The story of Willie Mays's rookie year with the Negro American League's Birmingham Black Barons, the Last Negro World Series, and the making of a baseball legend Baseball Hall of Famer Willie Mays is one of baseball's endearing greats, a tremendously talented and charismatic center fielder who hit 660 career homeruns, collected 3,283 hits, knocked in 1,903 runs, won 12 Gold Glove Awards and appeared in 24 All-Star games. But before Mays was the "Say Hey Kid", he was just a boy. Willie's Boys is the story of his remarkable 1948 rookie season with the Negro American League's Birmingham Black Barons, who took a risk on a raw but gifted 16-year-old and gave him the experience, confidence, and connections to escape Birmingham's segregation, navigate baseball's institutional racism, and sign with the New York Giants. Willie's Boys offers a character-rich narrative of the apprenticeship Mays had at the hands of a diverse group of savvy veterans who taught him the ways of the game and the world. 
<ul>
<li>Sheds new light on the virtually unknown beginnings of a baseball great, not available in other books</li> <li>Captures the first incredible steps of a baseball superstar in his first season with the Negro League's Birmingham Black Barons</li> <li>Introduces the veteran group of Negro League players, including Piper Davis, who gave Mays an incredible apprenticeship season</li> <li>Illuminates the Negro League's last days, drawing on in-depth research and interviews with remaining players</li> <li>Explores the heated rivalry between Mays's Black Barons and Buck O'Neil's Kansas City Monarchs , culminating in the last Negro League World Series</li> <li>Breaks new historical ground on what led the New York Giants to acquire Mays, and why he didn't sign with the Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Yankees, or Boston Red Sox</li> </ul>
Packed with stories and insights, Willie's Boys takes you inside an important part of baseball history and the development of one of the all-time greats ever to play the game.

Willie's Boys: The 1948 Birmingham Black Barons, The Last Negro League World Series, and the Making of a Baseball Legend

History

Klima, John

Americas

Trade Paper Press

Pitching duels are the essence of baseball competition - they require great measures of patience and fundamentals, and take the best one pitcher has to offer and give him a loss he does not deserve. When good pitchers alternately take the mound and remove the game from the batters' hands, spectators are on the edges of their seats. Those rare games and pitchers get all the attention in this work, as the author provides commentary on the greatest pitching duels of all time. It covers 35 of them, beginning with that of May 5, 1904, between Rube Waddell and Cy Young and ending with the May 28, 2000, opposition of Pedro Martinez and Roger Clemens. Other highlighted games include those pitting Christy Matthewson against Chief Bender, Sherry Smith against Babe Ruth, Bill Wight against Satchel Paige, Warren Spahn against Juan Marichal, Bob Gibson against Don Drysdale, Steve Carlton against Phil Niekro, and Greg Maddux against Pedro Martinez, just to name a few.

Pitched Battle: 35 of Baseball's Greatest Duels from the Mound

Sports & Outdoors

Baseball

McFarland Publishing

The rip-roaring story of baseball's most unlikely champions, featuring new interviews with Henry Aaron, Bob Uecker and other members of the Milwaukee Braves, Bushville Wins! takes you to a time and place baseball and the Heartland will never forget.In the early 1950s, the New York Yankees were the biggest bullies on the block. They were invincible: they led the New York City baseball dynasty, which for eight consecutive years held an iron grip on the World Series championship. Then the Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee in 1953, becoming surprise revolutionaries. Led by visionary owner Lou Perini, the Braves formed a powerful relationship with the Miller Brewing Company and foreshadowed the Dodgers and Giants moving west, sparking continental expansion and the ballpark boom. But the rest of the country wasn't sold. Why would a major league team move to a minor league town? In big cities like New York, Milwaukee was thought to be a podunk train station stop-off where the fans were always drunk and wouldn't know a baseball from a beer. They called Milwaukee Bushville. The Braves were no bushers! Eddie Mathews was a handsome home run hitter with a rugged edge. Warren Spahn was the craftiest pitcher in the business. Lew Burdette was a sharky spitball artist. Taken together, the Braves reveled in the High Life and made Milwaukee famous, while Wisconsin fans showed the rest of the country how to crack a cold one and throw a tailgate party. And in 1954, a solemn and skinny slugger came from Mobile to Milwaukee. Henry Aaron began his march to history. With a cast of screwballs, sluggers and beer swiggers, the Braves proved the guys at the corner bar could do the impossible - topple Casey Stengel's New York baseball dynasty in a World Series for the ages.

