team was sold and moved to Kansas City in 1954. In Macht’s third volume of his trilogy on Mack, he describes the physical, mental, and financial decline of Mack’s final years, which unfortunately became a classic American tragedy. |
| athletics spring training schedule: Ty Cobb Charles C. Alexander, 1984-04-05 Ty Cobb was one of the most famous baseball players who every lived. The author puts Cobb into the context of his times, describing the very different game on the field then, and successfully probes Cobb's complex personality. |
| athletics spring training schedule: Mustaches and Mayhem: Charlie O's Three Time Champions Chip Greene, Greg Erion, Len Levin, Bill Nowlin, 2015-09-17 In modern baseball history, only one team not named the New York Yankees has ever won three consecutive World Series. That team was the Oakland Athletics, who captured major league baseball’s crown each year from 1972 through 1974. Led by such superstars as future Hall of Famers Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter and Rollie Fingers, in the final years before free agency and the movement of playersfrom one team to another forever changed the game, the Athletics were a largely homegrown aggregate of players who joined the organization when the team called Kansas City its home, developed as teammates in the minor leagues, and came of age together in Oakland. But it was the way in which they did it that immortalized those teams. For if the story of the Oakland Athletics’ championships is that of one of baseball’s greatest teams, it’s also the story of enigmatic owner Charles O. Finley and how those players succeeded in spite of Finley’s larger-than-life persona and meddlesome ways. Indeed, before the Yankees’ George Steinbrenner, there was Charles Oscar Finley, of the Athletics. Featuring the contributions of 46 members of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), Mustaches and Mayhem: Charlie O’s Three-Time Champions shares the stories of each of the roster players on each of the A’s championship teams, in addition to the managers, coaches, Finley himself, the team’s radio announcer, and even Charlie O, the mule, Finley’s legendary mascot. Summaries of each spring training and World Series, too, will complete the tale of one of baseball’s most colorful and successful teams. Biographies included: Charlie Finley, Charlie O (the Mule), Sal Bando, Vida Blue, Bert Campaneris, Rollie Fingers, Dick Green, Dave Hamilton, Catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson, Ted Kubiak, Blue Moon Odom, Joe Rudi, Gene Tenace, Jerry Adair (coach), Matty Alou, Brant Alyea, Dwain Anderson, Curt Blefary, Bob Brooks, Larry Brown, Ollie Brown, Orlando Cepeda, Ron Clark, Tim Cullen, Dave Duncan, Mike Epstein, Adrian Garrett, Larry Haney, Mike Hegan, George Hendrick, Ken Holtzman, Joe Horlen, Vern Hoscheit (coach), Mike Kilkenny, Darold Knowles, Allan Lewis, Bob Locker, Angel Mangual, Gonzalo Marques, Marty Martinez, Dal Maxvill, Denny McLain, Bill McNulty, Don Mincher, Irv Noren (coach), Bill Posedel (coach), Jim Roland, Diego Segui, Art Shamsky, Don Shaw, Bill Voss, Gary Waslewski, Dick Williams, Glenn Abbott, Jesus Alou, Mike Andrews, Pat Bourque, Rico Carty, Billy Conigliaro, Vic Davalillo, Chuck Dobson, Ray Fosse, Rob Gardner, Phil Garner, Tim Hosley, Deron Johnson, Jay Johnstone, Paul Lindblad, Rich McKinney, Jose Morales, Bill North, Horacio Pina, Wes Stock (coach), Manny Trillo, Alvin Dark, John Donaldson, Bob Hofman, Jim Holt, Leon Hooten, Bill Parsons, Gaylen Pitts, Champ Summers, Claudell Washington, Herb Washington, Bob Winkles, and Monte Moore (broadcaster). |
| athletics spring training schedule: Hairs Vs. Squares Ed Gruver, 2016-05-01 Hairs vs. Squares is an ode to an unforgettable season that began with the first major players’ strike in the history of North American sports and ended with a record-setting World Series played by two of the game’s greatest and most colorful dynasties. In a sign of the times it was Hippies vs. Hardhats, a clash of cultures with the hirsute, mod Mustache Gang colliding with the clean-cut, conservative Big Red Machine on the game’s grandest stage. When the Oakland A’s met the Cincinnati Reds in the 1972 Fall Classic, more than a championship was at stake. The more than two dozen interviews bring to life a time when controversy was commonplace, both inside and outside the national pastime. In baseball, Willie Mays was traded, Hank Aaron was chasing down Babe Ruth’s home run record, and Dick Allen was helping to save the Chicago White Sox franchise while winning the American League’s Most Valuable Player award. Outside the American pastime the war in Vietnam was raging, campus protests spread throughout the country, and Watergate and the Munich Olympics headlined the tumultuous year. The 1972 Major League Baseball season was marked by the rapid rise of rookies and young stars, the fall of established teams and veterans, courageous comebacks, and personal redemptions. Along with the many unforgettable and outrageous characters inside baseball, Hairs vs. Squares emphasizes the dramatic changes that took place on and off the field in the 1970s. Owners’ lockouts, on-field fights, maverick managers, controversial trades, artificial fields, the first full five-game League Championship Series, and the closest, most competitive World Series ever, combined to make the 1972 season as complex as the social and political unrest that marked the era. |
