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| cubs giants spring training: 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. |
| cubs giants spring training: Mr. Wrigley's Ball Club Roberts Ehrgott, 2013-04-01 Chicago in the Roaring Twenties was a city of immigrants, mobsters, and flappers with one shared passion: the Chicago Cubs. It all began when the chewing-gum tycoon William Wrigley decided to build the world’s greatest ball club in the nation’s Second City. In this Jazz Age center, the maverick Wrigley exploited the revolutionary technology of broadcasting to attract eager throngs of women to his renovated ballpark. Mr. Wrigley’s Ball Club transports us to this heady era of baseball history and introduces the team at its crazy heart—an amalgam of rakes, pranksters, schemers, and choirboys who take center stage in memorable successes, equally memorable disasters, and shadowy intrigue. Readers take front-row seats to meet Grover Cleveland Alexander, Rogers Hornsby, Joe McCarthy, Lewis “Hack” Wilson, Gabby Hartnett. The cast of characters also includes their colorful if less-extolled teammates and the Cubs’ nemesis, Babe Ruth, who terminates the ambitions of Mr. Wrigley’s ball club with one emphatic swing. |
| cubs giants spring training: 100 Things Cubs Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die Jimmy Greenfield, 2016-05-01 This lively, detailed book explores the personalities, events, and facts every Cubs fan should know. More than a look at the century-long wait for another World Series win, the book contains crucial information for Cubs fans, such as important dates, player nicknames, memorable moments, and outstanding achievements by singular players. This guide to all things Cubs also includes a list of must-do Cubs-related activities, which include taking in Wrigley field, traveling to Arizona for spring training, and sipping beers at the best Cubs bars around the country.This new, updated edition features the new generation of Cubs stars, including manager Joe Maddon, sluggers Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant, and ace Jon Lester. |
| cubs giants spring training: Spring Training Dan Shaughnessy, Stan Grossfeld, 2003 Before the purpose-pitch that zips inches from the batter's head, before greenfly autograph-seekers stalk hotel lobbies, before thousands of fans stand up and boo in 50,000-seat stadiums, before the proverbial dog days of summer and the pressure-packed moments of October . . . there is sweet spring. The long hello. Baseball's early season. The words spring training have long held special power over baseball fans. They signal the arrival of fresh air and sunshine after a long winter devoid of bare feet and box scores. The chance to see the game up close and personal, in beautiful slow motion. No other sport undergoes this slow, glorious unfolding. And no other book captures baseball's rite of passage in all its magic. Come on a wild ride through spring training's many attractions and peculiarities, from Florida to Arizona, the National to the American League, the dugouts to Section D. Glimpse retirees in Hawaiian shirts singing Take Me Out to the Ball Game, million-dollar players taking it easy on the field and in the bars, young rookies flashing their skills, grizzled vets going through the motions, wide-eyed children dressed from head to toe in their favorite team's garb. It's all here, from Alligator Alley to Cactus Way, sit-ups to sunblock, home runs to hangovers -- a lively tribute to America's favorite pastime in its purest, most wonderful form. |
| cubs giants spring training: Christie Malry's Own Double-entry Bryan Stanley Johnson, 1985 A disaffected young man, Christie Malry, is a simple man who learns the principles of double-entry book-keeping while taking an evening class in accountancy and working in the local bank. He begins to apply these principles to his own life, revenging himself against society in an increasingly violent manner for perceived 'debits'. Debit: the unpleasantness of the bank manager is the first on an ever-growing list; Credit: scratching the façade of the office block. All accounts are settled in the most alarming way. |
| cubs giants spring training: Crazy '08 Cait N. Murphy, 2009-10-13 From the perspective of 2007, the unintentional irony of Chance's boast is manifest—these days, the question is when will the Cubs ever win a game they have to have. In October 1908, though, no one would have laughed: The Cubs were, without doubt, baseball's greatest team—the first dynasty of the 20th century. Crazy '08 recounts the 1908 season—the year when Peerless Leader Frank Chance's men went toe to toe to toe with John McGraw and Christy Mathewson's New York Giants and Honus Wagner's Pittsburgh Pirates in the greatest pennant race the National League has ever seen. The American League has its own three-cornered pennant fight, and players like Cy Young, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, and the egregiously crooked Hal Chase ensured that the junior circuit had its moments. But it was the National League's—and the Cubs'—year. Crazy '08, however, is not just the exciting story of a great season. It is also about the forces that created modern baseball, and the America that produced it. In 1908, crooked pols run Chicago's First Ward, and gambling magnates control the Yankees. Fans regularly invade the field to do handstands or argue with the umps; others shoot guns from rickety grandstands prone to burning. There are anarchists on the loose and racial killings in the town that made Lincoln. On the flimsiest of pretexts, General Abner Doubleday becomes a symbol of Americanism, and baseball's own anthem, Take Me Out to the Ballgame, is a hit. Picaresque and dramatic, 1908 is a season in which so many weird and wonderful things happen that it is somehow unsurprising that a hairpiece, a swarm of gnats, a sudden bout of lumbago, and a disaster down in the mines all play a role in its outcome. And sometimes the events are not so wonderful at all. There are several deaths by baseball, and the shadow of corruption creeps closer to the heart of baseball—the honesty of the game itself. Simply put, 1908 is the year that baseball grew up. Oh, and it was the last time the Cubs won the World Series. Destined to be as memorable as the season it documents, Crazy '08 sets a new standard for what a book about baseball can be. |
