A poignant memoir exploring small town baseball as a lens into what's right and wrong with modern America--written by an acclaimed journalist and Army Ranger who, after returning from Iraq to a painfully divided country, rediscovered its core values in the bleachers of a minor league ballpark in Batavia, New York.

What happens when a minor league team--the heart and soul of a Rust Belt town in western New York--is shut down by the billionaires who run Major League Baseball?

Batavia, New York--between Rochester and Buffalo--hosted its first professional baseball game in 1897. Despite decades of deindustrialization and evaporating middle-class jobs, the Batavia Muckdogs endured. When Major League Baseball cravenly shut them down in 2020--along with forty-one other minor league teams--the town fought back, reviving the Muckdogs as a summer league team comprised of college players. As MLB considers further cuts and private equity buys up what remains, the mom-and-pop operations once prevalent in baseball are endangered. But for now, the sights and sounds of local baseball live on in Batavia--cheap draft beer and hot dogs, starry-eyed kids seeking autographs, and breathtaking summer sunsets.

With a vibrant, unforgettable cast of characters--from a librarian and her best friend whose relationship deepens with every crepuscular hour they spend together in the bleachers, to the former hockey brawler-turned team owner who greets regulars while working the concession stand, to the iconoclastic writer with a contagious love for his struggling hometown--Bardenwerper's Homestand exposes the beating heart of small town America, friends and neighbors coming together as the crack of the bat echoes in the summer twilight.

Sports Illustrated Best Sports Book of 2024 Pick

When Vin Scully passed away in 2022, the city of Los Angeles lost its soundtrack. If you were able to deliver a eulogy for him, what might it include? What impact did he have on you? What do you carry forward from his legacy? Sixty-seven essayists--one representing each season of his career calling games for the Los Angeles Dodgers, from 1950 through 2016--reflect on the ways his professional and private life influenced them. The contributions include a range of stories and remembrances from those who knew and followed him. The consensus of the contributions is that Scully's actions spoke louder than his well-recognized words.

This collection includes fellow broadcasters as well as historians, players, journalists, celebrities, and others connected to the game of baseball, with each piece introduced by sports journalist Tom Hoffarth. Readers can consider Scully's life through common themes: his sincerity, his humility, his professionalism, his passion for his faith, his devotion to his family, his insistence on remembering and giving context to important moments in the history of not just the game but the world in general, all wrapped up in a gift for weaving storytelling with accurate reporting, fellowship with performance art, humor, and connection.

Finally, someone takes baseball movies seriously! Baseball: The Movie blends the passion of a fan with the rigorous analysis of a film critic to create a persuasive argument that the baseball movie matters--to baseball, to Hollywood, even to America.
​--Ben Mankiewicz, host, Turner Classic Movies

Featuring Field of Dreams, The Bad News Bears, A League of Their Own, and more: a probing and entertaining work at the intersection of pop culture and sports

Baseball has always been a symbol as much as a sport. With a blend of individual confrontation and team play, a luxurious pace, and an immaculate urban parkland setting, it offers a sunny rendering of the American Dream, both the hard work that underpins it and the rewards it promises.

Film, America's other national pastime, which magnifies and mythologizes all it touches, has long been the ideal medium to canonize this aspirational idea.

Baseball: The Movie is the first definitive history of this film genre that was born in 1915 and remains artistically and culturally vital more than a century later. Writer and critic Noah Gittell sheds light on well-known classics and overlooked gems, exploring how baseball cinema creates a stage upon which the American ideal is born, performed, and repeatedly redefined.

Traversing history and mythmaking, cynicism and nostalgia, this thoroughly researched book takes readers on a multifaceted tour of baseball on film.

In The Franchise: Atlanta Braves, take a more profound and unique journey into the history of an iconic team.

This thoughtful and engaging collection of essays captures the astute fans' history of the franchise, going beyond well-worn narratives of yesteryear to uncover the less-discussed moments, decisions, people, and settings that fostered the Braves' one-of-a-kind identity.

Through wheeling and dealing, mythmaking and community building, explore where the organization has been, how it got to prominence in the modern major league landscape, and how it'll continue to evolve and stay in contention for generations to come.

Braves fans in the know will enjoy this personal, local, in-depth look at baseball history.

In The Franchise: Minnesota Twins, take a more profound and unique journey into the history of an iconic team.

This thoughtful and engaging collection of essays captures the astute fans' history of the franchise, going beyond well-worn narratives of yesteryear to uncover the less-discussed moments, decisions, people, and settings that fostered the Twins' one-of-a-kind identity.