Bushville Wins!: The Wild Saga of the 1957 Milwaukee Braves and the Screwballs, Sluggers, and Beer Swiggers Who Canned the New York Yankees and Changed Baseball

Biographies & Memoirs

Thomas Dunne Books

"Bushville hits the sweet spot of my childhood, the year my family moved to Wisconsin and the Braves won the World Series against the Yankees, a team my Brooklyn-raised dad taught us to hate. Thanks to John Klima for bringing it all back to life with such vivid detail and energetic writing." -- David Maraniss, New York Times bestselling author of Clemente and When Pride Still Mattered
The rip-roaring story of baseball's most unlikely champions, featuring new interviews with Henry Aaron, Bob Uecker and other members of the Milwaukee Braves, Bushville Wins! takes you to a time and place baseball and the Heartland will never forget.
In the early 1950s, the New York Yankees were the biggest bullies on the block. They were invincible: they led the New York City baseball dynasty, which for eight consecutive years held an iron grip on the World Series championship. 
Then the Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee in 1953, becoming surprise revolutionaries. Led by visionary owner Lou Perini, the Braves formed a powerful relationship with the Miller Brewing Company and foreshadowed the Dodgers and Giants moving west, sparking continental expansion and the ballpark boom. 
But the rest of the country wasn't sold. Why would a major league team move to a minor league town? In big cities like New York, Milwaukee was thought to be a podunk train station stop-off where the fans were always drunk and wouldn't know a baseball from a beer. They called Milwaukee Bushville.
The Braves were no bushers! Eddie Mathews was a handsome home run hitter with a rugged edge. Warren Spahn was the craftiest pitcher in the business. Lew Burdette was a sharky spitball artist. Taken together, the Braves reveled in the High Life and made Milwaukee famous, while Wisconsin fans showed the rest of the country how to crack a cold one and throw a tailgate party. And in 1954, a solemn and skinny slugger came from Mobile to Milwaukee. Henry Aaron began his march to history. 
With a cast of screwballs, sluggers and beer swiggers, the Braves proved the guys at the corner bar could do the impossible - topple Casey Stengel's New York baseball dynasty in a World Series for the ages.

St. Martin's: Griffin

On December 7, 1941, as the battleships in Pearl Harbor smoldered, one of the most powerful athletes in America, Detroit Tigers MVP Hank Greenberg, made a tumultuous decision - to leave the baseball field for the field of war. His decision left baseball's place during the war uncertain as more and more ballplayers, famous and unknown alike, put off their careers to go into the fight. President Roosevelt was faced with a difficult decision: stop all professional baseball for the good of the victory, but in doing so, risk losing a vital part of morale. He decided that, whatever it took, The Game Must Go On. This is the story of American baseball during World War II - of both the players who left to join the war and the ones who struggled to keep the game alive on the home front. Taking the place of the big shots turned soldiers, sailors and combat pilots were misfit replacement players. While Greenberg represented the player who served, Pete Gray symbolized the player who stayed. He was a one-armed outfielder who overcame insurmountable odds to become a professional. John Klima drops us straight into 1941 to 1945. Culminating in the 1945 pennace race, where Greenberg and Gray's paths memorably crossed, Klima's story shows us how World War II made the country come of age and took baseball with it. This is the story of how the games we play changed because of the battles we fought.

The Game Must Go On: Hank Greenberg, Pete Gray, and the Great Days of Baseball on the Home Front in WWII

Underland Arcana Deck Three (Underland Arcana Decks)

Literature & Fiction

Teppo, Mark

Dorie, Sarina

Witchey, Eric

Cheney, Matthew

Howell, A. P.

Lu-Pai Ippolito, Frances

Stinger, Roni

Dagris, Daniel

Genre Fiction

Underland Press

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Books by Klima, John