The Baseball & Softball category has 196 audiobooks on Listento.it, with an average listener rating of 4.6★ across 329 ratings. The most-rated is Moneyball.
Up from Adams Street
Summary
Up from Adams Street recounts a boy's coming of age in a whistle-stop town in Illinois. He is the favorite, of whom much is expected, naive to a fault, decked out in high school football gear, dreaming of glory, all 120 pounds of him, perched on the roof of a freight car hurtling toward a bridge over the Mississippi, and into jail for a night. He falls for a girl, becomes the inevitable star-crossed lover, and discovers that the life he wants to live is the life he's living. Isn't it?
©2019 Larry Crane (P)2021 Larry Crane
They Bled Blue
Summary
They Bled Blue is the rollicking yarn of the Los Angeles Dodgers' crazy 1981 season, a watershed campaign that cemented the team's place and reputation as fitting thoroughly within the surrounding LA culture. That it culminated in an unlikely World Series win - during a split season demarcated by a strike, no less - is not even the most interesting thing about this team. The Dodgers were led by the garrulous Tommy Lasorda, whose office hosted a regular stream of Hollywood royalty. They had Steve Garvey, the first baseman with the movie-star good looks. Garvey was teamed with Ron Cey, Davey Lopes, and Bill Russell in the most durable infield in major league history, with 1981 presenting their final chance to win a championship as a unit. The difference maker was an entirely unexpected 20-year-old nearly straight out of Mexico, with a wild delivery and a screwball as his flippin' out pitch. Fernando Valenzuela didn't speak much English, but his baseball ability broke down cultural barriers and helped fill Dodger Stadium to the brim with a Southern California Latino population that had been thirsting for just such a success story.
©2019 Jason Turbow (P)2019 HighBridge Company
The Yankee Years
Summary
Twelve straight playoff appearances. Six American League pennants. Four World Series titles. This is the definitive story of a dynasty: the Yankee years. When Joe Torre took over as manager of the New York Yankees in 1996, the most storied franchise in sports had not won a World Series title in 18 years. The famously tough and mercurial owner, George Steinbrenner, had fired 17 managers during that span. Torre's appointment was greeted with Bronx cheers from the notoriously brutal New York media, who cited his record as the player and manager who had been in the most Major League games without appearing in a World Series. Twelve tumultuous and triumphant years later, Torre left the team as the most beloved and successful manager in the game. In an era of multimillionaire free agents, fractured clubhouses, revenue-sharing, and off-the-field scandals, Torre forged a team ethos that united his players and made the Yankees, once again, the greatest team in sports. He won over the media with his honesty and class, and was beloved by the fans.
©2009 Joe Torre (P)2009 Random House Audio
The Progress of the Seasons
Summary
This is a book about baseball, our national pastime. The centerpiece is a team that hasn't won the championship for more than eighty years. The Boston Red Sox, however, are only part of the story. The rest turns on thoughts about family and continuity and, of course, the progress of the seasons; something, you'll learn, any reasonably intelligent man or woman is supposed to know about. The Progress of the Seasons confirms what admirers of the author's sparkling accurate prose already know: Higgins is to writing what Ted Williams was to baseball, an all-star. Beginning in 1946, the then eight-year-old author, accompanied by father and grandfather, takes the long train ride out to Fenway Park to find some truth in immortals like Doerr, DiMaggio, York, and Williams (imagine the records Ted Williams would have engraved if he hadn't left the field for World War II and Korea), and, later, Yastremski, Marty Barrett, and many more. Beyond the games, there's a magical moment when George Higgins calls on his own mythic Emily to check the all-time lineup with his deceased forebears. By then you've come to know what the author's values have in common with those in Our Town and why certain professional athletes achieve immortality and others don't. And to think, as Johnny Pesky reminds us, "It's such a simple game...and it's so hard to play."
©1989 George V. Higgins (P)1997 Blackstone Audiobooks
Last Ride of the Iron Horse
Summary
Last Ride of the Iron Horse tells the tale of Lou Gehrig's final year in the Yankee lineup, as he dealt with early effects of the deadly disease ALS. For much of the 1938 season, Gehrig - dubbed the Iron Horse for his strength and reliability - struggled with slumps and a mystifying loss of power. Fans booed, and sportswriters called for him to be benched. Then, as the Yankees battled for the pennant in August, Lou began pounding home runs like his old self - a turnaround that in retrospect looks truly miraculous. It may have been a rare case of temporary ALS reversal. Using rare film footage, radio broadcasts, newspapers and interviews, author Dan Joseph chronicles Gehrig's roller coaster of a year. The story begins in Hollywood, where the handsome "Larrupin' Lou" films a Western that would be his only movie. As the year unfolds, he holds out for baseball’s highest salary, battles injuries that would sideline a lesser man, wins his sixth World Series ring, and enters the political arena for the first time, denouncing the rising threat of Nazism. Joseph also answers questions that have long intrigued Gehrig's admirers: When did he sense something was wrong with his body? What were the first signs? How did he adjust? And did he still help the Yankees win the championship, even as his skills declined? The year 1938 would be Gehrig's last hurrah. With his strength fading, he ended his renowned consecutive games streak the following May. A few weeks later, doctors at the Mayo Clinic diagnosed him with ALS. On July 4, the Yankees retired his number in a ceremony at Yankee Stadium. All along, Gehrig showed remarkable courage and grace, never more so than when he told the stadium crowd, "I might have been given a bad break, but I've got an awful lot to live for."