Through wheeling and dealing, mythmaking and community building, explore where the organization has been, how it got to prominence in the modern major league landscape, and how it'll continue to evolve and stay in contention for generations to come.

Twins fans in the know will enjoy this personal, local, in-depth look at baseball history.

Faithful isn't just about the Red Sox. It's also about family, friendship, and what it truly means to be a baseball fan and to be--well, faithful, come hell or high water (The Boston Globe).

Of all the books that will examine the Boston Red Sox's stunning come-from-behind 2004 ALCS win over the Yankees and subsequent World Series victory, none will have this book's warmth, personality, or depth (Publishers Weekly).

Early in 2004, two writers and Red Sox fans, Stewart O'Nan and Stephen King, decided to chronicle the upcoming season, one of the most hotly anticipated in baseball history. They would sit together at Fenway. They would exchange emails. They would write about the games. And, as it happened, they would witness the greatest comeback ever in sports, and the first Red Sox championship in eighty-six years. What began as a Sox-filled summer like any other is now a fan's notes for the ages.

Dive into the 2024 baseball season with Baseball Obscura 2025!

From insightful team articles that track the standings and projections of all 30 major league franchises, to brand-new player rankings for every position and the top starters and relief pitchers in the game, Baseball Obscura 2025 is the perfect gift to keep fans, fanatics, and fantasy firebrands entertained until Opening Day, and all the way through the baseball season.

Highlights include:

• Team essays for all 30 major league teams. Explore where your team has been and where it's going with in-depth analysis and engaging commentary on where your team stands in 2025. From prospects to playoffs, from dawning dynasties to rebuilding rosters, from managerial maneuvers to trades and transactions, these essays will provide fans with a reason for hope, or a cold dash of reality.

• Player profiles that explore the impact pitchers and hitters for 2024 and beyond. From Shohei Ohtani to Juan Soto, from Jackson Chourio to Jackson Holliday, find out who is rising and falling in 2025.

• In-depth essays that explore the past and future of baseball, on topics ranging from the Paul Skenes' historic rookie season and the last days of baseball in Oakland, to the impact of sports gambling and the impact of elite bullpens on baseball.

David Fleming has been writing about baseball for nearly two decades at Bill James Online, where he blends a statistical analysis with a fan's perspective on the big questions around America's pastime. Now he's bringing his second annual guide to baseball fans for 2025.

Check out the first edition of what is sure to be a yearly favorite for baseball fans and baseball obsessives. And visit his website to subscribe to free articles and essays throughout the season.

Enjoy Baseball Obscura 2025!

Sports Illustrated, the most respected voice in sports journalism, has covered Major League Baseball for over seven decades, documenting its heroes, villains, great characters, and iconic moments.

A wide-ranging portrait of America's pastime, this anthology features the best baseball writing from the SI archives by nationally renowned journalists including Frank Deford, Mark Kram, George Plimpton, Peter Gammons, and Tom Verducci.

Celebrate one of the greatest and most beloved baseball players who ever lived--and certainly the most quoted. The Yogi Book is the New York Times bestseller filled with Yogi Berra's immortal sayings, plus photographs, a career timeline, and appreciations by some of his greatest fans, including Billy Crystal and Tim McCarver.

Yogi Berra's gift for saying the smartest things in the funniest, most memorable ways has made him a legend. The Yogi Book brings all of his famous quotes together in one place--and even better, gives the story behind them. It ain't over till it's over.--that's Yogi's answer to a reporter when he was managing the Mets in July 1973, and they were nine games out of first place (not only quotable, but prophetic--they won the pennant). Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded.--Yogi's comment to Stan Musial and Joe Garagiola about Ruggeri's restaurant in St. Louis in 1959. It gets late early out there.--Yogi describing how shadows crept across Yankee Stadium's left field during late autumn afternoons.

#1 New York Times Bestseller

A delightful look at all the little things that make major league baseball a subtle spectacle. --Seattle Times

In his classic tribute to America's pastime, political commentator, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and lifelong sports enthusiast George F. Will travels from the baseball field to the dugout to the locker room to get to the root of the game we all love. He breaks down the sport to its four basic components, managing, pitching, hitting, and fielding, and analyzes the way four of its notables, manager Tony La Russa, pitcher Orel Hershiser, outfielder Tony Gwynn, and shortstop Cal Ripken Jr., approach the game. One of the most acclaimed sports books ever written, Men at Work is a revelatory, and often surprising, study of professional baseball.

Are you looking for the perfect baseball book?

Learn about some of the greatest players, teams, and moments from America's pastime.

