To the baseball fans of today, the name 'Dodgers' is synonymous with Hollywood, the warm California sun, and names like Tommy Lasorda, Kirk Gibson, Steve Garvey, and Orel Hershiser. The Dodgers mean much more than that to the fans of baseball history, however. Namely, these fans remember the famed Boys of Summer. otherwise known as the Brooklyn Dodgers, a team that included some of the most storied players in baseball history. The group included Hall of Famers Duke Snider, Roy Campanella, Gil Hodges, Pee Wee Reese, and Jackie Robinson. Although they eventually moved out West, the Brooklyn Dodgers provided some of the greatest moments the game has ever seen and some of the greatest personalities to ever take the field. Carl Erskine, another member of that legendary team, relates memories about his days with the Dodgers in a book full of true stories and revealing anecdotes. The result is the second edition of Carl Erskine's Tales from the Dodger Dugout, a delightfully interesting trip through the world of baseball in the 1950s that includes several new stories added for this edition. Among Erskine's many tales are his dealings with immortal team official Branch Rickey, his view from the Dodgers' bench during Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series, and his first-hand experiences when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier and became the first black player in Major League Baseball history. During his frequent speaking engagements, people often ask Erskine if all of his stories are true. His standard response has been, Yes, I couldn't possibly make them up the way they actually happened. Now fans can read all of those great true stories in Carl Erskine's Tales from theDodger Dugout: Second Edition.

The Los Angeles Dodgers are one of the most storied franchises in all of sports, with enduring legacies both on and off the diamond. Chief among the hallmarks of the organization is an unparalleled pitching dominance; Dodger blue and white brings to mind brilliance on the mound and the Cy Young Awards that followed. In Brothers in Arms: Koufax, Kershaw, and the Dodgers' Extraordinary Pitching Tradition, acclaimed Dodgers writer Jon Weisman explores the organization's rich pitching history, from Koufax and Drysdale to Valenzuela and Hershiser, to the sublime Clayton Kershaw. Weisman delves deep into this lineage of excellence, interviewing both the legends that toed the rubber and the teammates, coaches, and personalities that witnessed their genius.

To baseball fans of today, the name “Dodgers” is synonymous with Hollywood, the warm California sun, and names like Tommy Lasorda, Kirk Gibson, Steve Garvey, and Orel Hershiser. The Dodgers mean much more than that to fans of baseball history, however. Namely, these fans remember the famed “Boys of Summer,” otherwise known as the Brooklyn Dodgers, a team that included some of the most storied players in baseball history, such as Hall of Famers Duke Snider, Roy Campanella, Gil Hodges, Pee Wee Reese, and Jackie Robinson. Although they eventually moved out West, the Brooklyn Dodgers provided some of the greatest moments the game has ever seen and some of the greatest personalities to ever take the field. Carl Erskine, another member of that legendary team, relates memories about his days with the Dodgers in a book full of true stories and revealing anecdotes. The result is Carl Erskine's Tales from the Dodgers Dugout , a delightfully interesting trip through the world of baseball in the 1950s. Among Erskine’s many tales are his dealings with immortal team official Branch Rickey, his view from the Dodgers’ bench during Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series, and his first-hand experiences when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier and became the first black player in Major League Baseball history. During his frequent speaking engagements, people often ask Erskine if all of his stories are true. His standard response has been, “Yes, I couldn't possibly make them up the way they actually happened.” Now fans can read all of those great stories in Carl Erskine's Tales from the Dodgers Dugout . Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Sports Publishing imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in sports—books about baseball, pro football, college football, pro and college basketball, hockey, or soccer, we have a book about your sport or your team. Whether you are a New York Yankees fan or hail from Red Sox nation; whether you are a die-hard Green Bay Packers or Dallas Cowboys fan; whether you root for the Kentucky Wildcats, Louisville Cardinals, UCLA Bruins, or Kansas Jayhawks; whether you route for the Boston Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, or Los Angeles Kings; we have a book for you. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to publishing books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked by other publishers and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