©2019 Sunbury Press, Inc. (P)2021 Beacon Audiobooks
Steinbrenner
Summary
No owner has changed the landscape of sports more than New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. From the moment he bought the team in 1973 for $10 million, Steinbrenner's monomaniacal pursuit was to restore the most fabled franchise in baseball history to its former glory. Today the New York Yankees are worth more than $1 billion and are once again world champions. Award-winning sportswriter Bill Madden traces Steinbrenner from his early days in Cleveland through his years as a shipping magnate, a Nixon fund-raiser, and a champion horse breeder to the fateful moment when he bought the Yankees, even though his father disparaged George's desire to own a professional sports team as a "hobby". Over the next four decades, Steinbrenner's tumultuous reign included his epic battles with Billy Martin, Reggie Jackson, Dave Winfield, even beloved Yankee captain Derek Jeter. His ruthless and free-spending tactics made him a lightning rod for controversy, but they also paid off: Steinbrenner's Yankees have won seven championships and remain the gold standard in all sports. In the last few years, with his health declining, the Boss ceded control of the team to his sons, but not before lording over the team's historic transition from the House That Ruth Built to the House That George Built. Throughout his three decades of covering the Yankees, Bill Madden has cultivated hundreds of sources at every level in the organization, from the many managers and front-office personnel Steinbrenner has fired to the bat boys who are ever present in the locker room. All of them have colorful stories about the man with whom they have enjoyed a love-hate relationship, but it is the Boss himself whose voice rises above the rest. And when Steinbrenner decided to give his final print interview, he spoke to Madden to set the record straight on his extraordinary life and career.
©2010 Bill Madden (P)2010 HarperCollins Publishers
1954: The Year Willie Mays and the First Generation of Black Superstars Changed Major League Baseball Forever
Summary
Jackie Robinson heroically broke the color barrier in 1947. But how—and, in practice, when—did the integration of the sport actually occur? Bill Madden shows that baseball’s famous black experiment” did not truly succeed until the coming of age of Willie Mays and the emergence of some star players—Larry Doby, Hank Aaron, and Ernie Banks—in 1954. And as a relevant backdrop off the field, it was in May of that year that the US Supreme Court unanimously ruled, in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, that segregation be outlawed in America’s public schools. Featuring original interviews with key players and weaving together the narrative of one of baseball’s greatest seasons with the racially charged events of that year, 1954 demonstrates how our national pastime—with the notable exception of the Yankees, who represented white supremacy in the game—was actually ahead of the curve in terms of the acceptance of black Americans, while the nation at large continued to struggle with tolerance.
©2014 Bill Madden (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
Tom Seaver
Summary
An authoritative biography of Hall of Fame pitching legend Tom Seaver, still the greatest player ever to wear a Mets jersey, by a journalist who knew him well. He was called Tom Terrific for a reason. Tom Seaver was one of the most talented and popular players in the history of baseball. He is one of only two pitchers with 300 wins, 3,000 strikeouts, and an ERA under 3.00. He was a three-time Cy Young award winner, 12-time All Star, and was elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame with the highest percentage ever at the time. Popular among players and fans, Seaver was fiercely competitive but always put team success ahead of personal glory. Born in Fresno, California, Seaver signed with the New York Mets in 1967, leading them to their stunning 1969 World Series victory. After a legendarily lopsided trade, he joined the Cincinnati Reds, then later played for the White Sox and the Red Sox before ending his career following the 1986 season. After his playing days, Seaver retired back to California to establish a successful vineyard. Then in 2013, a recurrence of Lyme disease severely affected his memory, which Madden was the first to report. In 2019 Seaver’s family announced that he had been diagnosed with dementia and was withdrawing from public life. Madden began following Seaver’s career in the 1980s. Seaver came to trust Madden so completely that, eager to return to New York from Chicago, he asked Madden to explore a possible trade to the Yankees, which never materialized. Drawing in part on their long relationship, Madden offers a deeply personal and fascinating portrait of one of the greatest and most admired players of all time.