| cubs giants spring training: The Cubs Way Tom Verducci, 2018-04-03 The New York Times Bestseller With inside access and reporting, Sports Illustrated senior baseball writer and FOX Sports analyst Tom Verducci reveals how Theo Epstein and Joe Maddon built, led, and inspired the Chicago Cubs team that broke the longest championship drought in sports, chronicling their epic journey to become World Series champions. It took 108 years, but it really happened. The Chicago Cubs are once again World Series champions. How did a team composed of unknown, young players and supposedly washed-up veterans come together to break the Curse of the Billy Goat? Tom Verducci, twice named National Sportswriter of the Year and co-writer of The Yankee Years with Joe Torre, will have full access to team president Theo Epstein, manager Joe Maddon, and the players to tell the story of the Cubs' transformation from perennial underachievers to the best team in baseball. Beginning with Epstein's first year with the team in 2011, Verducci will show how Epstein went beyond Moneyball thinking to turn around the franchise. Leading the organization with a manual called The Cubs Way, he focused on the mental side of the game as much as the physical, emphasizing chemistry as well as statistics. To accomplish his goal, Epstein needed manager Joe Maddon, an eccentric innovator, as his counterweight on the Cubs' bench. A man who encourages themed road trips and late-arrival game days to loosen up his team, Maddon mixed New Age thinking with Old School leadership to help his players find their edge. The Cubs Way takes readers behind the scenes, chronicling how key players like Rizzo, Russell, Lester, and Arrieta were deftly brought into the organization by Epstein and coached by Maddon to outperform expectations. Together, Epstein and Maddon proved that clubhouse culture is as important as on-base-percentage, and that intangible components like personality, vibe, and positive energy are necessary for a team to perform to their fullest potential. Verducci chronicles the playoff run that culminated in an instant classic Game Seven. He takes a broader look at the history of baseball in Chicago and the almost supernatural element to the team's repeated loses that kept fans suffering, but also served to strengthen their loyalty. The Cubs Way is a celebration of an iconic team and its journey to a World Championship that fans and readers will cherish for years to come. |
| cubs giants spring training: Me and the Spitter Gaylord Perry, 1974 |
| cubs giants spring training: Spring Training Handbook Josh Pahigian, 2013-06-04 Spring training is a time of renewal for baseball, when teams and fans descend on Florida and Arizona to begin the ever hopeful new season. The pace is a little slower, the fans are closer to the action, and the players are more accessible: the sport returns to its idyllic roots. When the first edition of this book was released, 18 of the MLB teams trained in Florida and 12 in Arizona. As 2013 arrives each league consists of 15 teams; together they utilize 14 parks in Florida and 10 in Arizona. This heavily illustrated work dedicates a chapter to each park, including modern Cactus League marvels like Camelback Ranch and Salt River Fields, and Grapefruit League bastions like Joker Marchant Stadium and McKechnie Field. Florida's Fenway Park replica, which opened in 2012, is included. In addition to profiling the five parks that have opened since the first edition, the author has updated the other chapters. Each provides a description of the park, and a recounting of its history, followed by a summary of the home team or teams' spring history. Next is a review of the park's seating, concessions and fan traditions. Each chapter concludes with information about nearby baseball landmarks and attractions. |
| cubs giants spring training: Baseball Has Done it Jackie Robinson, 1964 Jackie Robinson's theme is that integration in baseball has proved that Americans can live together in peaceful competition. The theme is developed with a history of Negroes in baseball. Excerpts from their lives as players are given in their own words, by Larry Doby, for instance, and by Roy Campanella. Ball club managers, prominently Branch Rickey, tell why they hired Negroes and how the barriers were broken down. |
| cubs giants spring training: Mashi Robert K. Fitts, 2020-04-01 In the spring of 1964, the Nankai Hawks of Japan’s Pacific League sent nineteen-year-old Masanori Murakami to the Class A Fresno Giants to improve his skills. To nearly everyone’s surprise, Murakami, known as Mashi, dominated the American hitters. With the San Francisco Giants caught in a close pennant race and desperate for a left-handed reliever, Masanori was called up to join the big league club, becoming the first Japanese player in the Major Leagues. Featuring pinpoint control, a devastating curveball, and a friendly smile, Mashi became the Giants’ top lefty reliever and one of the team’s most popular players—as well as a national hero in Japan. Not surprisingly, the Giants offered him a contract for the 1965 season. Murakami signed, announcing that he would be thrilled to stay in San Francisco. There was just one problem: the Nankai Hawks still owned his contract. The dispute over Murakami’s contract would ignite an international incident that ultimately prevented other Japanese players from joining the Majors for thirty years. Mashi is the story of an unlikely hero caught up in an American and Japanese baseball dispute and forced to choose between his dreams in the United States and his duty in Japan. |