| athletics spring training schedule: Lefty Grove and the 1931 Philadelphia Athletics Robert P. Broadwater, 2014-06-04 This book chronicles the history of the Philadelphia Athletics, the first real dynasty in Major League Baseball. The focus of the book is the 1931 season, in which Philadelphia, led by superstar pitcher Lefty Grove, had the best season in franchise history, leading to a third consecutive trip to the World Series. With a roster full of future Hall of Fame players--like Al Simmons, Mickey Cochrane, Jimmie Foxx and Connie Mack--the Athletics were one of the best baseball teams of all time, and the 1931 season served as the apex of their success, as the financial restrictions of the Great Depression caused the owners to break up the team. |
| athletics spring training schedule: The Athletics of Philadelphia David M. Jordan, 1999-04-01 In 1900, American League president Ban Johnson convinced Connie Mack to manage the newly created Philadelphia Athletics, which had been strategically placed in the same market as the National League Phillies, making the City of Brotherly Love a two-team town. The Athletics thus began their 54-year history by attempting to split the city's fan base, perhaps the first indication of the team's tendency toward polarity and vicissitude. As Ed Fitzgerald put it, Like the little girl with the curl on her forehead, when the Athletics were good, they were very very good. But when they were bad, horrid was hardly the word. The A's won nine pennants and five World Series, yet finished last 16 times; they raided the Phillies roster in 1901, and later stripped themselves in baseball's first great fire sale; they boasted the illustrious $100,000 Infield, yet Mack had to sell star players one after another to pull the A's through the Depression. This book, written by a long-time fan of the defunct team, relates the Athletics to the city of Philadelphia and tells the stories of the organization's signature seasons, from the championship years to the days when the A's were synonymous with baseball's cellar. The book also details the exploits of such Hall of Famers as Chief Bender, Eddie Collins, Lefty Grove, Jimmie Foxx, and Al Simmons, and considers the unique achievements and personality of Connie Mack, baseball's Tall Tactician. |
| athletics spring training schedule: August "Garry" Herrmann William A. Cook, 2007-10-12 August Garry Herrmann entered the murky waters of 19th century machine politics in Cincinnati, serving as a trusted lieutenant to one of the most powerful political bosses in the country, George B. Cox. Herrmann, a gifted man who introduced modern management principles to municipal government and oversaw the committee that built Cincinnati's modern water works system, eventually did for baseball what he did for his home town, guiding it into a new century. Along with George B. Cox and Cincinnati mayor Julius Fleischmann, Herrmann bought the Cincinnati Reds from John T. Brush in 1902. By 1903 he had chaired the peace conference between the leagues that ushered in the modern game. With the leagues united, Herrmann was selected to head up the National Commission, a three-person ruling body that governed major league baseball in the years before the commissionership. |
| athletics spring training schedule: Mickey Cochrane Charlie Bevis, 1998-08-15 Though many of his contemporaries considered him second only to Babe Ruth in the 1920s and 1930s, Mickey Cochrane is often overlooked by fans and historians. The hard-hitting catcher played on three World Series winners. Fiercely competitive on the field, Cochrane was a true gentleman off it. Though he was a highly regarded member of the A's championship teams, it is his career in Depression-era Detroit that he is best remembered. The pressure of the adulation there and his duties as player, manager and Tigers vice president led to a breakdown in 1935. On his way to recovery, he was hit in the head by a pitch thrown by Bump Hadley and was nearly killed, ending his career. This full story of Cochrane's Hall of Fame career and his off-field life was researched from primary documents and interviews with his family. |
| athletics spring training schedule: Lost in the Sun G. Richard McKelvey, 2007-11-15 Baseball players, like teams, have their ups and downs. Pitchers inexplicably lose their command of the strike zone, batters think themselves into deep slumps, and injuries, addiction, and poor decision-making can radically change the fortunes of either. It's in the response to such adversity that memorable stories are made. This book focuses both on players whose determination in the face of injury or private demons landed them back in the big leagues and stars who never recovered from their dramatic, unexpected falls. Profiled here are 14 players whose stories are among the most stirring in baseball history: Tony Conigliaro, Monte Stratton, Pete Rose, Bert Shepard, Eddie Waitkus, Mark Wohlers, Red Barney, Lou Brissie, Tommy John, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Steve Blass, Dave Dravecky, and Joe Jackson. |