Baseball and American histories often intertwine in profound ways. Some of baseball's greatest stories are also significant moments in US history.

Did you know Ted Williams flew fighter jets with astronaut John Glenn? What about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. crediting Jackie Robinson for making his Civil Rights work easier? Or how Sandy Koufax started a conversation about religious holiday observance versus professional responsibilities?

Of course, some stories are just pure baseball fun - home run races, curse-defying World Series winners, record-breaking careers and seasons, etc. Discover these stories and many others. Learn about incredible and inspirational players like Satchel Paige, Jim Abbott, Cal Ripken Jr., Sandy Koufax, Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente, and others.

Within these pages, you'll find:

- 15 incredible baseball stories about players, teams, or events throughout the game's history.

- A renewed passion for the game and a fuller understanding of its role as America's pastime.

- Fun facts about each player or team that will stump the biggest baseball heads on trivia night.

- Vivid retellings of incredible baseball moments, including direct quotes and stories from some of the greatest players.

- Surprising statistics behind some of the game's greatest players that will change how you think about names like Ruth, Aaron, and Williams.

- Great examples of perseverance and determination in the face of challenging circumstances that you can use as inspiration in your daily life.

Whether you know much or little about baseball, this book promises to share some new insights. You might learn a new detail about your favorite player or find a brand new baseball story you hadn't heard before!

The stories in these pages will remind you why you love this sport so much. It may even change your perceptions of how to define greatness in sports.

Get your copy of The Most Incredible Baseball Stories Ever Told today!

The reporter who broke the Houston Astros' cheating scandal reveals how a baseball team could so dramatically descend into corruption, with never-before-told details of a broken management culture, the once-revered leaders who enabled it and the scandal itself.

Baseball, that old romantic game, has been defaced and consumed by corporate America. As Moneyball-thinking and Ivy League graduates grabbed hold of the sport, the Astros set out to build a cost-efficient winning machine on the principles of the outside business world, squeezing every dollar out of every transaction, player and employee.

In less than a decade, ex-Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow helped revolutionize the game. He created an environment that led to one of the worst cheating scandals in baseball history, a Shakespearean tragedy of innovation and failed change management. Through years of extensive interviews, former Houston Chronicle beat writer Evan Drellich, now a national writer for The Athletic, delivers the definitive account of baseball's most controversial franchise and how a modern baseball team truly works--without the usual myth-spinning.

Drellich reveals the rise and fall of the Astros to be a collision of subcultures. The team's top boss was a former McKinsey consultant who lived on the bleeding edge with no guardrails. He hired outsider after outsider to change the organization as quickly and cheaply as possible. The wins piled up, and so did the cash for the billionaire owner with a checkered business past. But not even a World Series title could cover up the rot.

All of it came at a cost to fans, employees, and the sport on a whole. But as Winning Fixes Everything makes clear, The Astros Way isn't going anywhere. Drellich uses the saga of the Astros' scandal to detail the evolution of baseball itself.

Page for page, The Summer Game contains not only the classiest but also the most resourceful baseball writing I have ever read.--New York Times Book Review

The Summer Game, Roger Angell's first book on the sport, changed baseball writing forever. Thoughtful, funny, appreciative of the elegance of the game and the passions invested by players and fans, it goes beyond the usual sports reporter's beat to examine baseball's complex place in our American psyche.

Between the miseries of the 1962 expansion Mets and a classic 1971 World Series between the Pirates and the Orioles, Angell finds baseball in the 1960s as a game in transition--marked by league expansion, uprooted franchises, the growing hegemony of television, the dominance of pitchers, uneasy relations between players and owners, and mounting competition from other sports for the fans' dollars.

Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, Brooks Robinson, Bob Gibson, Sandy Koufax, Carl Yastrzemski, Tom Seaver, Jim Palmer, and Casey Stengel are seen here with fresh clarity and pleasure. Here is California baseball in full flower, the once-mighty Yankees in collapse, baseball in French (in Montreal), indoor baseball (at the Astrodome), and sweet spring baseball (in Florida)--as Angell observes, Always, it seems, there is something more to be discovered about this game.

An exciting new collection of sublimely simple wisdom from a bestselling author, celebrated athlete, and a true American hero.

