The Pacific Coast League enjoyed a reputation as one of the premier minor leagues in organized baseball. Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Lefty Gomez, the Waner brothers and Ernie Lombardi were among the future Hall of Famers who played in its cozy parks. Legendary minor leaguers such as Smead Jolley, Buzz Arlett, Lefty O’Doul and Frank Shellenback made their marks in the PCL. 
 This reference work is a season-by-season guide to the glory days of the PCL. It includes a listing of starters and primary reserves for all teams from 1903 through 1957, as well as playoff results, managerial records, and statistical leaders for each season. Complete PCL records for over 500 of the circuit’s most notable players are also provided.

The Pacific Coast League: A Statistical History, 1903-1957

History

Snelling, Dennis

Americas

McFarland Company

In 1903, a small league in California defied Organized Baseball by adding teams in Portland and Seattle to become the strongest minor league of the twentieth century. Calling itself the Pacific Coast League, this outlaw association frequently outdrew its major league counterparts and continued to challenge the authority of Organized Baseball until the majors expanded into California in 1958. The Pacific Coast League introduced the world to Joe, Vince and Dom DiMaggio, Paul and Lloyd Waner, Ted Williams, Tony Lazzeri, Lefty O'Doul, Mickey Cochrane, Bobby Doerr, and many other baseball stars, all of whom originally signed with PCL teams. This thorough history of the Pacific Coast League chronicles its foremost personalities, governance, and contentious relationship with the majors, proving that the history of the game involves far more than the happenings in the American and National leagues.

The Greatest Minor League: A History of the Pacific Coast League, 1903-1957

**2015 SEYMOUR MEDAL FINALIST** **CASEY AWARD FINALIST FOR BEST BASEBALL BOOK OF 2014** For more than a century Johnny Evers has been conjoined with Chicago Cubs teammates Frank Chance and Joe Tinker, thanks to eight lines of verse penned by a well-known New York columnist. He has been caricatured as a scrawny, sour man who couldn't hit and who owed his fame to that poem. In truth Johnny Evers was more than a part of "Tinker to Evers to Chance." He was a gifted player in all phases of the game, a master strategist, and the heartbeat of one of the greatest teams of the 20th century; he was also the fiercest competitor this side of Ty Cobb. Evers was at the center of one of baseball's greatest controversies, a chance event that cemented his stardom and stole a pennant from John McGraw and the New York Giants in 1908. Four years later, following a stunning set of reversals and tragedies that resulted in his suffering a nervous breakdown, Evers embarked on a comeback that culminated in his leading the 1914 Boston Braves to the most improbable of championships. Spanning the time from his birth in Troy, New York, to his death less than a year after his election to the Hall of Fame, this is the biography of a man who literally wrote the book about playing his position and set the standard for winning baseball.

Johnny Evers: A Baseball Life

Biographies & Memoirs

McFarland

Ron Necciai once struck out twenty-seven batters in a minor league game. Tom Paciorek played one game in the major leagues, collected three hits in three at bats, scored four times, and never played in the big leagues again. Bert Shepard pitched his one game in the major leagues after he lost his leg as a fighter pilot during World War Two. Joe Brovia was a minor league legend who finally got his shot at the majors at age thirty-three. These and eleven other men are poignantly profiled, in large part through their own words, regarding their brief major league careers and the often thin line that separates success and failure.

A Glimpse of Fame: Brilliant but Fleeting Major League Careers

Sports & Outdoors

Baseball

**RUNNER-UP FOR 2017 CASEY AWARD-BEST BASEBALL BOOK OF THE YEAR** From San Francisco to the Ginza in Tokyo, Lefty O'Doul relates the untold story of one of baseball's greatest hitters, most colorful characters, and the unofficial father of professional baseball in Japan. Lefty O'Doul (1897-1969) began his career on the sandlots of San Francisco and was drafted by the Yankees as a pitcher. Although an arm injury and his refusal to give up the mound clouded his first four years, he converted into an outfielder. After four Minor League seasons he returned to the Major Leagues to become one of the game's most prolific power hitters, retiring with the fourth-highest lifetime batting average in Major League history. A self-taught "scientific" hitter, O'Doul then became the game's preeminent hitting instructor, counting Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams as his top disciples. In 1931 O'Doul traveled to Japan with an All-Star team and later convinced Babe Ruth to headline a 1934 tour. By helping to establish the professional game in Japan, he paved the way for Hideo Nomo, Ichiro Suzuki, and Hideki Matsui to play in the American Major Leagues. O'Doul's finest moment came in 1949, when General Douglas MacArthur asked him to bring a baseball team to Japan, a tour that MacArthur later praised as one of the greatest diplomatic efforts in U.S. history. O'Doul became one of the most successful managers in the Pacific Coast League and was instrumental in spreading baseball's growth and popularity in Japan. He is still beloved in Japan, where in 2002 he was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame.

Lefty O'Doul: Baseball's Forgotten Ambassador

Historical

University Of Nebraska Press

Ron Necciai once struck out twenty-seven batters in a minor league game. Tom Paciorek played one game in the major leagues, collected three hits in three at bats, scored four times, and never played in the big leagues again. Bert Shepard pitched his one game in the major leagues after he lost his leg as a fighter pilot during World War Two. Joe Brovia was a minor league legend who finally got his shot at the majors at age thirty-three. These and eleven other men are poignantly profiled, in large part through their own words, regarding their brief major league careers and the often thin line that separates success and failure.

