Most sports fans know that Ted Williams ended his major league career with style, swatting a home run in his final at bat. But what about Babe Ruth? Ty Cobb? Joe DiMaggio? Willie Mays? How did some of baseball's greatest players bow out of The Game? Last Time Out answers that question as it examines how the greatest players in baseball history left the game they once ruled. The stories of these men and how they finished their careers, never collected anywhere before now, show another side of the men whose achievements on the field made them legends. After hours and hours of research, through biographies, microfilm, magazines, and memories, award-winning sportswriter John Nogowski culled the stories of the final games of 25 of The Game's greatest athletes-Babe Ruth, Christy Mathewson, Ty Cobb, Jackie Robinson, Dizzy Dean, Satchel Paige, Carlton Fisk, Bob Feller, Joe Morgan, and Carl Yastrzemski are among those featured. This impressive work recounts the circumstances surrounding these final games and puts you in a box seat to witness and sense the moment as these glorious careers ceased, most often with little fanfare. Whether it be Shoeless Joe Jackson, Lou Gehrig, Pete Rose, or Cal Ripken, Jr., Last Time Out beautifully captures in words and photographs the essence of these players' last time in uniform and celebrates the magic of the game these famed players mastered and loved.

On October 13, 1903, Boston Red Sox pitcher Bill Dinneen recorded the first final out of the World Series by striking out Honus Wagner of the Pittsburgh Pirates in game eight of the first World Series in front of over 7,400 people at Huntington Avenue Baseball Grounds in Boston. By getting the final out, Dinneen helped the Red Sox capture the first of their eight World Series championships. Since then, the last out of the World Series has been a major symbol in American sports. This book chronicles the 96 players who made the last out of the World Series from Joe Tinker to Joe Rudi. It also chronicles the hitters who made the last out of the Fall Classic from Willie McCovey to Willie McGee. If you love baseball and if you love the World Series, this is the book for you. It shows baseball is good to the last out.

Newbery and Coretta Scott King award-winning author Walter Dean Myers's baseball story THE JOURNAL OF BIDDY OWENS is now available in paperback, with an exciting repackaging!Seventeen-year-old Biddy Owens is part of the Birmingham Black Barons baseball team and dreams of becoming a major league baseball player. However, in 1948 most black players can only play for the Negro Leagues. Jackie Robinson has just recently integrated and is playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers, but the white owners are reluctant to add too many blacks to their rosters. The Birmingham Black Barons are some of the best players in the league. But as they travel around playing ball, Biddy realizes that not everyone is ready for blacks and whites to play on the same team. Can Biddy prove he's good enough to be part of the game his loves, no matter what color his skin is?

This is the astonishing tale of two episodes in the life of Colonel J P Cross, jungle fighter and linguist extraordinaire.As a young officer at the end of the war against Japan in 1945, he took part in counterinsurgency operations against the Vietminh at a time of chaos and confusion. Sent to the area to help disarm the defeated Japanese, Cross found himself commanding a battalion of the very same troops against the Vietminh.That period provides the backdrop to Crosss experiences as British Defence Attache to Laos between 1972 and 1976. His mastery of the languages of the region allowed him rarely accorded access to high Laotian political circles.Allowed to wander at will even by the Communists, he was in the unique position to survey the subterfuge and rivalry surrounding an overlooked yet fascinating sideshow to the Vietnam War. A remarkable man, J P Cross provides an absorbing account of his life amidst the cut and thrust of Laotion politics.

"Last Men Out" tells the riveting story of the last 11 United States soldiers to escape South Vietnam on April, 30, 1975, the day America ended its combat presence.

"...the level or research, the quality of graphics, and the readability are exceptional. [...] It is a subject area not covered often and it is a worthy addition to the bookshelves of readers with an interest in early Southwest Pacific air campaigns of World War Two." — Sir Henry Beverley Lieutenant General RM The official document Amphibious Warfare Handbook No. 10a: The Organisation, Employment and Training of Commandos is a unique piece of postwar Royal Marines Commando doctrine, never before published, or quoted at length. Prepared in 1951 at the height of the Korean War by the Chief of Amphibious Warfare and the Commandant General Royal Marines, this seventy-page aide memoir is, in essence, the distillation of major lessons learned by the British wartime Combined Operations Headquarters regarding amphibious warfare, raiding, cliff assaults, sabotage, intelligence-gathering, specialized infantry work, guerrilla warfare and Commando tactics. In addition, it offers its readership a delineation of the characteristics, skills and qualities required of a Royal Marines Commando. Published to mark the seventieth anniversary of its official issue, this rare example of bespoke Commando doctrine is a timely and highly relevant addition to a growing body of work on The Corps of Royal Marines. Currently undergoing significant institutional changes by means of the Future Commando Force (FCF) program, the Royal Marines are having to challenge their existing operating concept, force structures, doctrine, and organizational design to meet the emerging defense challenges of the 21st century. It serves to remind those currently evolving the FCF concept of General Sir John Hackett’s advice, namely, "To see where we are going, we must know where we are, and to know where we are, we need to discover how we got here."

A Vietnam veteran recounts his experience through two tours of duty—early in the conflict and then in its final stages. Fresh out of West Point, John Howard arrived for his first tour in Vietnam in 1965, the first full year of escalation when U.S. troop levels increased dramatically, from 23,000 to 184,000. When Howard returned for a second tour in 1972, troop strength stood at 24,000 and would dwindle to a mere fifty the following year. He thus participated in the very early and very late stages of American military involvement in the Vietnam War. Howard’s two tours—the first as a platoon commander and member of an elite counterguerrilla force, and the second as a senior advisor to the South Vietnamese—provide a fascinating lens through which to view not only one soldier’s experience in Vietnam, but also the country’s.