| athletics spring training schedule: Baseball Photography of the Deadball Era Jim Chapman, 2023-05-31 Winner of the 2024 SABR Larry Ritter Book Award for best Deadball Era baseball book. Second place finisher for 2023 CASEY Award for best baseball book of the year. While ostensibly a tool for collectors to identify and authenticate Deadball Era photographs, a purpose at which it excels, this book is so much more. At its heart, Baseball Photography of the Deadball Era is the definitive story of the rise of baseball press photographers in the early 20th century and a celebration of the visual splendors of the game they captured. Collectors have long admired the artistry of their beautiful sepia toned baseball prints from the early 1900’s. These images are visual time machines that transport us back to those halcyon days when we romanticize that baseball was pure. What collectors haven’t appreciated, as they have long been shrouded in mystery, are the stories of the men behind the lens and the photo syndicates who distributed their work. These Photographers’ indelible images brought the game from the field to the fans and helped create the baseball legends we still revere. This book lifts the veil on their previously untold stories. Through extensive research and newfound discoveries, the lives of many of the photographic artists and innovators who brought the game to life have been revealed. Their stories are as fascinating as those of the more famous men in front of the lens. Some names are iconic, such as Charles Conlon. Some should be, such as Frances Burke. Dozens more are profiled, all in far more detail than has ever been presented before. The clues to uncovering their stories are embedded in their photos and stamped on the back of their vintage prints. Baseball Photography of the Deadball Era contains extensive and groundbreaking research on identifying and authenticating Deadball photographs through the examination of back stampings. The hundreds of stamps presented, dated and interpreted in this book represent a quantum leap forward in the knowledge base regarding the era’s photographers. Of course, the book contains hundreds of gorgeous are rare images of the Deadball Era, many never seen before by the public. Longtime collectors have generously granted use of their private collections to embellish this story, and what a visual feast it is. Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Christy Mathewson, “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and other ballyard legends are all here, as seen in their glory days. Many readers will buy the book for the images alone. My hope is they stick around for the stories. |
| athletics spring training schedule: Connie Mack's '29 Triumph William C. Kashatus, 2005-02-04 It has been said that Connie Mack managed only two kinds of teams during his half-century in the City of Brother Love--unbeatable and lousy. His teams collected nine pennants and five World Series titles, balanced by 17 last place finishes. While Mack, an enterprising businessman, had a gift for discovering talented players and molding them into a team, by the time he was well into his sixties, Philadelphians suspected that the A's skipper had lost his ability. Mack went on to disprove all doubts, however, with a second championship dynasty in 1929 that vindicated the Tall Tactician. This work chronicles the rise and fall of the 1929 Philadelphia Athletics and their six-year rivalry with the New York Yankees, 1927 to 1932. Based primarily on newspaper accounts, the book tells the story of the Grand Old Man of Baseball--and the 1929 A's team that is unfairly overlooked in favor of the 1927 Yankees as baseball's greatest all-around team. This history is packed with photographs, notes and statistical appendices, and includes a foreword by The Sporting News writer Dave Kindred. |
| athletics spring training schedule: Athletic Journal , 1928 |
| athletics spring training schedule: Cellar Dwellers Jonathan Weeks, 2012-07-20 In 1890, baseball’s Pittsburgh Alleghenys won a measly 23 games, losing 113. The Cleveland Spiders topped this record when they lost an astonishing 134 games in 1899. Over 100 years later, the 2003 Detroit Tigers stood apart as the only team in baseball history to lose 60 games before July in a season. These stories and more are told in Cellar Dwellers: The Worst Teams in Baseball History, a colorful tribute to the sport’s least successful clubs. Cellar Dwellers spans three centuries of professional baseball, recounting the seasons of those teams whose misadventures have largely been forgotten over time. Chapters not only cover the stories of the luckless teams, they also include reams of statistics and detailed player profiles of those who helped the clubs—and those who helped them fail. In addition to the Alleghenys, Spiders, and Tigers, the cellar dwellers of baseball include: 1904 and 1909 Washington Senators 1916 Philadelphia Athletics 1928 and 1941 Philadelphia Phillies 1932 Boston Red Sox 1935 Boston Braves 1939 St. Louis Browns 1952 Pittsburgh Pirates 1962 New York Mets While many books revel in the glories of teams whose exploits have become legendary, the stories found in this volume offer an engaging alternative to the thrill of victory. Embellished with comical and amusing anecdotes alongside historical perspectives, Cellar Dwellers will entertain baseball fans and fascinate those who love baseball history. |
| athletics spring training schedule: Jack Coombs John P. Tierney, 2014-01-10 Jack Coombs rose to deadball-era stardom as the ace of Connie Mack's Athletics, winners of back-to-back world championships in 1910 and 1911. One of the few players of his day to have graduated from college, Coombs debuted for the Athletics in 1906, fresh from Colby College. Within a few years, he was one of the best and best-known pitchers in baseball, leading the majors in victories in consecutive seasons. But then in 1913 Coombs contracted typhoid fever, a disease that cost the right-hander two seasons at the peak of his career. And while he battled his way back, pitching well in his comeback season of 1915 and then leading the Brooklyn Robins to the World Series in 1916, he was never again the dominant pitcher he had been. Coombs went on to a long career as a coach for Duke University, and wrote one of the most highly regarded instructional books on baseball ever published. |