Three-time MVP and Hall of Famer Yogi Berra hit home runs twice in a row with his two previous books, The Yogi Book and It Ain't Over. Now, his winning streak will continue with this latest work -- a collection of appealing, funny, and surprisingly moving essays on life, happiness, and getting through the slumps. Filled with another delightful helping of Yogi's inimitable and unwittingly wise aphorisms, these reflections focus on the valuable lessons he's learned on and off the field. From his early years as an immigrant's son who dropped out of the eighth grade through his triumphant career as a player and manager who played in a record seventy-five World Series games, Yogi illustrates his homespun philosophies with apt analogies to his trove of baseball stories. He expounds on such topics as Patience (Waiting for your pitch); Sacrifice (Laying down a bunt); Trusting Others (Taking direction); and Staying Focused (Keeping your eye on the ball), to show how the rules of life and baseball are uncannily similar. And, in the tradition of Don't Sweat the Small Stuff and All I Really Need to I Know I Learned in Kindergarten, he explains his recipe for fulfillment and happiness with life lessons that are profoundly simple, simply profound--and classic Yogi to the core. Following on the heels of two New York Times bestselling books and filled with memorable photos, this new collection of Yogi wisdom will undoubtedly expand his growing legion of fans. When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It! is a wise, humble, touching book that's a guaranteed winner. In short, it's Déjà vu all over again. A baseball legend reflects on the following lessons...

• A nickel ain't worth a dime any more.
• It ain't over til it's over.
• You can't think and hit at the same time.
• I didn't really say everything I said.
• The future ain't what it used to be.

. . . and many more.

This isn't just a story about baseball. It's about life and the beauty of knowing and accepting who you are. --Jeff Passan, ESPN baseball columnist

This fascinating book chronicles the unsung men of baseball who serve the job, the hardships they face, and their love for a game that would not always love them back―told partly through the experiences of an MLB veteran.​

In baseball there are superstars and stars and everyday players and then there are the rest. Within the rest are role players and specialists and journeymen and then there are the backup catchers. The Tao of the Backup Catcher is about them, the backup catchers, who exist near the bottom of the roster and the end of the bench and between the numbers in a sport-and a society-increasingly driven by cold, hard analytics.

The Tao of the Backup Catcher is a story of grown men who once dreamed of stardom and generational wealth. Instead, they were handed a broom and a deeper understanding of who wins and why, who stands tall and who folds, and who will invest their own lives in catching bullpens and the back ends of doubleheaders.

Backup catchers survive in part because every team needs one. They are necessary, once or twice a week. They prosper because the game, like the world around the game, still needs good souls, honest efforts, open eyes and ears, closed mouths, compassion for the sad parts, a laugh for the silly parts, and a heart that knows the difference. Backup catchers are sports' big brothers, psychologists, priests, witch doctors, player coaches, father figures and drinking buddies, all wrapped in a suit of today's polycarbonate armor and yesterday's dirt. They come with a singular goal-to win baseball games. They play for the greater good. After that, they play for themselves. A reverie on loving the grind and the little things baseball can teach us, The Tao of the Backup Catcher profiles Erik Kratz, Josh Paul, AJ Ellis, Bobby Wilson, Drew Butera, Matt Treanor, and John Flaherty to name a few.

This isn't just a story about baseball. It's about life and the beauty of knowing and accepting who you are. ―Jeff Passan

When it comes to sports talk, no city has more to say than Philadelphia.
With their 2007 The Great Book of Philadelphia Sports Lists, WIP sports radio hosts Glen Macnow and Big Daddy Graham compiled dozens of sports lists to stir up dialog and debate within the buzzing Philadelphia sports community (and beyond).

A lot has happened in Philly sports since 2007 -- the Phillies' 2008 World Series win; the Eagles' record-breaking 2017 season, now-famous Philly Special play, and Super Bowl LII victory over the Patriots; the Sixers' Trust the Process campaign; and, of course, Gritty -- so now Glen and Big Daddy are back with dozens of new lists to keep the conversation fresh, ranking things like:

• The most overrated and underrated players in Philly sports history
• The top 10 Philadelphia sports quotes
• The 10 worst Eagles draft picks ever
• The greatest duos in Philly sports history
• The 10 best sports movies set in Philadelphia
• The worst bosses in Philly sports history
• and much more!

Did the Russians invent baseball? Is there a connection between Babe Ruth's cross-dressing and Gertrude Stein's secret mission to New York? What does history tell us about what lies beyond heaven?

From the American heartland to Hiroshima, to Paris, to shopping malls and caves with prehistoric art, Ivan the Terrible Goes on a Family Picnic is a wild ride across generations and frontiers of the imagination.

The Big Book of Baseball Stories is a collection of some of the greatest baseball stories ever written. It will entertain, enlighten, and inspire fans across the country. These are enduring stories that have passed the test of time and have attracted generations of readers. They are custom-made for the imaginative reader who loves baseball and tales of our national game.