| cubs giants spring training: Baseball Fantography Fantography LLC, Andy Strasberg, 2012-04-01 Baseball Fantography is a celebration of baseball through the eyes of fans via photos they've taken of players, ballparks, and related subjects over the past nine decades, along with essays, sidebars, and quotes. The project originated when the author discovered an old 1960s snapshot of himself as a teenager with his idol, Roger Maris, at Yankee Stadium. Realizing that he couldn't be the only one with these hidden photographic gems, he began collecting baseball photos taken by fans. The book contains more than 250 never-before-published images (Roberto Clemente, Mickey Mantle, Derek Jeter, Josh Hamilton) in chapters on subjects like ballparks, spring training, broadcasters, dugouts, and baseball cards, and features contributions from baseball aficionados and notables like Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith, a 35-year veteran Topps baseball photographer, and a former president of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Praise for Baseball Fantography:The never-before-published shots are cool, offering a new look at the familiar. --New York Post |
| cubs giants spring training: A Band of Misfits Andrew Baggarly, 2015-04-01 With a title drought that started in New York and carried on for more than five decades after the move to the west coast, the San Francisco Giants and their fans were growing restless, waiting for a team like the 2010 roster and that one magical postseason run. The anticipation, memories, and celebrated relief of the season when it finally came together are captured in this chronicle of the World Series season of the Giants. Written in entertaining prose, the book is as much an enjoyable story to be reread through the years as it is a factual account of the events that brought the elusive title to the Giants. |
| cubs giants spring training: Try Not to Suck Bill Chastain, Jesse Rogers, Ben Zobrist, 2018-04-01 With his irreverant personality, laid-back approach, and penchant for the unexpected, Joe Maddon is a singular presence among Major League Baseball managers. Whether he's bringing clowns and live bear cubs to spring training or leading the Chicago Cubs to their first World Series victory in 108 years, Maddon is always one to watch. In Try Not to Suck, ESPN's Jesse Rogers and MLB.com's Bill Chastain fully explore Maddon's life and career, delving behind the scenes and dissecting that mystique which makes Maddon so popular with players and analysts alike. Packed with insight, anecdotes, and little-known facts, this is the definitive account of the curse-breaker and trailblazer at the helm of the Cubs' new era. |
| cubs giants spring training: Henry Aaron's Dream Matt Tavares, 2010 A picture book biography of African-American baseball player Hank Aaron. |
| cubs giants spring training: Field of Schemes Neil deMause, Joanna Cagan, 2015-03 |
| cubs giants spring training: The Lords of the Realm John Helyar, 2011-07-27 The ultimate chronicle of the games behind the game.—The New York Times Book Review Baseball has always inspired rhapsodic elegies on the glory of man and golden memories of wonderful times. But what you see on the field is only half the game. In this fascinating, colorful chronicle—based on hundreds of interviews and years of research and digging—John Helyar brings to vivid life the extraordinary people and dramatic events that shaped America's favorite pastime, from the dead-ball days at the turn of the century through the great strike of 1994. Witness zealous Judge Landis banish eight players, including Shoeless Joe Jackson, after the infamous Black Sox scandal; the flamboyant A's owner Charlie Finley wheel and deal his star players, Vida Blue and Rollie Fingers, like a deck of cards; the hysterical bidding war of coveted free agent Catfish Hunter; the chain-smoking romantic, A. Bartlett Giamatti, locking horns with Pete Rose during his gambling days of summer; and much more. Praise for The Lords of the Realm A must-read for baseball fans . . . reads like a suspense novel.—Kirkus Reviews Refreshingly hard-headed . . . the only book you'll need to read on the subject.—Newsday Lots of stories . . . well told, amusing . . . edifying.—The Washington Post |
| cubs giants spring training: Autumn Glory Louis P. Masur, 2004-10-01 A suspenseful account of the glorious days more than a century ago when our national madness began, the first Major League Baseball World Series. A post-season series of games to establish supremacy in the major leagues was not inevitable in the baseball world. But in 1903 the owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates (in the well-established National League) challenged the Boston Americans (in the upstart American League) to a play-off, which he was sure his team would win. They didn't—and that wasn't the only surprise during what became the first World Series. In Autumn Glory, Louis P. Masur tells the riveting story of two agonizing weeks in which the stars blew it, unknown players stole the show, hysterical fans got into the act, and umpires had to hold on for dear life. Before and even during the 1903 season, it had seemed that baseball might succumb to the forces that had been splintering the sport for decades: owners' greed, players' rowdyism, fans' unrest. Yet baseball prevailed, and Masur tells the equally dramatic story of how it did so, in a country preoccupied with labor strife and big-business ruthlessness, and anxious about the welfare of those crowding into cities such as Pittsburgh and Boston (which in themselves offered competing versions of the American dream) . His colorful history of how the first World Series consolidated baseball's hold on the American imagination makes us see what one sportswriter meant when he wrote at the time, Baseball is the melting pot at a boil, the most democratic sport in the world. All in all, Masur believes, it still is. |
