Mcfarland Company Inc Publishers: 2371 books

Professional baseball is full of arcane team names. The Los Angeles Dodgers, for instance, owe their nickname to the trolley tracks that honeycombed Brooklyn in the early 1880s. (Residents were “trolley dodgers.”) From the Negro Leagues, there were the Pittsburgh Crawfords (sponsored early by...

The national pastime’s rich history and vast cache of statistics have provided fans and researchers a gold mine of narrative and data since the late 19th century. Many books have been written about Major League Baseball’s most famous games. This one takes a different approach, focusing on MLB’s...

One of the greatest outfielders of his generation, Hazen “Kiki” Cuyler (1898–1950) was working as a roof assembler in an auto plant in Michigan when he seized an opportunity to realize his dream of playing major league baseball. After toiling in the minor leagues for more than three years, he...

The New York Yankees were the strongest team in the majors from 1948 through 1960, capturing the American League Pennant 10 times and winning seven World Championships. The average fan, when asked who made the team so dominant, will mention Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford or Mickey Mantle. Some...

Arguably the greatest ball club in National League history, the 1953 Brooklyn Dodgers recorded some staggering statistics. They led the league in virtually every offensive category while fielding some of the finest defensive players of the era. But the team’s extraordinary success on the field is...

“Orioles Magic” is a phrase fans still associate with the 1979–1983 seasons, Baltimore’s last championship era, when they played excellent, exciting ball with a penchant for late-inning heroics. This book analyzes the Orioles not just as a great team but as the team to be marked by the fabled...

During the 19th century, baseball was a game with few rules, many rowdy players and just one umpire. Dirty tricks were simply part of a winning strategy—spiking, body-blocking, cutting bases short or hiding an extra ball to be used when needed were all OK. Deliberately failing to catch a fly in...

This is the first biography of Bill “Swish” Nicholson, a Cubs favorite and baseball’s top slugger during the World War II era. Only days out of college in 1936, Nicholson went straight to the majors, putting in a brief appearance for Connie Mack’s Philadelphia A’s before he was optioned...

The Waner brothers, Paul and Lloyd—also known as “Big Poison” and “Little Poison”—played together for fourteen seasons in the same Pittsburgh outfield in the 1920s and 1930s. More than half a century after retiring, they still rank as the best-hitting brothers in major league history with...

Billy Southworth was the most successful major league baseball manager of the 1940s including the three straight years in which his St. Louis Cardinal teams won more than 100 games. He won three National League pennants with the Cardinals and one with the Boston Braves, and his .597 winning percentage...

The world of Champ Car auto racing was changing in the 1970s. As cars became more sophisticated, the cost of supporting a team had skyrocketed, making things difficult for team owners. In an effort to increase purses paid by racing promoters and win lucrative television contracts, a group of owners...

Written by and for baseball fans (or those trying to live with one), this collection of essays joins a perennial conversation all fans have—“Why do we love baseball?” Thirty contributors share personal narratives of how they found an abiding passion for the sport and how their relationship to...

The first quarter of the 20th century was a time of dramatic change in auto racing, marked by the move from the horseless carriage to the supercharged Grand Prix racer, from the gentleman driver to the well-publicized professional, and from the dusty road course to the autodrome. This history of the...

For automotive artist John Lander, cars are more than just transportation: “Some are beautiful examples of rolling sculpture. I try to do more than just draw pretty pictures of cars; I include interesting people, backgrounds, and try to set a mood or tell a story.” The work of years, this collection...