| athletics spring training schedule: Connie Mack Norman L. Macht, 2012-04-01 The Philadelphia Athletics dominated the first fourteen years of the American League, winning six pennants through 1914 under the leadership of their founder and manager, Connie Mack. But beginning in 1915, where volume 2 in Norman L. Macht’s biography picks up the story, Mack’s teams fell from pennant winners to last place and, in an unprecedented reversal of fortunes, stayed there for seven years. World War I robbed baseball of young players, and Mack’s rebuilding efforts using green youngsters of limited ability made his teams the objects of public ridicule. At the age of fifty-nine and in the face of widespread skepticism and seemingly insurmountable odds, Connie Mack reasserted his genius, remade the A’s, and rose again to the top, even surpassing his earlier success. Baseball biographer and historian Macht recreates what may be the most remarkable chapter in this larger-than-life story. He shows us the man and his time and the game of baseball in all its nitty-gritty glory of the 1920s, and how Connie Mack built the 1929–1931 champions of Foxx, Simmons, Cochrane, Grove, Earnshaw, Miller, Haas, Bishop, Dykes—a team many consider baseball’s greatest ever. |
| athletics spring training schedule: The A's David M. Jordan, 2014-02-01 This is a straightforward history of the Athletics franchise, from its Connie Mack years in Philadelphia with teams featuring Eddie Collins, Chief Bender, Jimmy Foxx, Mickey Cochrane and Lefty Grove, through its 13 years in Kansas City, under Arnold Johnson and Charles O. Finley, and on to its great years in Oakland--with the three World Series wins featuring Catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson, Sal Bando and Vida Blue, and the conflicts with Finley--as well as the less successful seasons that followed, then the Series sweep in 1989, and ending up with the unusual operation of the club by Billy Beane. |
| athletics spring training schedule: Bucketfoot Al Clifton Blue Parker, 2014-01-10 Al Simmons, at top form in the Roaring Twenties, sparked one of baseball's greatest dynasties, the Philadelphia Athletics, to multiple championships, before becoming just another ballplayer. While his achievements demonstrated greatness, he was not an easy man to like--for those competing against him or with him--and he seemed to play to the level of team expectation. Contemporary accounts and other recollections give us a sense of Al Simmons the person and the ballplayer, his connections to people, his teams and his ability to capture the fans' imagination in his halcyon days. |
| athletics spring training schedule: Jimmie Foxx W. Harrison Daniel, 2004-01-27 In February 1925, 17-year-old Jimmie Foxx left his home in Sudlersville, Maryland, and joined the Philadelphia Athletics in spring training. Over the next twenty years, Foxx was one of the most consistent stars in the majors. His long home runs were legendary--his 535 were second only to Babe Ruth's 714 when he retired in 1945. Only six years later, he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Foxx tried his hand at a variety of jobs after he left baseball, but seemed always to be drawn back to the game. He coached and managed in the minor leagues and even managed the Fort Wayne Daisies of the All American Girls Professional Baseball League in 1953. This is the story of Foxx's rise to glory, his life in and out of the game, and his love affair with the national pastime. |
| athletics spring training schedule: Grigs!: A Beauuutiful Life Bill Grigsby, 2011-12-12 It has, most definitely, been A Beauuutiful Life for Bill Grigsby, a Kansas City icon and Grand Master of Ceremony. No one can paint a more illustrious image of Midwestern sports and its famous and not-so-famous participants than the man affectionately known as Grigs. From humble beginnings during the Depression through his war years as a code breaker to his development as a colorful broadcaster in Major League Baseball and the National Football League, Bill Grigsby is the supreme storyteller who crosses the generational timeline. He was there when Mickey Mantle took his first professional swing, when a brash entrepreneur by the name of Charlie Finley bought the AA’s, and when a reserved dreamer named Lamar Hunt came to Kansas City. Along the way his path has crossed with a virtual Who’s Who of several Halls of Fame: George Brett, Lenny Dawson, Tom Watson, Whitey Herzog, Joe Montana, Dan Devine, Dick the Bruiser, Phog Allen, Marcus Allen, George Toma, Roy Williams, Hank Stram, and even Baby Doe, the women’s world champion midget wrestler from South Africa. Even Grigs himself is in two Halls—the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame and the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. Grigs has had not one single full-time job during his life, but more than 40, from fertilizer salesman to federal deputy to big-league broadcaster. His loyalty and longevity, though, are legend. He was there for the beginning of the Kansas City Sportshow, now more than a half-century old, and the Kansas City Chiefs, who came to town in the 1960s. To this day he remains a vital part of both organizations. No one, in fact, has longer tenure as an NFL broadcaster than Grigs, who first began to imagine himself as a sportscaster during the 1930s in Lawrence, Kansas. Bill Grigsby grew up in a desperate time, but it forged a man who, along with Fran, his wife of more than 50 years, created a beautiful family and A Beauuutiful Life. Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home. |