| cubs giants spring training: 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. |
| cubs giants spring training: When the Cubs Won It All George R. Matthews, 2009-09-12 In the fall of 1908, no one could have guessed that the Chicago Cubs, a team that had dominated the National league three straight years, would for a century be shut out in its efforts to reclaim the world championship. Stars like Frank Chance, Ed Reulbach, and Three Finger Brown were still in their prime, and the Cubs had just emerged the winner in the most remarkable pennant race in history. In the decades since, the achievement of the 1908 Cubs has been overshadowed first by the events of the season, which included the Merkle Game and a playoff that pitted two all-time great pitchers against each other, and more recently by the calendar, as the centennial anniversary of the last Cubs championship closed in. This book rescues the 1908 team from its status as footnote to baseball history, following one of the all-time great clubs on a thrilling, season-long march toward the World Series. |
| cubs giants spring training: The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract Bill James, 2010-05-11 When Bill James published his original Historical Baseball Abstract in 1985, he produced an immediate classic, hailed by the Chicago Tribune as the “holy book of baseball.” Now, baseball's beloved “Sultan of Stats” (The Boston Globe) is back with a fully revised and updated edition for the new millennium. Like the original, The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract is really several books in one. The Game provides a century's worth of American baseball history, told one decade at a time, with energetic facts and figures about How, Where, and by Whom the game was played. In The Players, you'll find listings of the top 100 players at each position in the major leagues, along with James's signature stats-based ratings method called “Win Shares,” a way of quantifying individual performance and calculating the offensive and defensive contributions of catchers, pitchers, infielders, and outfielders. And there's more: the Reference section covers Win Shares for each season and each player, and even offers a Win Share team comparison. A must-have for baseball fans and historians alike, The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract is as essential, entertaining, and enlightening as the sport itself. |
| cubs giants spring training: Bill Veeck Paul Dickson, 2012-04-24 Draws on primary sources and more than 100 interviews in a richly detailed portrait of the influential baseball team owner and promoter, providing coverage of such topics as his relationships with his Chicago Cubs president father, his struggles with formidable war injuries and his steadfast advocacy of integration. 40,000 first printing. |
| cubs giants spring training: Stealing Games Maury Klein, 2016-03-22 The 1911 New York Giants stole an astonishing 347 bases, a record that still stands more than a century later. That alone makes them special in baseball history, but as Maury Klein relates in Stealing Games they also embodied a rapidly changing America on the cusp of a faster, more frenetic pace of life dominated by machines, technology, and urban culture. Baseball, too, was evolving from the dead-ball to the live-ball era--the cork-centered ball was introduced in 1910 and structurally changed not only the outcome of individual games but the way the game itself was played, requiring upgraded equipment, new rules, and new ways of adjudicating. Changing performance also changed the relationship between management and players. The Giants had two stars--the brilliant manager John McGraw and aging pitcher Christy Mathewson--and memorable characters such as Rube Marquard and Fred Snodgrass; yet their speed and tenacity led to three pennants in a row starting in 1911. Stealing Games gives a great team its due and underscores once more the rich connection between sports and culture. |
| cubs giants spring training: Sport and the Color Line Patrick B. Miller, David K. Wiggins, 2004-06-01 The year 2003 marks the one-hundredth anniversary of W.E.B. Du Bois' Souls of Black Folk, in which he declared that the color line would be the problem of the twentieth century. Half a century later, Jackie Robinson would display his remarkable athletic skills in baseball's great experiment. Now, Sport and the Color Line takes a look at the last century through the lens of sports and race, drawing together articles by many of the leading figures in Sport Studies to address the African American experience and the history of race relations. The history of African Americans in sport is not simple, and it certainly did not begin in 1947 when Jackie Robinson first donned a Brooklyn Dodgers uniform. The essays presented here examine the complexity of black American sports culture, from the organization of semi-pro baseball and athletic programs at historically black colleges and universities, to the careers of individual stars such as Jack Johnson and Joe Louis, to the challenges faced by black women in sports. What are today's black athletes doing in the aftermath of desegregation, or with the legacy of Muhammad Ali's political stance? The essays gathered here engage such issues, as well as the paradoxes of corporate sport and the persistence of scientific racism in the athletic realm. |
| cubs giants spring training: It Ain't Over 'til It's Over Steven Goldman, 2007-08-14 Using new statistical tools to evaluate hundreds of pennant races, presents the greatest ones in baseball history, and answers such questions as Can one player carry a team? and How influential are mid-season trades? |
| cubs giants spring training: Ebony , 1969-06 EBONY is the flagship magazine of Johnson Publishing. Founded in 1945 by John H. Johnson, it still maintains the highest global circulation of any African American-focused magazine. |
