An authoritative look back at the decade that brought America’s favorite game into the modern era.

When the Game Changed: An Oral History Of Baseball's True Golden Age: 1969-1979

Sports & Outdoors

Castle, George

Baseball

LYONS PRESS+

What sports fans read, watch, and listen to at home often isn’t the real story coming out of the locker room or the front office. George Castle should know: he’s covered baseball in Chicago for decades and witnessed the widening gulf between the media and the teams they’re supposed to cover—and the resulting widespread misinformation about the inner workings of the game. In this book, Castle chronicles from the inside the decline of baseball reporting and shows in clear and practical terms how ill-served today’s sports followers are by those they trust for the straight story.
Charting the path of a veteran sports reporter’s career, Baseball and the Media traces the changes in baseball coverage from the days of the old-time players and scribes to the no-holds-barred (and no facts checked) sports-talk radio of our time. Along the way, Castle introduces readers to the politics of baseball media (does sports journalism actually have its red and blue states?), documents the transformation of athletes from role models to sports-media celebrities, including emblematic characters such as LaTroy Hawkins and Carl Everett, and illuminates the profound changes in the way sports in general—and baseball in particular—are conveyed to its avid consumers, who are the losers in the end.

Baseball and the Media: How Fans Lose in Today's Coverage of the Game

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Bison Books

An integrated league was discovering its strength. A chewing gum magnate was shaping his unique franchise's identity. The stage was set for the 1969 Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field, where the lights didn't shine at night, but they did in the eyes of every hopeful fan. They were a team that didn't go all the way, yet they may have done more for the future of the franchise and perhaps the role of its fans than any Cubs teams that preceded it. Get the view from the pitcher’s mound as Hall-of-Fame legend Ferguson Jenkins gives his first-hand accounts and personal insights into that historic season and the team that helped bring America's pastime into our living rooms. Readers, especially Cubs fans, will regale as they are treated to the relationships on the team, the community surrounding Wrigley Field and the fans of all backgrounds who swelled with optimism and provided a virtual extended family to the players. These memories are made real through incredible statistics and athletic feats. In this book, time trip back to 1969 with Fergie Jenkins and countless notable athletes, journalists and sports aficionados, to make those memories yours as well.

The 1969 Cubs: Long Remembered - Not Forgottten

Jenkins, Fergie

Biographies & Memoirs

John Schenk & Associates, LLC

The first book in the GAME CHANGERS sports series answers the questions: What were the 50 most revolutionary personalities, rules, pieces of equipment, controversies, organizational changes, radio and television advancements, and more in the history National Pastime? And how, exactly, did they forever change the game? Baseball’s Game Changers offers fascinating, detailed explanations along with a ranking system from 1 to 50 that is sure to inspire debate among baseball aficionados. Ranging from each sport’s beginnings to today and tackling on-the-field and off-the-field developments, the Game Changers series offers a history of each sport through their turning-points and innovations. Full-color, and including 60 photos plus pull-outs and sidebars, books within the Game Changers series are important and entertaining additions to every sports fan’s library.

Baseball's Game Changers: Icons, Record Breakers, Scandals, Sensational Series, and More (Volume 1) (Game Changers, 1)

Bathed in sun and suds, Wrigley Field is home to the perfect baseball viewing experience. The ultimate neighborhood ballpark serves as a sort of time capsule, transporting us to an era where every park felt like a day at Wrigley Field. But postcard memories aside, Wrigley’s modern cachet is a unique success story. From its construction in 1914 by the implausibly successful Charlie Weeghman (for a baseball team that was not the Chicago Cubs) to serving as the venue for George Halas’s Bears, Wrigley Field has hosted many different kinds of sporting events for America’s second city. Stuart Shea’s unparalleled history of Wrigley Field documents a park and its place within the surrounding community, its influence on who lives where in Chicago and why, and as a home to teams and events that have helped a city define itself. Beyond Wrigley’s status as both a living treasure and a historical artifact, Shea looks at the current plans to renovate the park; the combative relationship among the team’s owners, the city, and the neighborhood; and the strange blend of interdependence and mutual annoyance that have handicapped efforts to preserve, promote, and adapt the park to the twenty-first century. Unlike any other history of a ballpark, this “unauthorized biography” chronicles the ballpark as a venue for women’s baseball, football, boxing, and soccer, among other sports. As Shea explains, the tension between past and present, memory and the future, or America as we imagine it and as it is, has rarely been so well captured in one place.

Wrigley Field: The Unauthorized Biography

Shea, Stuart

University Of Nebraska Press

Harry Caray broadcasted over 8,000 regular season games. His first game was on opening day in 1945. Harry packed 883 years of living into an 83-year life and lived by a simple credo: " The meter is running, so you'd better live it up." He did... and in the process enriched the lives of countless baseball fans across the globe. I Remember Harry Caray is a firsthand account of what the broadcasting legend was like from broadcasters Vin Scully, Jack Buck, Paul Harvey and Chick Hearn; players Stan Musial, Sammy Sosa, and Mark Grace; newspaper reporters Irv Cupcinet and Jerome Holtzman; and others including Dan Devine, Bing Devine, Bill Bidwell, Cubs manager Jim Riggleman, Dutchie Caray, and Chip Caray.

I Remember Harry Caray

Wolfe, Rich

Arts & Literature

Sports Publishing, LLC

Covers Sosa's baseball career, his pursuit of the home-run record, and his humanitarian work in his homeland

Sammy Sosa: Slammin' Sammy (SUPERSTAR SERIES BASEBALL)

Sports Pub

Between the baseball-rich cities of Chicago and St. Louis lies a stretch of highway, known as Interstate 55, that has been the battleground for the hearts and minds of baseball fans for generations. 1-55 bridges the 294-mile gap between these two great midwestern hubs. The 1-55 Series offers baseball fans the opportunity to recall one of the greatest rivalries in all of sports, the Cubs vs. the Cardinals. From Hornsby vs. Tinkers to Evers to Chance, to Musial vs. Banks, to Gibson vs. Jenkins, to McGwire vs. Sosa, many of baseball's greatest players have served as catalysts to spark this intense rivalry.

The I-55 Series: Cubs Vs. Cardinals

Rygelski, Jim

Sit on the bench with Yogi and Casey, in the locker room with Mickey and the Babe, and in the bullpen with Whitey and Sparky. Tales from the Yankee Dugout is a compilation of the funniest, strangest, and most unique stories, anecdotes, and tall tales that have been attributed to former personalities from baseball's legendary New York Yankees. Includes more than two dozen caricatures by noted sports illustrator Robert Jackson.

Tales from the Yankee Dugout: A Collection of the Greatest Yankee Stories Ever Told

McMillan, Kent

McMillan, Ken

A journey throughout the world to track down former Cubs to update fans on their present-day lives and look back on their playing or managing careers. Once a Cub, always a Cub, and these former inhabitants of Wrigley Field won't soon forget their days in the Friendly Confines.

Where Have All Our Cubs Gone?

Taylor Trade Publishing

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