From zany mascots to the most beautiful ballparks ever, and from great traditions to humorous anecdotes from the game, I Love Baseball explores the many reasons we love baseball. It’s all here: the inspirational men and moments that enliven the sport players’ thoughts on the game they love so deeply quotes from sportswriters and from classic movies on baseball celebrities who have fallen in love with the game the lighter side of baseball from quirky ballpark features to the game’s rich humor even the oddities from baseball’s spectacular “sideshow" Based on assiduous research and the author's exclusive interviews with baseball legends past and present, this book will be a cherished keepsake for fans of the game everywhere.

Larry King is a true-blue baseball fanatic. A lifelong love affair began the night he attended a Dodgers game at Ebbets Field as a kid in 1940s Brooklyn. That was a simpler era in our country’s history, a time when tickets to a game cost fifty cents and parish priests prayed for Gil Hodges to break out of a slump. In this heartfelt valentine to America’s favorite pastime, King recalls the many pleasures the game has brought him over the past sixty years. In the course of his broadcasting career King had the opportunity to meet and interview many of the legends of his youth. Jackie Robinson, Casey Stengel, Ted Williams, Leo Durocher, Stan Musial…they’re all here plus many, many more. From the golden days when Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays and Duke Snider were all playing center field for New York teams at the same time, to the Subway Series in 2000 and the stirring first ballgame in New York after 9/11, this unique history is full of wonderful anecdotes. Friends and fellow baseball fanatics Bob Costas, Charlie Bragg and Herb Cohen have contributed essays on their love for the game, and King discusses his favorite books, movies and songs about the sport. This ode to baseball is a must for all fans and will be treasured by lovers of the game everywhere.

NEW YORK TIMES bestseller Winner of the CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year National Sports Media Association Sports Book of the Year An NPR "Book of the Day" #1 New York Times bestselling author Joe Posnanski is back with a masterful ode to the game: a countdown of 50 of the most memorable moments in baseball’s history, to make you fall in love with the sport all over again. Posnanski writes of major moments that created legends, and of forgotten moments almost lost to time. It's Willie Mays’s catch, Babe Ruth’s called shot, and Kirk Gibson’s limping home run; the slickest steals; the biggest bombs; and the most triumphant no-hitters. But these are also moments raw with the humanity of the game, the unheralded heroes, the mesmerizing mistakes drenched in pine tar, and every story, from the immortal to the obscure, is told from a unique perspective. Whether of a real fan who witnessed it, or the pitcher who gave up the home run, the umpire, the coach, the opposing player—these are fresh takes on moments so powerful they almost feel like myth. Posnanski’s previous book, The Baseball 100, portrayed the heroes and pioneers of the sport, and now, with his trademark wit, encyclopedic knowledge, and acute observations, he gets at the real heart of the game. From nineteenth-century pitchers’ duels to breaking the sport’s color line in the ’40s, all the way to the greatest trick play of the last decade and the slide home that became a meme, Posnanski’s illuminating take allows us to rediscover the sport we love—and thought we knew. Why We Love Baseball is an epic that ends too soon, a one-of-a-kind love letter to the sport that has us thrilled, torn, inspired, and always wanting more.

Get the Summary of Joe Posnansk's Why We Love Baseball in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. "Why We Love Baseball" by Joe Posnanski is a heartfelt exploration of baseball's most memorable moments and the emotional connections they forge. Posnanski intertwines personal anecdotes with historical events, capturing the essence of the sport through various lenses. From Joe Mantegna's awe at Kerry Wood's 20-strikeout game to the Niekro family's knuckleball legacy, the book delves into the game's unpredictability and the joy it brings...

Play Ball! These words resonate with special meaning in the minds of anyone who has ever enjoyed a game of baseball. Every fan will be amused and touched by stories of sportsmanship and victory gathered from the clay diamonds of America.

Everything You Need to Become a Hardball Know-It-All The next book in the Fanbook series from Sports Illustrated Kids, The Baseball Fanbook has all the nerdy-cool insider knowledge that fans ready for next-level, in-depth stats need to know to impress their friends, family, coaches, and any season ticket holders they may meet. Tailor-made for baseball fanatics ages 8 and up who know the basics of the sport they love, may play it, and are looking to become super fans, this new fanbook is filled with fun trivia, unique lingo, and illustrated behind-the-skills how-to's. Chapters include Team Tidbits (salient baseball facts about every MLB team), Think Like a Manager (essential strategies to understand), He Reminds Me Of (compares current players to legendary greats of America's favorite pastime), and much more!

With personal interviews of players and owners and with over two decades of research in newspapers and archives, Bill Marshall tells of the players, the pennant races, and the officials who shaped one of the most memorable eras in sports and American history. At the end of World War II, soldiers returning from overseas hungered to resume their love affair with baseball. Spectators still identified with players, whose salaries and off-season employment as postmen, plumbers, farmers, and insurance salesmen resembled their own. It was a time when kids played baseball on sandlots and in pastures, fans followed the game on the radio, and tickets were affordable. The outstanding play of Joe DiMaggio, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, Bob Feller, Don Newcombe, Warren Spahn, and many others dominated the field. But perhaps no performance was more important than that of Jackie Robinson, whose entrance into the game broke the color barrier, won him the respect of millions of Americans, and helped set the stage for the civil rights movement. Baseball's Pivotal Era, 1945-1951 also records the attempt to organize the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Mexican League's success in luring players south of the border that led to a series of lawsuits that almost undermined baseball's reserve clause and antitrust exemption. The result was spring training pay, uniform contracts, minimum salary levels, player representation, and a pension plan—the very issues that would divide players and owners almost fifty years later. During these years, the game was led by A.B. "Happy" Chandler, a hand-shaking, speech-making, singing Kentucky politician. Most owners thought he would be easily manipulated, unlike baseball's first commissioner, the autocratic Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis. Instead, Chandler's style led one owner to complain that he was the "player's commissioner, the fan's commissioner, the press and radio commissioner, everybody's commissioner but the men who pay him."