©2021 Bill Madden. All rights reserved. (P)2021 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.
One Nation Under Baseball: How the 1960s Collided with the National Pastime
Summary
One Nation Under Baseball highlights the intersection between American society and America’s pastime during the 1960s, when the hallmarks of the sport - fairness, competition, and mythology - came under scrutiny. John Florio and Ouisie Shapiro examine the events of the era that reshaped the game: the Koufax and Drysdale million-dollar holdout, the encroachment of television on newspaper coverage, the changing perception of ballplayers from mythic figures to overgrown boys, the arrival of the everyman Mets and their free-spirited fans, and the lawsuit brought against team owners by Curt Flood.
One Nation Under Baseball brings to life the seminal figures of the era - including Bob Gibson, Marvin Miller, Tom Seaver, and Dick Young - richly portraying their roles during a decade of flux and uncertainty.
The book is published by University of Nebraska Press.
©2017 John Florio and Ouisie Shapiro (P)2018 Redwood Audiobooks
Billy Ball
Summary
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 owner, Charlie Finley, was looking for a buyer. First, though, he had to bring fans back to the Oakland Coliseum. Enter Billy Martin. Dale Tafoya describes what, at the time, seemed like a match made in baseball heaven. The A's needed a leader to reignite 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, his immediate embrace by Oakland fans, and the A's return to playoff baseball. In Oakland, Martin's 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.
©2020 Dale Tafoya (P)2020 Tantor
42 Today
Summary
Explores Jackie Robinson's compelling and complicated legacy Before the United States Supreme Court ruled against segregation in public schools, and before Rosa Parks refused to surrender her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama, Jackie Robinson walked onto the diamond on April 15, 1947, as first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers, making history as the first African American to integrate Major League Baseball in the 20th century. Today a national icon, Robinson was a complicated man who navigated an even more complicated world that both celebrated and despised him. Many are familiar with Robinson as a baseball hero. Few, however, know of the inner turmoil that came with his historic status. Featuring piercing essays from a range of distinguished sportswriters, cultural critics, and scholars, this book explores Robinson's perspectives and legacies on civil rights, sports, faith, youth, and nonviolence, while providing rare glimpses into the struggles and strength of one of the nation's most athletically gifted and politically significant citizens. Featuring a foreword by celebrated directors and producers Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon, this volume recasts Jackie Robinson's legacy and establishes how he set a precedent for future civil rights activism, from Black Lives Matter to Colin Kaepernick.
©2021 New York University (P)2021 Tantor
The New York Yankees of the 1950s: Mantle, Stengel, Berra, and a Decade of Dominance
Summary
The 1950s marked a transformative period in postwar American history. In baseball, one dynasty was the story during the decade. The New York Yankees played in eight World Series from 1950 to 1959, winning six of them. Yankees icon Joe DiMaggio retired following the 1951 season, but a new superstar, Mickey Mantle, took over in Yankee Stadium’s center field in 1952. Mantle, the powerful switch-hitter who blasted tape-measure home runs, often tortured by leg ailments, was the number one box office draw in baseball. He was the American League’s most valuable player in 1956 and 1957, putting together a triple crown season in 1956. Mantle came into baseball when TV was just beginning to stir, and with the Yankees reaching the World Series and appearing on national TV seemingly every season, he became the face of the game during the decade. Mantle joined with his pals, pitcher Whitey Ford and infielder Billy Martin, to form a hard-partying trio that would be a joy and a pain to management. The author of several books on the Yankees, David Fischer will bring expertise and a knack for great storytelling to the saga of the most dominant decade in the annals of sport, set during a defining moment in US history.
©2019 David Fischer (P)2019 David Fischer
How Baseball Happened
Summary
The fascinating, true origin story of baseball - how America’s first great sport developed and how it conquered a nation. Baseball’s true founders don’t have plaques in Cooperstown. The founders were the hundreds of uncredited amateurs - ordinary people - who played without gloves, facemasks, or performance incentives in the middle decades of the 19th century. Unlike today’s pro athletes, they lived full lives outside of sports. They worked, built businesses, and fought against the South in the Civil War. But that’s not the way the story has been told. The wrongness of baseball history can be staggering. You may have heard that Abner Doubleday or Alexander Cartwright invented baseball. Neither did. You may have been told that a club called the Knickerbockers played the first baseball game in 1846. They didn’t. You have read that baseball’s color line was uncrossed and unchallenged until Jackie Robinson in 1947. Nope. You may have heard Cooperstown, Hoboken, or New York City called the birthplace of baseball, but not Brooklyn. Yet Brooklyn was the home of baseball’s first fans, the first ballpark, the first statistics - and modern pitching. Baseball was originally supposed to be played, not watched. This changed when crowds began to show up at games in Brooklyn in the late 1850s. We fans weren’t invited to the party; we crashed it. Professionalism wasn’t part of the plan either, but when an 1858 Brooklyn versus New York City series accidentally proved that people would pay to see a game, the writing was on the outfield wall. When the first professional league was formed in 1871, baseball was already a fully formed modern sport with championships, media coverage, and famous stars. Professional baseball invented an organization, but not the sport itself. Baseball’s amazing amateurs had already done that. Thomas W. Gilbert’s history is for baseball fans and anyone fascinating by origin stories and American culture.
