During his playing career, a baseball player's every action on the field is documented--every at bat, every hit, every pitch. But what becomes of a player after he leaves the game? This exhaustive reference work briefly details the post-baseball lives of some 7,600 major leaguers, owners, managers, administrators, umpires, sportswriters, announcers and broadcasters who are now deceased. Each entry tells the date and place of the player's birth, the number of seasons he spent in the majors, the primary position he played, the number of seasons he spent as a manager in the majors (if applicable), his post-baseball career and activities, date and cause of his death, and his final resting place.

"This book covers all of what might be called the cultural aspects of baseball. Biographical sketches of all Hall of Fame players, owners, executives and umpires, as well as many of the sportswriters and broadcasters who have won the Spink and Frick awards, join entries for teams, owners, commissioners and league presidents"--Provided by publisher.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A surprising and moving novel of fathers and sons, forgiveness and redemption, set in the world of Major League Baseball… “Grisham knocks it out of the park.”—The Washington Post It’s the summer of 1973, and Joe Castle is the boy wonder of baseball, the greatest rookie anyone has ever seen. The kid from Calico Rock, Arkansas, dazzles Chicago Cubs fans as he hits home run after home run, politely tipping his hat to the crowd as he shatters all rookie records. Calico Joe quickly becomes the idol of every baseball fan in America, including Paul Tracey, the young son of a hard-partying and hard-throwing New York Mets pitcher. On the day that Warren Tracey finally faces Calico Joe, Paul is in the stands, rooting for his idol but also for his dad. Then Warren throws a fastball that will change their lives forever. Don’t miss John Grisham’s new book, THE EXCHANGE: AFTER THE FIRM!

An entertaining look at how a number of baseball players have left fthe game all too soon, this book covers murders, suicides, accidents and bizarre mishaps, deaths by alcoholism, and even deaths by sexually transmitted diseases. The ever amusing and interesting stories include James Phelps, who made a running catch, was bitten by a poisonous snake, finished the game, then promptly died; Harold B. "Rowdy" Elliott, who fell out of an apartment window in San Francisco in 1934 at the age of 33; Gus Sandberg, who's demise was when he decided to light a match to see how much gas was in the tank of his car; Dernell Stensen, who was shot in the chest and head and run over by his own SUV in 2003 at the age of 25; Len Koenecke, who got his head smashed in by a pilot as he tried to grab controls in the cockpit of a commercial airplane flying from Chicago to Buffalo in 1935; and love-sick, star-stuck Bob Lansford, who poisoned himself to death with a picture of a young actress in front of him in 1907. There are countless offbeat facts, trivia, and even specific locations of where many of the ballplayers are buried such as Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Billy Martin, and many more. The book also provides you with a grave-hunting for dummies chapter with tips on how to find your favorite deceased ballplayer.

Shortened Seasons recounts the stories of some of the baseball players who never made it back for the next game, who died with the suddenness of a walk off homerun. For them, there was no next year. From Hall of Fame caliber players such as Roberto Clemente, Thurman Munson and Ed Delahanty to players who were still finding their niche in the game like Ken Hubbs, Lyman Bostoc and Darryl Kile, Baseball's Shortened Seasons explores the lives and deaths of ball players of all categories and abilities, who were struck down at the height of their careers.

The role of social status in life expectancy is a burgeoning topic of interest in health research. Isolating the impact of "pure status" on longevity is empirically challenging as an individual's ranking within the social hierarchy is related to other SES measures (e.g. education, income) which are correlated with health. Previous work is based either on animal studies (e.g. Sapolksy's work on baboons) or studies of humans in unique non-experimental settings (e.g. British Civil Servants: Academy Awards and Nobel Prize winners). We use the precise rules for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame to examine the impact of status attainment (or non-attainment) on life expectancy. The Baseball Hall of Fame provides a compelling context since the selection rule for induction by the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) is perfectly observed - a BBWAA vote share of 75 percent or more. We explore whether this discontinuous rule for assigning status leads to differential exposure to stress depending on proximity to the cut-off. We obtain BBWAA voting data from the Baseball Hall of Fame website (www.baseballhalloffame.org). For each player born prior to 1946 (n=597) we use complete voting histories to construct a series of variables used in our analysis. From membership lists on the Hall of Fame website we construct indicators denoting whether a player was inducted by the BBWAA or the Committee on Baseball Veterans. From two other websites (www.baseball-reference.com, www.baseball-almanac.com) we obtain player characteristics including exact dates of birth/death, height/weight, ethnicity and education. Finally, we categorize cause of death using obituaries found through Lexis-Nexis, and a book on the necrology of baseball players. We estimate the impact of Hall of Fame induction and the number of narrow losses (vote share>50%) on life expectancy, controlling for each player's maximum vote share, the number of ballot appearances, and demographic characteristics. We use several parametric (Tobit MLE, Buckley-James) and non-parametric (Kaplan-Meier survivor analysis) methods to correct for right censoring in the life durations of players who are still alive. The effect of induction on longevity depends both on the definition of the reference group and the ease of induction. BBWAA inductees do not live longer, on average, than players who were not inducted. However, they do live 10 percent longer than players who narrowly missed induction through the BBWAA. This results from the reduced life expectancies of players who narrowly missed induction relative to non-inductees with lower BBWAA vote shares. Life expectancy falls by 3 percent for each ballot with a vote share over 50 percent but below the 75 percent threshold required for induction. Hall of Fame induction through the Veteran's Committee increases life expectancy, with the largest effect among players who never received a BBWAA ballot share above 10 percent. The effect sizes of the Hall of Fame variables are much larger in magnitude than the effects of BMI, year of birth, and educational attainment (i.e., college matriculation). Our results suggest that the anxiety induced by non-attainment or delayed attainment of status can lead to premature death - with heart attacks being the predominant cause of death - and that there are health benefits of status attained through 'luck' rather than through performance.

Focusing on the unusual friendship between John McGraw and Christy Mathewson, "The Old Ball Game" is a masterful chronicle of the early days of baseball from America's most beloved sportswriter. Illustrations throughout.