| athletics spring training schedule: The Bilko Athletic Club Gaylon H. White, 2014-03-06 During the 1956 baseball season in the city of Los Angeles, Mickey Mantle’s pursuit of Babe Ruth’s single-season home run record was matched only by the day-to-day drama of Steve Bilko’s exploits in the Pacific Coast League. While Mantle was winning the Triple Crown in the American League, Bilko was doing the same in the highest of all the minor leagues with the Los Angeles Angels. He led the league hitters in eight categories, and the Angels romped to the pennant. Bilko hit one mighty home run after another to earn Minor League Player of the Year honors and inspire the team’s nickname, “The Bilko Athletic Club.” The Bilko Athletic Club tells the story of the 1956 Los Angeles Angels, a team of castoffs and kids built around Steve Bilko, a bulky, beer-loving basher of home runs.Author Gaylon H. White provides an intimate portrait of life in minor league baseball in the 1950s and gives readers a glimpse inside the heads and hearts of the players as they experience the same doubts and frustrations many face in the pursuit of a dream. The Angels’ unforgettable season unfolds through stories told by the players themselves, as they racked up runs and rolled to a 107-61 won-loss record, finishing sixteen games ahead of their closest competitor. Featuring in-depth interviews with Steve Bilko and twenty-five of his ’56 Angels teammates, The Bilko Athletic Club also includes several photos and is highlighted by never-before-told anecdotes. A fascinating account of a season to remember, The Bilko Athletic Club will take fans and historians of the national pastime back to the golden era of baseball. |
| athletics spring training schedule: Wonder Boy - The Story of Carl Scheib Lawrence Knorr, 2017-03-30 Carl Scheib, from Gratz, PA, was a young farm boy of 16 who was signed to a major league contract by Connie Mack of the Philadelphia Athletics. Carl enjoyed 11 years in the major leagues, interrupted by his service in World War II. When he made his first appearance in 1943, he was the youngest player in modern major league history. The following season, Joe Nuxhall of the National League's Cincinnati Reds, pitched 2/3 of an inning at age 15, breaking Carl's major league record, but Carl retained his American League record. Known as a good-hitting pitcher, Carl hit .396 in 1951 and .298 in 1948. He hit five home runs in his career, including a grand slam. As a pitcher, Carl was a key hurler on the 1948 Philadelphia Athletics, going 14-8 during a tight pennant race. He also went 11-7 in 1952 and saved 11 games in 1951. Behind his “pitch-to-contact” approach, the A’s set the all-time record for double plays in a season with 217 in 1949, a record that still stands. Wonder Boy chronicles the rapid rise of Carl Scheib from his high school days at Gratz and his contributions to Dalmatia in the West Branch League, to his subsequent major league career, facing such players as Joe DiMaggio, Bill Dickey, Ted Williams, Yogi Berra, Bobby Doerr, Satchel Paige, Bob Lemon, Larry Doby, Bob Feller, Luke Appling, Early Wynn, Mickey Mantle and many more. |
| athletics spring training schedule: The Kansas City Athletics Ernest Mehl, 1956 |
| athletics spring training schedule: Athletic Director's Desk Reference Donna A. Lopiano, Connee Zotos, 2022-02-15 This applied reference includes management tips, planning tools, and policies for athletic administrators. Designed primarily as a reference for intercollegiate athletic program administrators, high school athletic administrators, courses in athletic administrations and libraries-- |
| athletics spring training schedule: Athletic Director's Desk Reference Lopiano, Donna, Zotos, Connee, 2013-11-07 Athletic Director’s Desk Reference is the most authoritative and comprehensive resource available for collegiate athletic administrators. This book and web resource guide program administrators in navigating their increasingly complex roles in athletic programs of any size. |
| athletics spring training schedule: At the Plate with...Marc McGwire Matt Christopher, 2009-12-19 At the start of the 1998 major league baseball season, St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Mark McGwire hit a home run. In the games that followed, he did it again. And again. And again. And again. By the end of the season, in late September, he had done the hardest thing in baseball an earth-shattering seventy times. He didn't just break the decades-old single-season home-run record set by Roger Maris in 1961-he shattered it. And by doing so, he not only set a new benchmark for players to strive for, but also reminded people that baseball is fun, a game to be enjoyed, with heroes who play for the love of the sport, not for the love of money. In this powerful biography of the most talked-about man in baseball, Matt Christopher, the number one sports series for kids, explores the slugger's childhood days on the diamond as well as the ups and downs of his college and professional career. For more information on the Matt Christopher Sports Bio Bookshelf, please see the last pages of this book. |
| athletics spring training schedule: Catalogue of the University of Arkansas University of Arkansas (Fayetteville campus), 1894 |