©2020 Thomas W. Gilbert (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing
Seasons in Hell
Summary
You think your team is bad? In this landmark work on one of the most tortured franchises in baseball, one reporter discovers that nine innings can feel like an eternity. In early 1973, gonzo sportswriter Mike Shropshire agreed to cover the Texas Rangers for the Fort-Worth Star-Telegram, not realizing that the Rangers were arguably the worst team in baseball history. Seasons in Hell is a riotous, candid, irreverent behind-the-scenes account in the tradition of The Bronx Zoo and Ball Four, following the Texas Rangers from Whitey Herzog's reign in 1973 through Billy Martin's tumultuous tenure. Offering wonderful perspectives on dozens of unique (and likely never-to-be-seen-again) baseball personalities, Seasons in Hell recounts some of the most extreme characters ever to play the game and brings to life the no-holds-barred culture of major league baseball in the mid-'70s.
©1996 Mike Shrophire (P)2014 Audible Inc.
Inside Baseball
Summary
No sport has inspired better writing than baseball, and no one writes baseball better than Tom Verducci. As Sports Illustrated’s lead baseball writer since 1993, Verducci has witnessed the achievements of the game’s greatest heroes and told their inspiring stories with unmatched passion and sophistication. He has enriched SIs readers with an insider’s perspective on the game, examining subtle shifts in the ever-changing balance between pitchers and hitters, between slumps and streaks, between sacred records and the athletes trying to break them. Despite his deep affection for baseball, however, Verducci has never shied away from the hard truth about the game: His landmark piece about steroids, for instance, changed the baseball landscape forever. These 25 pieces span the generations from Sandy Koufax to Roger Clemens, from Ted Williams to Barry Bonds. They chronicle the important trends in the game and celebrate baseball’s brightest stars and most breathtaking performances. They are the best work of a writer at the top of his game.
©2006 Time Home Entertainment Inc. (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
They Said It Couldn't Be Done
Summary
“One of sports’ most storied championship teams gets its proper due” (Tom Verducci) in this definitive history of the 1969 Miracle Mets from the New York Times best-selling author of The Boys of Winter. “If you want to know what it was like to live and witness a baseball miracle in tumultuous times, this book is for you.” (Ron Darling, former New York Mets All-Star and best-selling author of Game 7, 1986) The story of the 1969 New York Mets’ season has long since entered sports lore as one of the most remarkable of all time. But beyond the “miracle” is a compelling narrative of an unlikely collection of players and the hallowed manager who inspired them to greatness. For the 50th anniversary, renowned sports journalist Wayne Coffey brings to life a moment when a championship could descend on a city like magic, and when a baseball legend was authored one inning at a time. Future Hall of Fame ace Tom Seaver snagged the biggest headlines, but the enduring richness of the story lies in the core of a team comprised of untested youngsters, lightly regarded veterans, and four Southern-born African-American stalwarts who came of age in the shadow of Jackie Robinson. Most of the Mets regulars were improbable candidates for baseball stardom. The number-two starting pitcher, Jerry Koosman, grew up on a Minnesota farm, never played high-school ball, and was only discovered because of a tip from a Mets usher. Outfielder Ron Swoboda was known for long home runs and piles of strikeouts, until he turned into a glove wizard when it mattered most. All of these men were galvanized by their manager: the sainted former Brooklyn Dodger Gil Hodges, whose fundamental belief in the power of every man on the roster, no matter his stats, helped backup players like Al Weis and J.C. Martin become October heroes. As the Mets powered through the season to reach a World Series against the best-in-a-generation Baltimore Orioles, Hodges's steady hand guided a team that had very recently been the league laughingstock to an improbable, electrifying shot at sports immortality. “A must-read for not just for Mets fans, but allbaseball fans who will appreciate what indeed was the most astounding season in baseball history.” (Ken Rosenthal, two-time Sports Emmy winner for Outstanding Sports Reporter)
©2019 Wayne Coffey (P)2019 Random House Audio