McFarland Publishing

In 1903, a small league in California defied Organized Baseball by adding teams in Portland and Seattle to become the strongest minor league of the twentieth century. Calling itself the Pacific Coast League, this outlaw association frequently outdrew its major league counterparts and continued to challenge the authority of Organized Baseball until the majors expanded into California in 1958.
 The Pacific Coast League introduced the world to Joe, Vince and Dom DiMaggio, Paul and Lloyd Waner, Ted Williams, Tony Lazzeri, Lefty O'Doul, Mickey Cochrane, Bobby Doerr, and many other baseball stars, all of whom originally signed with PCL teams. This thorough history of the Pacific Coast League chronicles its foremost personalities, governance, and contentious relationship with the majors, proving that the history of the game involves far more than the happenings in the American and National leagues.

From San Francisco to the Ginza in Tokyo, Lefty O'Doul relates the untold story of one of baseball's greatest hitters, most colorful characters, and the unofficial father of professional baseball in Japan. Lefty O'Doul (1897-1969) began his career on the sandlots of San Francisco and was drafted by the Yankees as a pitcher. Although an arm injury and his refusal to give up the mound clouded his first four years, he converted into an outfielder. After four Minor League seasons he returned to the Major Leagues to become one of the game's most prolific power hitters, retiring with the fourth-highest lifetime batting average in Major League history. A self-taught "scientific" hitter, O'Doul then became the game's preeminent hitting instructor, counting Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams among his top disciples. In 1931 O'Doul traveled to Japan with an All-Star team and later convinced Babe Ruth to headline a 1934 tour. By helping to establish the professional game in Japan, he paved the way for Hideo Nomo, Ichiro Suzuki, and Hideki Matsui to play in the American Major Leagues. O'Doul's finest moment came in 1949 when General Douglas MacArthur asked him to bring a baseball team to Japan, a tour that MacArthur later praised as one of the greatest diplomatic efforts in U.S. history. O'Doul became one the most successful managers in the Pacific Coast League and was instrumental in spreading baseball's growth and popularity in Japan.&nbsp;He is still beloved in Japan, where in 2002 he was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame. This edition features a new epilogue by the author.

Over 100 baseball teams from the United States and Hawaii have crossed the Pacific to play baseball in Japan. Nichibei Yakyu: US Tours of Japan is the first book written in English that focuses on these international tours. 
Discover in this book, how: 
The female Philadelphia Bobbies team tour ended in tragedy 
Babe Ruth tried to prevent World War II 
Lefty O’Doul helped reunite the US and Japan through baseball 
A Native American baseball team was cheated and stranded 5000 miles from home 
A Negro League team helped start Japanese professional baseball 
Japanese Americans used baseball to build a bridge between the two cultures 
Joe DiMaggio and Jackie Robinson finished their careers in Japan 
These, and many other stories, introduce readers to the fascinating world of Japanese baseball. 
Volume One focuses on tours between 1907 and 1958. During this time period, many of the sport’s greatest stars—including Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Ty Cobb, Joe DiMaggio, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Jackie Robinson—played in the Land of the Rising Sun. These tours helped spread the game across the globe, spawned thousands of individual friendships, and helped bring nations together through the mutual love of baseball. 
Volume One contains individual chapters written by leading members of the Society for American Baseball Research on all 15 professional squads that traveled to Japan before 1960 as well as four collegiate and eight amateur/semipro teams. Each chapter is accompanied by game results and, when available, player statistics. 
Robert K. Fitts is the author of seven books on Japanese baseball and Japanese baseball cards. Fitts is the founder of SABR’s Asian Baseball Committee and a recipient of the society’s 2013 Seymour Medal for Best Baseball Book of 2012, the 2019 McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award, the 2012 Doug Pappas Award for best research presentation at the SABR convention, and the 2006 and 2021 SABR Research Awards. He has twice been a finalist for the Casey Award and has received two silver medals at the Independent Publisher Book Awards. While living in Tokyo in 1993-94, Fitts began collecting Japanese baseball cards and now runs Robs Japanese Cards LLC. Information on Rob’s work is available at RobFitts.com.

Nichibei Yakyu: US Tours of Japan Volume 1, 1907 - 1958 (Nichibei Yakyu: Baseball Tours of Japan)

Fitts, Robert K.

Newman, Roberta J.

Berenbak, Adam

Williams, Kat D.

Nagata, Yoichi

Pearce, Ralph M.

Society for American Baseball Research

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Snelling, Dennis. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Snelling, Dennis

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Snelling, Dennis. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Pacific Coast League: A Statistical History, 1903-1957

The Greatest Minor League: A History of the Pacific Coast League, 1903-1957

Johnny Evers: A Baseball Life

A Glimpse of Fame: Brilliant but Fleeting Major League Careers

Lefty O'Doul: Baseball's Forgotten Ambassador

A Glimpse of Fame: Brilliant but Fleeting Major League Careers

The Greatest Minor League: A History of the Pacific Coast League, 1903-1957

Lefty O'Doul: Baseball's Forgotten Ambassador

Nichibei Yakyu: US Tours of Japan Volume 1, 1907 - 1958 (Nichibei Yakyu: Baseball Tours of Japan)