| cubs giants spring training: Ninety Percent Mental Bob Tewksbury, 2018-03-20 Former Major League pitcher and mental skills coach for two of baseball's legendary franchises (the Boston Red Sox and San Francisco Giants) Bob Tewksbury takes fans inside the psychology of baseball. In Ninety Percent Mental, Bob Tewksbury shows readers a side of the game only he can provide, given his singular background as both a longtime MLB pitcher and a mental skills coach for two of the sport's most fabled franchises, the Boston Red Sox and San Francisco Giants. Fans watching the game on television or even at the stadium don't have access to the mind games a pitcher must play in order to get through an at-bat, an inning, a game. Tewksbury explores the fascinating psychology behind baseball, such as how players use techniques of imagery, self-awareness, and strategic thinking to maximize performance, and how a pitcher's strategy changes throughout a game. He also offers an in-depth look into some of baseball's most monumental moments and intimate anecdotes from a who's who of the game, including legendary players who Tewksbury played with and against (such as Mark McGwire, Craig Biggio, and Greg Maddux), game-changing managers and executives (Joe Torre, Bruce Bochy, Brian Sabean), and current star players (Jon Lester, Anthony Rizzo, Andrew Miller, Rich Hill). With Tewksbury's esoteric knowledge as a thinking-fan's player and his expertise as a baseball whisperer, this entertaining book is perfect for any fan who wants to see the game in a way he or she has never seen it before. Ninety Percent Mental will deliver an unprecedented look at the mound games and mind games of Major League Baseball. |
| cubs giants spring training: Baseball in New Orleans S. Derby Gisclair, 2004 In July of 1859, seventy-five young New Orleanians came together to form the seven teams that comprised the Louisiana Base Ball Club. They played their games in the fields of the de la Chaise estate on the outskirts of New Orleans near present-day Louisiana Avenue. As America's population grew through immigration, so did the popularity of what the largest newspaper in New Orleans, the Daily Picayune, called in November of 1860 the National Game. Baseball quickly replaced cricket as the city's most popular participant sport. In 1887, local businessmen and promoters secured a minor league franchise for the city of New Orleans in the newly formed Southern League, beginning the city's 73-year love affair with the New Orleans Pelicans. From Shoeless Joe Jackson, to Hall of Famers Dazzy Vance, Joe Sewell, Bob Lemon, and Earl Weaver, to today's stars such as Jeff Cirillo and Lance Berkman, the road to the majors brought many notable players through New Orleans. From these early beginnings to the present-day New Orleans Zephyrs of the AAA Pacific Coast League, local fans have continued the tradition of baseball in New Orleans. |
| cubs giants spring training: Matty: An American Hero Ray Robinson, 1994-12-08 When all-time pitching great Christy Mathewson died of tuberculosis in 1925 at the age of 45, it touched off a wave of national mourning that remains without precedent for an American athlete. The World Series was underway, and the game the day after Mathewson's death took on the trappings of a state funeral: officials slowly lowered the flag to half-mast, each ballplayer wore a black armband, and fans joined together in a chorus of Nearer My God to Thee. Newspaper editorials recalled Mathewson's glorious career with the New York Giants, but also emphasized his unstinting good sportsmanship and voluntary service in World War I. The pitcher known to one and all as Matty or Big Six was as beloved for the strength of character he brought to the national pastime, as for his stunning 373 career victories. I do not expect to see his like again, said his best friend and former manager, John McGraw. But I do know that the example he set and the imprint he left on the sport that he loved and honored will remain long after I am gone. In Matty, Ray Robinson tells the story of a man who became America's first authentic sports hero. Until Mathewson, Robinson reveals, Americans loved baseball, but looked down on ballplayers and other athletes as hard-drinking, skirt-chasing ne'er-do-wells. Deprived of real-life role models, millions of readers followed the serialized exploits of Frank Merriwell, a fictional hero who excelled at sports from baseball to billiards and never drank, smoke, or swore. Robinson shows how an eager public greeted Mathewson as a flesh-and-blood version of Merriwell from his first year at Bucknell University, where he shone as star pitcher, premier field-goal kicker, and class president. Lured into the big leagues before he could graduate, the tall, handsome pitcher soon won over men, women and children with his sense of fair play and his arsenal of blazing fastballs, sweeping curves, and infamously deceptive fadeaway pitches. Robinson skillfully details the highlights of Mathewson's career, including his showdowns against the great batters of his day and his encounters with the young Brooklyn, Chicago, Pittsburgh and St. Louis teams. Here are the six remarkable days in October, 1905 when Mathewson became the only pitcher ever to hurl three straight shutouts in a World Series, and the afternoon at West Point when he won $50 in a bet that he could throw 20 of his best pitches to exactly the same spot. Robinson does not underplay Mathewson's occasional failings, but the most surprising aspect of this fascinating portrait is just how close America's first Hall of Fame pitcher came to living up to his image. Drawing on rare interviews, press clips, and long overlooked eyewitness accounts, Matty brings baseball's golden age to life--not only the great teams and the early superstars, but the long train trips between games, with cramped berths and no air conditioning; the small town ballplayers let loose amidst big city vice; and the two-bit gambling that eventually led to the infamous Black Sox Scandal of the 1919 Series (a scandal that might have escaped detection if the sportswriters in the press box with Mathewson had not been able to rely on his experienced eye for clues to how ballplayers might throw games). Offering rare insight into the making of an early twentieth century American hero, Matty is must reading for anyone who loves baseball. |