AN INTIMATE LOOK AT JACKIE ROBINSON'S FIGHT FOR EQUALITY, FROM FORMER TEAMMATE AND LONGTIME FRIEND CARL ERSKINE "Jackie needed to quell his anger the first couple of years, a task which only someone of this inner strength and vision could have coped with at that moment. When I reflect and wonder what it must have been like for a man who should have been at the happiest of moments in his life, to still have to deal with racial indignities on a daily basis, it is mind-boggling. Most mortal men would have cracked."--Carl Erskine, from the book Jackie Robinson changed the game of baseball forever when he paved the way for equality in sports. In What I Learned from Jackie Robinson, former teammate and friend Carl Erskine shares his memories of Jackie's crusade in a loving social memoir. Written with New York Times bestselling coauthor Burton Rocks and filled with personal photos, this moving portrait of friendship takes readers for the first time inside the locker room, inside the soul of Jackie, and inside the hearts of his friends, teammates, and oppressors. As a former Dodger, with access to the important people from Jackie's life, Erskine talks with Robinson's widow and also shares memories about: Yogi Berra Whitey Ford Sandy Koufax Stan Musial Pee Wee Reese Roy Campanella Don Drysdale Billy Martin and many other players, coaches, sportswriters, and entertainers who remembered Jackie on and off the field. A retrospective on a man who fought for his cause until death, this memoir is a testament to the man and the game that brought the world together when it was falling apart.

This is a book about young men who learned to play baseball during the 1930s and 1940s, and then went on to play for one of the most exciting major-league ball clubs ever fielded, the team that broke the colour barrier with Jackie Robinson. It is a book by and about a sportswriter who grew up near Ebbets Field, and who had the good fortune in the 1950s to cover the Dodgers for the Herald Tribune. This is a book about what happened to Jackie, Carl Erskine, Pee Wee Reese, and the others when their glory days were behind them. In short, it is a book fathers and sons and about the making of modern America. 'At a point in life when one is through with boyhood, but has not yet discovered how to be a man, it was my fortune to travel with the most marvelously appealing of teams.' Sentimental because it holds such promise, and bittersweet because that promise is past, the first sentence of this masterpiece of sporting literature, first published in the early '70s, sets its tone. The team is the mid-20th-century Brooklyn Dodgers, the team of Robinson and Snyder and Hodges and Reese, a team of great triumph and historical import composed of men whose fragile lives were filled with dignity and pathos. Roger Kahn, who covered that team for the New York Herald Tribune, makes understandable humans of his heroes as he chronicles the dreams and exploits of their young lives, beautifully intertwining them with his own, then recounts how so many of those sweet dreams curdled as the body of these once shining stars grew rusty with age and battered by experience.

Millions of America’s youth dream of playing major league baseball or in a college bowl game on New Year’s Day. Growing up in Arkansas during the Great Depression, Ransom Jackson had no idea that one day he would not only play in back-to-back Cotton Bowls for two different colleges—the first and only player to do so—but that he would also become known as “Handsome Ransom,” all-star third baseman for the Chicago Cubs. He was in Chicago in 1953 when Ernie Banks became the first African American to play for the Cubs. He was in Brooklyn in 1956, the year Jackie Robinson retired. In 1957, Jackson was the last Brooklyn player to hit a home run before the team moved to LA. Jackson’s major league career spanned the entire decade of the 1950s, a time when the landscape of baseball changed dramatically as teams moved to new cities, built new stadiums, and integrated their rosters. Handsome Ransom Jackson: Accidental Big Leaguer is an autobiographical account of Jackson’s fascinating journey from his boyhood days in Arkansas to playing in the major leagues, where many of his teammates were future Hall of Famers. It’s a fun and nostalgic visit to the past, with Jackson sharing such memories as spring training with the Cubs on Catalina Island, befriending a Mafia boss in Massachusetts, batting behind Hank Sauer and getting knocked down by pitchers retaliating for Sauer’s home runs, rooming with Don Drysdale on an historic baseball tour of Japan, and sitting in the dugout in LA with Dodger teammates looking for movie stars in the stands. In addition, Jackson remembers being brought to Brooklyn to take over third base for the aging Jackie Robinson, and quickly discovering that nobody replaces a legend like Jackie. While many of the players from the 1950s are no longer with us, Jackson’s invaluable and timeless stories celebrate the greatness of the game and preserve a sliver of history from the heart of the golden age of baseball. Featuring many never-before-published photographs from Ransom Jackson’s personal collection, including photos of Dodger and Cub greats Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Carl Erskine, Ralph Kiner, and Ernie Banks, Handsome Ransom Jackson will take the reader back to an era when baseball was truly the national pastime.

It took something truly remarkable to save the 1981 Major League Baseball season from being remembered only as the year of the players? strike. It took the Los Angeles Dodgers: Fernandomania and ?Sorda and Garv and Bake and the Penguin. It took three amazing October comebacks to beat the Houston Astros, the Montreal Expos and, finally, the New York Yankees, avenging Dodger World Series losses to the Yankees in 1977 and 1978. Rick Monday was right in the middle of that magical Dodger season. His recollections and conversations with teammates provide a behind-the-scenes view of one of the most amazing teams and seasons in baseball history in Rick Monday's Tales from the Dodgers Dugout.