Hardcover. NY, Harper, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 456 pages, illustrated in color and b&w. Award-winning sports writer Jane Leavy follows her New York Times runaway bestseller "Sandy Koufax" with the definitive biography of baseball icon Mickey Mantle. The legendary Hall-of-Fame outfielder was a national hero during his record-setting career with the New York Yankees, but public revelations of alcoholism, infidelity, and family strife badly tarnished the ballplayer's reputation in his latter years. In "The Last Boy", Leavy plumbs the depths of the complex athlete, using copious first-hand research as well as her own memories, to show why The Mick remains the most beloved and misunderstood Yankee slugger of all time. Clean copy.
Softcover. Los Angeles, Rosebud Books., 1st, 1982, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, pictorial covers with edgewear. 96 pages illustrated with b&w and color photos. A recap of the 1981 season with profiles of players, statistics. Clean copy.
Softcover. Bath ME, Anderson & Sons Publishing, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 140 pages, b&w illustrations. New England has been the birthplace of over 1100 major leaguers. In between the well-known and the unknown are several tiers of other ballplayers. This book pays tribute to those tiers closest to the top. Bright, clean copy.
NY, Random House, 1st, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. For Stanley Cohen, baseball is the prism through which he views the events of the last seventy years. His narrative spans four generations as he recounts in sparkling prose how, for his immigrant father, sports was a means of assimilation into life in the New World; the warmth of watching his son and, later, his grandson both fall heir to his devotion; and how the game of baseball has provided his life with its truest sense of continuity. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Chicago, Follett Publishing, 1st, 1977, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 305 pages, b&w illustrations. In this edition, Honig interviews player-managers Ossie Bluege, Roger Peckinpaugh, and Hall of Famers Burleigh Grimes and Al Lopez, among others. This time, you read the stories of a manager's point of view as well, which is very interesting. This book is about a rookie third baseman coming up the line to tag out a lumbering Ty Cobb. About Early Wynn just walking into a tryout camp and announcing himself. About how the Chicago White Sox didn't always play to win in 1919-20. One of the more memorable parts is Roger Peckinpaugh reflecting on how the illiterate Shoeless Joe Jackson had to listen to what his teammates ordered for dinner first because he could not read the menu. Clean copy.
Dallas, Taylor Publishing, 1st, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 228 pages, b&w illustrations. Includes appendix of player statistics. Recalls the record-breaking New York Yankees, the only team in baseball history to win five consecutive World Series, offering the remembrances of the greatest Bronx Bombers.
Hardcover. Dallas, Taylor Publishing, 1st, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, price-clipped dust jacket. Includes appendix of player statistics. Recalls the record-breaking New York Yankees, the only team in baseball history to win five consecutive World Series, offering the remembrances of the greatest Bronx Bombers. 228 pages, b&w photos.
Hardcover. NY, Thomas Y. Crowell, 1st, 1975, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. The most exciting season in baseball climaxed by Bobby Thomson's legendary home run to win the pennant for the Giants. 284 pages, b&w photos. Clean, bright copy.
Softcover. Cleveland OH, The Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), 1st, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover in pictorial wraps, 382 pages. Based on the field's most prolific, imaginative, and best-known scholars, this ultimate reference work on the Negro Leagues includes a complete register of all the players--3,400 names, with positions and teams from before the turn of the century into the 1950s--annual rosters, in-depth histories, and more than 75 original photographs.
Hardcover. NY, Macmillan , 1st, 1970, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a dust jacket, 383 pages. Ex-lib with light stamping, spine label, dust jacket glued to covers. Clean inside. The complete and authoritative history of the Mets. Has 150 pages of records: the team, every player, each season. Has 64 pages of action and behind-the-scenes photographs of the team and the players. Filled with action and anecdote, from October 17, 1960 when the National League awarded a franchise to New York to the miracle year of 1969 and the Mets were World Champions.
Hardcover. Chicago, Contemporary Books, 1st, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 227 pages. Hall of Fame pitcher Phil Niekro (1939-2020) was THE face of the Atlanta Braves between the Hank Aaron and the Dale Murphy eras. Joe Niekro (1944-2006) pitched for the 1987 World Series champion Minnesota Twins. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Henry Holt and Company, 2nd pr., 1956, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Fair, Hardcover in a worn, chipped dust jacket. A good read about a sorrowful (for an old Philadelphia A's fan) subject. Mehl gets right into his subject and brings it all together, particularly all the work Arnold Johnson had to do to get Kansas City ready to receive its new franchise and how the city came together and the minor league ballpark was reconstructed to meet Major League standards. 8 pages of b&w photos. No marking.
Hardcover. NY, Henry Holt, 1st, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Years of watching the Boston Red Sox baseball team playing at Fenway Park with his father, grandfather, and then his son, allows Higgins to talk about the simple game, so difficult to play.