| cubs giants spring training: Johnny Evers Dennis Snelling, 2014-05-02 For more than a century Johnny Evers has been conjoined with Chicago Cubs teammates Frank Chance and Joe Tinker, thanks to eight lines of verse by a New York columnist. Caricatured as a scrawny, sour man who couldn't hit and who owed his fame to that poem, in truth he was the heartbeat of one of the greatest teams of the 20th century and the fiercest competitor this side of Ty Cobb. Evers was at the center of one of baseball's greatest controversies, a chance event that sealed his stardom and stole a pennant from John McGraw and the New York Giants in 1908. Six years later, following reversals and tragedies that resulted in a nervous breakdown, he made a comeback with the Boston Braves and led that team to the most improbable of championships. Spanning the time from his birth in Troy, New York, to his death less than a year after his election to the Hall of Fame, this is the biography of a man who literally wrote the book about playing second base. |
| cubs giants spring training: Early Latino Ballplayers in the United States Nick C. Wilson, 2016-04-05 From 1900 through the 1940s Latino baseball players suffered discrimination, poor accommodations, low pay and homesickness to play a game they loved. Those who were both talented and light-skinned enough to make it to the majors were mocked for being foreign. Those in the Negro Leagues were, like African American ballplayers, segregated and largely ignored by the public and major league scouts. Building on the work of researchers who focused on the seasons and careers of these pioneer athletes, Nick Wilson draws on primary documents and interviews to round out our knowledge of the players as people. Jose Mendez, Miguel Gonzalez, Luis Tiant, Sr., Martin Dihigo, Rodolfo Fernandez, Roberto Ortiz, Cristobal Torriente, Hiram Bithorn and Pedro Preston Gomez are only a few examples of the players included here. Appendices on Americans Who Positively Influenced Latin Migration and Latinos and the Washington Senators Spring Training Camps, 1939-1942 are included, along with 26 photos, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. |
| cubs giants spring training: Handsome Ransom Jackson Ransom Jackson, 2016-05-19 Millions of America’s youth dream of playing major league baseball or in a college bowl game on New Year’s Day. Growing up in Arkansas during the Great Depression, Ransom Jackson had no idea that one day he would not only play in back-to-back Cotton Bowls for two different colleges—the first and only player to do so—but that he would also become known as “Handsome Ransom,” all-star third baseman for the Chicago Cubs. He was in Chicago in 1953 when Ernie Banks became the first African American to play for the Cubs. He was in Brooklyn in 1956, the year Jackie Robinson retired. In 1957, Jackson was the last Brooklyn player to hit a home run before the team moved to LA. Jackson’s major league career spanned the entire decade of the 1950s, a time when the landscape of baseball changed dramatically as teams moved to new cities, built new stadiums, and integrated their rosters. Handsome Ransom Jackson: Accidental Big Leaguer is an autobiographical account of Jackson’s fascinating journey from his boyhood days in Arkansas to playing in the major leagues, where many of his teammates were future Hall of Famers. It’s a fun and nostalgic visit to the past, with Jackson sharing such memories as spring training with the Cubs on Catalina Island, befriending a Mafia boss in Massachusetts, batting behind Hank Sauer and getting knocked down by pitchers retaliating for Sauer’s home runs, rooming with Don Drysdale on an historic baseball tour of Japan, and sitting in the dugout in LA with Dodger teammates looking for movie stars in the stands. In addition, Jackson remembers being brought to Brooklyn to take over third base for the aging Jackie Robinson, and quickly discovering that nobody replaces a legend like Jackie. While many of the players from the 1950s are no longer with us, Jackson’s invaluable and timeless stories celebrate the greatness of the game and preserve a sliver of history from the heart of the golden age of baseball. Featuring many never-before-published photographs from Ransom Jackson’s personal collection, including photos of Dodger and Cub greats Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Carl Erskine, Ralph Kiner, and Ernie Banks, Handsome Ransom Jackson will take the reader back to an era when baseball was truly the national pastime. |
| cubs giants spring training: Christy Mathewson Michael Hartley, 2004-01-30 Mathewson, one of the towering figures in baseball history, won 373 games in 17 seasons, all but one of those victories for the New York Giants. After his playing career, he was a manager, army officer and baseball executive, played a role in the unraveling of the Black Sox, and fought a courageous battle against tuberculosis. A man with a keen sense of honor and responsibility for both private and public obligations, he was adored by the public as a real-life Frank Merriwell. In the decades since his death, the perception of Mathewson has changed remarkably little. This biography documents in great depth his life on and off the baseball field, and draws from sources, old and new, to let Mathewson's life speak for itself. Not many sports figures can withstand such scrutiny. |
| cubs giants spring training: Tampa Spring Training Tales Rick Vaughn, 2024-03-11 Author Rick Vaughn uncovers the stories that keep Tampa's passion for the National Pastime burning . /b/p |