| athletics spring training schedule: The Ultimate Philadelphia Athletics Reference Book 1901-1954 Ted Taylor, 2010 Jack Coombs (1906-14) won three games in the 1910 World Series, an amazing accomplishment for any pitcher. (In three World Series he was lifetime 5-0.) That year he had gone 31-9 to pace the A's and lead the league in victories. He was 28-12 the following season and 21-10 in 1912, clearly the best years of his fourteen-year-career. He spent four years with Brooklyn and finished up with Detroit. Lifetime in 355 games Jack was 159-110. After his playing days were over he became head baseball coach at Duke University and sent a number of players to the A's during that time. Orge Pat Cooper (1946) a pitcher, not the comedian, who was one of those Cup of Coffee guys who saw action in one game, one inning and was never seen or heard from again in the majors. In the minors he pitched, played the outfield and first base and got into 622 games over ten years batting, of all things, .318. As a minor-league pitcher, he was 24-16. Arthur Bunny Corcoran (1915) was a member of the '15 A's. He was 0-4 in his one game at third base. Played just two minor-league campaigns (1920 at Norfolk and 1921 at Rocky Mount), played in 238 games and batted .230. Ensign Dick Cottrell (1913) spent small parts of five different years in the majors and every one of them with a different team. With the A's he was 1-0, with the rest of them, combined, he was 0-2. In four minor-league seasons, he won 34, lost 26. Why would someone give their kid a military rank as a first name? Stan Coveleski (1912) Hall of Famer, a native of Shamokin, PA, Stan started his fourteen-year career with the A's in 1912 and, somehow, they let him get away after he went 2-1. In fact he spent four years in the minors and was twenty-seven before he was back in the majors to stay, mostly with Cleveland (1916-24). He also saw service with Washington and the Yankees. Lifetime in 450 games, Coveleski won 215, lost 142 with an ERA of 2.88. He was the brother of Harry Coveleski a very good southpaw major-league pitcher who appeared with the Phillies, Reds, and Tigers over nine years (1907-18). Ironically the two brothers never faced each other on the mound. The correct spelling of his last name was Coveleskie, but he never corrected anyone and, as a consequence, his Hall of Famer The Ultimate Philadelphia Athletics Reference Book 1901-1954 93 plaque has his last name spelled incorrectly. (The original spelling of his name was Kowalewski, he and his brother changed it legally). Stan Coveleskie shared the same name (and they spelled it right, too) not the same talents as the well-known Hall of Famer. Stan played in the minors for six seasons (1944-51), five of them in the Phillies farm system, one in the A's organization. A catcher by trade, Coveleskie appeared in 346 games and batted .261. Homer Cox was signed as a catcher by the A's in 1938 and spent the majority of his ten-year minor-league career in their organization. He played in 578 games and had a .301 lifetime batting average, but never really got out of the low minors. He batted .367 for Lexington in 1945 in eighty-four games, his best season. Martin Toots Coyne (1914) went zero for two in his one game for the A's. No other pro record exists. Born and died in St. Louis. Jim Roy Crabb (1912) in seven games for the A's he was 2-4, in two games with the White Sox to start the season, he was 0-1. Lifetime, one year, nine games. Spent seven seasons in the minors, winning seventy-six, losing seventy-one. Once lost twenty games playing for three different teams in 1914. George Craig (1907) no decisions in two appearances. He was a left hander. Was 6-5 in his one minor-league season. Roger Doc Cramer (1929-35) who belongs in the Hall of Fame and will never get there despite his twenty-year-career and lifetime batting average of .296. His best A's year was 1935 when he batted .332 in 149 games. Cramer appeared in 2,239 games, had 2,705 hits and batted over .300 eight times |
| athletics spring training schedule: The Ultimate Philadelphia Athletics Reference Book 1901–1954 Ted Taylor, 2010-02-10 Jack Coombs (1906-14) won three games in the 1910 World Series, an amazing accomplishment for any pitcher. (In three World Series he was lifetime 5-0.) That year he had gone 31-9 to pace the A’s and lead the league in victories. He was 28-12 the following season and 21-10 in 1912, clearly the best years of his fourteen-year-career. He spent four years with Brooklyn and finished up with Detroit. Lifetime in 355 games Jack was 159-110. After his playing days were over he became head baseball coach at Duke University and sent a number of players to the A’s during that time. Orge “Pat” Cooper (1946) a pitcher, not the comedian, who was one of those “Cup of Coffee” guys who saw action in one game, one inning and was never seen or heard from again in the majors. In the minors he pitched, played the outfield and first base and got into 622 games over ten years batting, of all things, .318. As a minor-league pitcher, he was 24-16. Arthur “Bunny” Corcoran (1915) was a member of the ’15 A’s. He was 0-4 in his one game at third base. Played just two minor-league campaigns (1920 at Norfolk and 1921 at Rocky Mount), played in 238 games and batted .230. Ensign “Dick” Cottrell (1913) spent small parts of five different years in the majors—and every one of them with a different team. With the A’s he was 1-0, with the rest of them, combined, he was 0-2. In four minor-league seasons, he won 34, lost 26. Why would