Jackson is ready for his first baseball game, but a pesky bee might just ruin his big day. This Starting Line Reader is sure to be a home run for every new reader.

The remarkable story of the 2019 World Series champion Washington Nationals told by the Washington Post writer who followed the team most closely. By May 2019, the Washington Nationals—owners of baseball’s oldest roster—had one of the worst records in the majors and just a 1.5 percent chance of winning the World Series. Yet by blending an old-school brand of baseball with modern analytics, they managed to sneak into the playoffs and put together the most unlikely postseason run in baseball history. Not only did they beat the Houston Astros, the team with the best regular-season record, to claim the franchise’s first championship—they won all four games in Houston, making them the first club to ever win four road games in a World Series. “You have a great year, and you can run into a buzz saw,” Nationals pitcher Stephen Strasburg told Washington Post beat writer Jesse Dougherty after the team advanced to the World Series. “Maybe this year we’re the buzz saw.” Dougherty followed the Nationals more closely than any other writer in America, and in Buzz Saw he recounts the dramatic year in vivid detail, taking readers inside the dugout, the clubhouse, the front office, and ultimately the championship parade. Yet he does something more than provide a riveting retelling of the season: he makes the case that while there is indisputable value to Moneyball-style metrics, baseball isn’t just a numbers game. Intangibles like team chemistry, veteran experience, and childlike joy are equally essential to winning. Certainly, no team seemed to have more fun than the Nationals, who adopted the kids’ song “Baby Shark” as their anthem and regularly broke into dugout dance parties. Buzz Saw is just as lively and rollicking—a fitting tribute to one of the most exciting, inspiring teams to ever take the field.

Jackson is ready for his first baseball game, but a pesky bee might just ruin his big day. This Starting Line Reader is sure to be a home run for every new reader.

In Beep, David Wanczyk illuminates the sport of blind baseball to show us a remarkable version of America’s pastime. With balls tricked out to squeal three times per second, and with bases that buzz, this game of baseball for the blind is both innovative and intense. And when the best beep baseball team in America, the Austin Blackhawks, takes on its international rival, Taiwan Homerun, no one’s thinking about disability. What we find are athletes playing their hearts out for a championship. Wanczyk follows teams around the world and even joins them on the field to produce a riveting inside narrative about the game and its players. Can Ethan Johnston, kidnapped and intentionally blinded as a child in Ethiopia, find a new home in beep baseball, and a spot on the all-star team? Will Taiwan’s rookie MVP Ching-kai Chen—whose superhuman feats on the field have left some veterans suspicious—keep up his incredible play? And can Austin’s Lupe Perez harness his competitive fire and lead his team to a long-awaited victory in the beep baseball world series? Beep is the first book about blind baseball.

It's opening day at the ballpark, and Thumby Duckling is nervous. He hopes it won't be one, two, three strikes, he's out! Trailing by three in the bottom of the ninth, the Webbies are counting on Thumby to save the day. Can Thumby shake his jitters and show his team that he's a star player? From Peter Abrahams and Frank Morrison comes the story of one duck's quest to make it in the big leagues.

Showing that human nature--not statistics--dictates the outcome of ballgames, the authors watch from the dugout as a spectacular series unfolds between theCardinals and their archrivals, the Cubs.

Filled with stunning photos, this book by the #1 New York Times–bestselling sportswriter tells the story of Mickey Mantle’s legendary career. Mickey Mantle has long been considered one of baseball's most memorable figures—playing his entire eighteen-year baseball career for the New York Yankees (1951-68), winning three American League MVP titles, playing in twenty All-Star games, and winning seven World Series. Today, decades after his retirement, he still holds six World Series records, including most home runs (18). Buzz Bissinger, Pulitzer Prize winner and acclaimed author of Friday Night Lights and Three Nights in August, goes beyond the statistics to bring Mantle to life, and striking photographs by Marvin E. Newman make this book a fitting tribute to Mantle’s career and his lasting impact on the sport of baseball.