| cubs giants spring training: The Santa Fe Magazine , 1932 |
| cubs giants spring training: Manager of Giants Lou Hernández, 2018-11-05 For decades prior to the rise of Babe Ruth, the most recognized name in baseball was John McGraw. An outstanding player in the 1890s, McGraw--nicknamed Mugsy--was molded in the rough and tumble pre-20th century game where sportsmanship and fair play took a back seat to competition. Later, he became the successful manager of the New York Giants, dominating the National League in New York City for more than 30 years. McGraw led the Giants with authoritarian swagger--earning another moniker, Little Napoleon--from 1902 through 1932, before illness forced his retirement. In his 31 seasons in New York, his teams won three world championships and 10 pennants and rarely finished out of the first division. He was a trailblazer in the use of bullpen and position player substitutions, and pushed hit-and-run strategies over the then prevalent dictums of sacrifice bunting. An unconventional leader, McGraw missed considerable bench time during his reign on account of injury, illness and fiery temperament. |
| cubs giants spring training: Pitching in a Pinch Christy Mathewson, 2013-03-13 An inside baseball memoir from the game’s first superstar, with a foreword by Chad Harbach Christy Mathewson was one of the most dominant pitchers ever to play baseball. Posthumously inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame as one of the “Five Immortals,” he was an unstoppable force on the mound, winning at least twenty-two games for twelve straight seasons and pitching three complete-game shutouts in the 1905 World Series. Pitching in a Pinch, his witty and digestible book of baseball insights, stories, and wisdom, was first published over a hundred years ago and presents readers with Mathewson’s plainspoken perspective on the diamond of yore—on the players, the chances they took, the jinxes they believed in, and, most of all, their love of the game. Baseball fans will love to read first-hand accounts of the infamous Merkle’s Boner incident, Giants manager John McGraw, and the unstoppable Johnny Evers and to learn how much—and just how little—has really changed in a hundred years. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. |
| cubs giants spring training: Pitching In A Pinch : Or, Baseball From The Inside Christy Mathewson, 2011-03-23 Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork. |
| cubs giants spring training: San Francisco Year Zero Lincoln A. Mitchell, 2019-11-07 In San Francisco Year Zero, San Francisco native Lincoln Mitchell deftly weaves together the personal and the political, tracing the city's current state back to three key events that all occurred in 1978: the assassination of George Moscone and Harvey Milk occurring fewer than two weeks after the massacre of Peoples Temple members in Jonestown, Guyana, the explosion of the city's punk rock scene, and a breakthrough season for the San Francisco Giants. |
| cubs giants spring training: Under the March Sun Charles Fountain, 2009-03-04 There is nothing in all of American sport quite like baseball's spring training. This annual six-week ritual, whose origins date back nearly a century and a half, fires the hearts and imaginations of fans who flock by the hundreds of thousands to places like Dodgertown to glimpse superstars and living legends in a relaxed moment and watch the drama of journeyman veterans and starry-eyed kids in search of that last spot on the bench. In Under the March Sun, Charles Fountain recounts for the first time the full and fascinating history of spring training and its growth from a shoestring-budget roadtrip to burn off winter calories into a billion-dollar-a-year business. In the early days southern hotels only reluctantly admitted ballplayers--and only if they agreed not to mingle with other guests. Today cities fight for teams by spending millions in public money to build ever-more-elaborate spring-training stadiums. In the early years of the 20th century, the mayor of St. Petersburg, Florida, Al Lang, first realized that coverage in northern newspapers every spring was publicity his growing city could never afford to buy. As the book demonstrates, cities have been following Lang's lead ever since, building identities and economies through the media exposure and visitors that spring training brings. An entertaining cultural history that taps into the romance of baseball even as it reveals its more hard-nosed commercial machinations, Under the March Sun shows why spring training draws so many fans southward every March. While the prices may be growing and the intimacy and accessibility shrinking, they come because the sunshine and sense of hope are timeless. |
Bleed Cubbie Blue, a Chicago Cubs community
Cubs record, standings, upcoming schedule, broadcast info. Here you will always be able to find the most up-to-date information on who the Cubs are playing, when and where, and what TV …
Cubs and third-base coach Willie Harris part ways
Oct 11, 2024 · Breaking Cubs news- 3B coach Willie Harris and the Cubs front office have agreed to part ways. Both sides leave on good terms. Harris is open to other coaching positions in …
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May 20, 2025 · To replace Hodge on the 26-man active roster, righthander Ethan Roberts was recalled from Triple-A Iowa. Roberts has a 5.40 ERA (five runs allowed in 8⅓ innings) in nine …
Chicago Cubs Minor League Wrap: May 30 - Bleed Cubbie Blue
May 31, 2025 · The Iowa Cubs were amazin’ against the Syracuse Mets, 8-5. Will Sanders made his Triple-A debut in this game and got the win after allowing four runs on six hits over five …
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May 25, 2025 · The Cubs completed a 4-2 road trip and in the first 12 games of their 21-game stretch against teams with records under .500, they are 9-3.