someone give their kid a military rank as a first name? Stan Coveleski (1912) Hall of Famer, a native of Shamokin, PA, Stan started his fourteen-year career with the A’s in 1912 and, somehow, they let him get away after he went 2-1. In fact he spent four years in the minors and was twenty-seven before he was back in the majors to stay, mostly with Cleveland (1916-24). He also saw service with Washington and the Yankees. Lifetime in 450 games, Coveleski won 215, lost 142 with an ERA of 2.88. He was the brother of Harry Coveleski a very good southpaw major-league pitcher who appeared with the Phillies, Reds, and Tigers over nine years (1907-18). Ironically the two brothers never faced each other on the mound. The correct spelling of his last name was Coveleskie, but he never corrected anyone and, as a consequence, his Hall of Famer The Ultimate Philadelphia Athletics Reference Book 1901-1954 93 plaque has his last name spelled incorrectly. (The original spelling of his name was Kowalewski, he and his brother changed it legally). Stan Coveleskie shared the same name (and they spelled it right, too) not the same talents as the well-known Hall of Famer. Stan played in the minors for six seasons (1944-51), five of them in the Phillies farm system, one in the A’s organization. A catcher by trade, Coveleskie appeared in 346 games and batted .261. Homer Cox was signed as a catcher by the A’s in 1938 and spent the majority of his ten-year minor-league career in their organization. He played in 578 games and had a .301 lifetime batting average, but never really got out of the low minors. He batted .367 for Lexington in 1945 in eighty-four games, his best season. Martin “Toots” Coyne (1914) went zero for two in his one game for the A’s. No other pro record exists. Born and died in St. Louis. Jim Roy Crabb (1912) in seven games for the A’s he was 2-4, in two games with the White Sox to start the season, he was 0-1. Lifetime, one year, nine games. Spent seven seasons in the minors, winning seventy-six, losing seventy-one. Once lost twenty games playing for three different teams in 1914. George Craig (1907) no decisions in two appearances. He was a left hander. Was 6-5 in his one minor-league season. Roger “Doc” Cramer (1929-35) who belongs in the Hall of Fame and will never get there despite his twenty-year-career and lifetime batting average of .296. His best A’s year was 1935 when he batted .332 in 149 games. Cramer appeared in 2,239 games, had 2,705 hits and batted over .300 eight times |
| athletics spring training schedule: Jimmie Foxx Mark R. Millikin, 2005-09-21 The story of one of baseball's most ferocious hitters, Jimmie Foxx. The most inclusive biography of Foxx to date, Millikin's book provides a complete picture of his subject. |
| athletics spring training schedule: Money Pitcher William C. Kashatus, 2006 Charles Albert Bender was one of baseball&’s most talented pitchers. By the end of his major league career in 1925, he had accrued 212 wins and more than 1,700 strikeouts, and in 1953, he became the first American Indian elected to baseball&’s Hall of Fame. But as a high-profile Chippewa Indian in a bigoted society, Bender knew firsthand the trauma of racism. In Money Pitcher: Chief Bender and the Tragedy of Indian Assimilation, William C. Kashatus offers the first biography of this compelling and complex figure. Bender&’s career in baseball began on the sandlots of Pennsylvania&’s Carlisle Indian Industrial School, where he distinguished himself as a hard-throwing pitcher. Soon, in 1903, Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack signed Bender to his pitching staff, where he was a mainstay for more than a decade. Mack regarded Bender as his &“money pitcher&”&—the hurler he relied on whenever he needed a critical victory. But with success came suffering. Spectators jeered Bender on the field and taunted him with war whoops. Newspapers ridiculed him in their sports pages. His own teammates derisively referred to him as &“Chief,&” and Mack paid him less than half the salary of other star pitchers. This constant disrespect became a major factor in one of the most controversial episodes in the history of baseball: the alleged corruption of the 1914 World Series. Despite being heavily favored going into the Series against the Boston Braves, the A&’s lost four straight games. Kashatus offers compelling evidence that Bender intentionally compromised his performance in the Series as retribution for the poor treatment he suffered. Money Pitcher is not just another baseball book. It is a book about social justice and Native Americans&’ tragic pursuit of the white American Dream at the expense of their own identity. Having arrived in the major leagues only thirteen years after the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890, Bender experienced the disastrous effects of governmental assimilation policies designed to quash indigenous Indian culture. Yet his remarkable athleticism and dignified behavior disproved popular notions of Native American inferiority and opened the door to the majors for more than 120 Indians who played baseball during the first half of the twentieth century. |
| athletics spring training schedule: Louisiana: A Guide to the State , 1976 |