Softcover. Jefferson NC, Mcfarland & Co , 1st, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 174 pages. In early 1869, Harry Wright of the Cincinnati Base Ball Club made an announcement to the sporting press: the Red Stockings would be the first all-professional club in the history of the game. The outcry could be heard in nearly every town in which the sport was played. Wright, however, paid little heed to their protests and went about his business of signing players. By the start of the season he had inked ten players to contracts, with salaries ranging from $600 to $1,400 annually. By June of 1870, the Red Stockings had compiled a 90-game winning streak and were recognized as the finest team in the game. How the Red Stockings were formed, who the players were, and why things came to an end are all fully covered in this detailed history.
Softcover. NY, Charter Books, reprint, 1962, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 350 pages. With a new introduction by the author. Presents the story about coming of age in America by way of the baseball diamond. Lefthander Henry Wiggen, six feet three, a hundred ninety-five pounds, and the greatest pitcher going, grows to manhood in a right-handed world. Written in Henry's own words, this funny novel follows his eccentric course from bush league to the World Series. First published in 1953. Price blacked out on front fly leaf, otherwise a tight, clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Viking Press, 1st, 1972, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. bit of fading to the green top edge. Angell was the consummate writer on baseball, and this, his first baseball book, is one of his major achievements. Thoughtful, funny, appreciative of the elegance of the game and the passions invested by players and fans, it goes beyond the usual sports reporters beat to examine baseballs complex place in our American psyche. Owner's inscription on the half-title page, light creasing to rear flap, otherwise clean.
Hardcover. NY, A. S. Barnes and Co., 1st, 1955, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. 192 pages, book and dust jacket in excellent condition. The paper used has tanned/yellowed. Otherwise a clean, tight copy.
Hardcover. NY, A. S. Barnes, 1st, 1949, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Fair, Hardcover, brown boards with green letting on the front cover and the spine. Dust jacket is fair only with tape repairs, chipping and a chunk gone from bottom of spine. Novel about the Quaker City Quakers, a major league team closely based on the Whiz Kids-the Philadelphia Phillies, with the main characters of the book closely based on the real Whiz Kids. For instance, Phillie coach Bennie Bengough was portrayed as Bennie Benson, Robin Roberts as Rossiter, Richie Ashburn as Robbie Ashton, etc. O'Rourke made no attempts to hide the connection. The book is dedicated to the Phillies, and O'Rourke thanks many of the Phillies by name in the introduction. Name in bold pencil on front fly leaf, otherwise clean
Hardcover. NY, Hyperion Books, 5th pr., 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 217 pages. "In early October 2001, Dominic DiMaggio and Johnny Pesky begin a 1,300-mile trip by car to visit their beloved teammate Ted Williams, knowing that he is dying. Bobby Doerr, the fourth member of this close group - "my guys," Williams used to call them - is unable to be with them because he is back in Oregon tending to his wife of sixty-three years, Monica, who has suffered her second stroke." "At the core of the book is the friendship of these four very different but extraordinary men, the key players in a remarkable Boston Red Sox team, who stayed close to each other for more than sixty years." The Teammates is the story of two the final one that DiMaggio and Pesky are taking to see Williams, and another, a flight back in time, as they and Bobby Doerr recall the wonders of their years together and reminisce about a magical era. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Lincoln NE, University of Nebraska Press, 1st, 2020, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. Is there life after baseball? Starting from this simple question, The Wax Pack ends up with something much bigger and unexpected--a meditation on the loss of innocence and the gift of impermanence, for both Brad Balukjian and the former ballplayers he tracked down. To get a truly random sample of players, Balukjian followed this wildly absurd but fun-as-hell premise: he took a single pack of baseball cards from 1986 (the first year he collected cards), opened it, chewed the nearly thirty-year-old gum inside, gagged, and then embarked on a quest to find all the players in the pack. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, David McKay Co., 1st, 1950, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn and chipped dust jacket. Classic and vintage Major League Baseball: The story of Robin Roberts, Jim Konstanty, Richie Ashburn and the rest of the 1950 Philadelphia Phillies as reported by a Philadelphia sportswriter who covered the team. Profiles of each player, manager, owners, World Series statistics, box score of the pennant clinching game. 8 pages of b&w photos. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY/Cleveland, World Publishing, 1st, 1969, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in an edgeworn dust jacket, 223 pages, illustrated with photos. The story of a crucial nine-day stretch during the miracle season of the Amazin' Mets encompassing critical, controversial games with their arch enemy Chicago Cubs. Published in the middle of the magical 1969 baseball season which would see the Mets go on to win the World Series. No marking.
Hardcover. NY, Avery Publishing Group, 1st, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Story of the aborted 1904 World Series, with center photo supplement on coated paper. The 1904 World Series was called off, because of a clash of wills among John T. Brush (owner of the New York Giants), John McGraw (manager of the Giants), and Ban Johnson (president of the National League and instrumental in forming the New York Highlanders, later to be renamed the New York Yankees). Clean copy.