Chicago Cubs Minor League Wrap: June 5 - Bleed Cubbie Blue
Jun 6, 2025 · Iowa Cubs. The Iowa Cubs calmed the Omaha Storm Chasers (Royals), 8-5. Will Sanders moved to 2-0 after two starts in Triple-A by allowing four runs on seven hits over six …
BCB 2025 Top 25 Cubs Prospects: The top 5 - Bleed Cubbie Blue
Feb 7, 2025 · The Cubs had a similar dilemma with Kyle Schwarber a decade ago, but trying Ballesteros out in left field like Schwarber seems like a recipe for disaster. (Not that it went all …
On The Horizon: Cubs vs. Mets series preview - Bleed Cubbie Blue
May 9, 2025 · Chicago Cubs vs. Philadelphia Phillies preview, Monday 6/9, 5:45 CT The Cubs open a three-game series at Citizens Bank Park. First pitch thread: Cubs vs. Phillies, Monday …
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May 31, 2025 · The Cubs then got shutdown late-inning relief from Brad Keller and Daniel Palencia, and just enough offense to defeat the Reds on a one-hit shutout, 2-0, in front of a full …
Cubs 5, Marlins 4: Justin Turner walks it off - Bleed Cubbie Blue
May 14, 2025 · Cubs 8, Phillies 4: Ian Happ’s two homers lead a long-ball barrage The Cubs homered four times and evened up the series. Phillies 7, Cubs 2: Back to the drawing board …
Bleed Cubbie Blue, a Chicago Cubs community
Cubs record, standings, upcoming schedule, broadcast info. Here you will always be able to find the most up-to-date information on who the Cubs are playing, when and where, and what TV …
Cubs and third-base coach Willie Harris part ways
Oct 11, 2024 · Breaking Cubs news- 3B coach Willie Harris and the Cubs front office have agreed to part ways. Both sides leave on good terms. Harris is open to other coaching positions in …
Cubs roster moves: Ian Happ activated, Porter Hodge to IL, Moises ...
May 20, 2025 · To replace Hodge on the 26-man active roster, righthander Ethan Roberts was recalled from Triple-A Iowa. Roberts has a 5.40 ERA (five runs allowed in 8⅓ innings) in nine …
Chicago Cubs Minor League Wrap: May 30 - Bleed Cubbie Blue
May 31, 2025 · The Iowa Cubs were amazin’ against the Syracuse Mets, 8-5. Will Sanders made his Triple-A debut in this game and got the win after allowing four runs on six hits over five …
Cubs 11, Reds 8: Reese McGuire and the comeback Cubs do it again
May 25, 2025 · The Cubs completed a 4-2 road trip and in the first 12 games of their 21-game stretch against teams with records under .500, they are 9-3.
Chicago Cubs Minor League Wrap: June 5 - Bleed Cubbie Blue
Jun 6, 2025 · Iowa Cubs. The Iowa Cubs calmed the Omaha Storm Chasers (Royals), 8-5. Will Sanders moved to 2-0 after two starts in Triple-A by allowing four runs on seven hits over six …
BCB 2025 Top 25 Cubs Prospects: The top 5 - Bleed Cubbie Blue
Feb 7, 2025 · The Cubs had a similar dilemma with Kyle Schwarber a decade ago, but trying Ballesteros out in left field like Schwarber seems like a recipe for disaster. (Not that it went all …
On The Horizon: Cubs vs. Mets series preview - Bleed Cubbie Blue
May 9, 2025 · Chicago Cubs vs. Philadelphia Phillies preview, Monday 6/9, 5:45 CT The Cubs open a three-game series at Citizens Bank Park. First pitch thread: Cubs vs. Phillies, Monday …
Cubs 2, Reds 0: A good old-fashioned pitchers’ duel
May 31, 2025 · The Cubs then got shutdown late-inning relief from Brad Keller and Daniel Palencia, and just enough offense to defeat the Reds on a one-hit shutout, 2-0, in front of a full …
Cubs 5, Marlins 4: Justin Turner walks it off - Bleed Cubbie Blue
May 14, 2025 · Cubs 8, Phillies 4: Ian Happ’s two homers lead a long-ball barrage The Cubs homered four times and evened up the series. Phillies 7, Cubs 2: Back to the drawing board …