| athletics spring training schedule: Hindseeing Bertram Clive Beardsley, 2017-09-15 There are not many people alive who can testify to the remarkable twentieth century. Bertram Clive Beardsley, age ninety-one, can—from firsthand experience. Born in 1924, Kansas City, Beardsley grew up during the depression, served in World War II and Korea, earned a master’s degree on the GI Bill, and worked in countries where Cold War hostilities bubbled under the surface. He married a woman from Belize and raised two biracial children at a time when such a family turned heads and caused comments. Along the way, Beardsley played baseball and jazz, took his family around the world, and strove to be a man in full. |
| athletics spring training schedule: Traveling Different Dawn M. Barclay, 2022-08-15 The award-winning travel bible for parents of children with autism spectrum disorder and/or mood and distraction disorders. “An essential read, not only for parents of autistic or otherwise neurodivergent children but for all families.”—Library Journal, Starred Review Traveling with children is always challenging, but for parents of children with autism spectrum disorder and/or mood and attention and distraction disorders it can be especially intimidating. In Traveling Different, Dawn M. Barclay presents travel strategies and anecdotes from Certified Autism Travel Professionals™, parents of special needs children, associations and advocates, and mental health professionals, broken down by mode of transportation and type of venue. The heart of the book outlines suggested itineraries for spectrum families as well as venues that cater to the unique special interests that are characteristic of individuals with autism. Culminating with a guide of travel agents who specialize in special needs travel and lists of organizations that advocate for special needs families, Traveling Different is the essential resource to make the cultural, educational, and bonding benefits of vacations available to all. |
| athletics spring training schedule: Ballparks of North America Michael Benson, 2024-10-16 What grandstand collapsed during a game, killing twelve? How high is the Green monster in Fenway? In what park was the outfield fence only 187 feet from home plate? Ballparks of North America is a comprehensive encyclopedia of the grounds, yards and stadiums used for organized baseball from the invention of the sport in the 1840s to the year 1988. Entries, listed alphabetically by community, cover everything from cornfields to Yankee Stadium. Each entry gives the location of the park, who played there and when, home run dimensions, seating capacity, architectural comments, attendance records, and anecdotes. More than 100 photos and drawings are included, some rare. |
Rangers Scores: Scoreboard, Results and Highlights
The official scoreboard of the Texas Rangers including Gameday, video, highlights and box score.
MLB Starting Lineups Today | Athletics
June 13th, 2025 Past Lineups. Athletics @ Royals
2025 Athletics Player Hitting Stat Leaders | Athletics - MLB.com
The official source for Athletics player hitting stats, MLB home run leaders, batting average, OPS and stat leaders
Active Roster | Athletics - MLB.com
Oct 18, 1995 · The Official Site of Major League Baseball. While not officially part of the 40-man roster, players on the 60-day injured list (IL-60) are included on the 40-Man tab.
Athletics Scores: Scoreboard, Results and Highlights | Athletics
The official scoreboard of the Athletics including Gameday, video, highlights and box score.
Athletics Schedule | Athletics - MLB.com
Stay updated with the latest games, times, and locations for the Oakland Athletics on the official MLB schedule.
Latest Athletics News | Athletics - MLB.com
5 days ago · KANSAS CITY -- The Athletics announced Friday that right-handed starter Gunnar Hoglund will miss the rest of the 2025 season after undergoing successful right hip labral …
Texas Rangers Schedule | Texas Rangers - MLB.com
The Official Site of Major League Baseball
All-Time Leaders | Athletics - MLB.com
The official team leaders stats of the Athletics including batting and pitching leaders.
Depth Chart | Athletics - MLB.com
Feb 20, 1994 · While not officially part of the 40-man roster, players on the 60-day injured list (IL-60) are included on the 40-Man tab.
Rangers Scores: Scoreboard, Results and Highlights
The official scoreboard of the Texas Rangers including Gameday, video, highlights and box score.
MLB Starting Lineups Today | Athletics
June 13th, 2025 Past Lineups. Athletics @ Royals
2025 Athletics Player Hitting Stat Leaders | Athletics - MLB.com
The official source for Athletics player hitting stats, MLB home run leaders, batting average, OPS and stat leaders
Active Roster | Athletics - MLB.com
Oct 18, 1995 · The Official Site of Major League Baseball. While not officially part of the 40-man roster, players on the 60-day injured list (IL-60) are included on the 40-Man tab.
Athletics Scores: Scoreboard, Results and Highlights | Athletics
The official scoreboard of the Athletics including Gameday, video, highlights and box score.
Athletics Schedule | Athletics - MLB.com
Stay updated with the latest games, times, and locations for the Oakland Athletics on the official MLB schedule.
Latest Athletics News | Athletics - MLB.com
5 days ago · KANSAS CITY -- The Athletics announced Friday that right-handed starter Gunnar Hoglund will miss the rest of the 2025 season after undergoing successful right hip labral …
Texas Rangers Schedule | Texas Rangers - MLB.com
The Official Site of Major League Baseball
All-Time Leaders | Athletics - MLB.com
The official team leaders stats of the Athletics including batting and pitching leaders.
Depth Chart | Athletics - MLB.com
Feb 20, 1994 · While not officially part of the 40-man roster, players on the 60-day injured list (IL-60) are included on the 40-Man tab.
