The competition level in Little League has never been tougher, but the kids on the Jackie Robinson West team faced their own set of challenges on and off the baseball diamond. The Jackie Robinson West team takes their fans and followers on a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs as each player shares a different part of the team’s history and experience, including a double-header with President Obama. Jackie Robinson West: The Story of the Youngest America’s Team leads readers on their harrowing path to the Little League World Series.

A lively illustrated introduction to the Negro League equivalent of the All-Star Game discusses the history of the games, as well as the colorful cast of promoters, gamblers, and hucksters who made it happen. Original.

"An account of the desegregation of baseball's Pacific Coast League, the first American League of any sport to desegregate all of its teams"--

The New York Times–bestselling autobiography of Jackie Robinson, barrier-breaking Brooklyn Dodger and civil rights legend: “An American classic.” —Entertainment Weekly Before Barry Bonds, before Reggie Jackson, before Hank Aaron, baseball's stars had one undeniable trait in common: they were all white. In 1947, Jackie Robinson broke that barrier, striking a crucial blow for racial equality and changing the world of sports forever. I Never Had It Made is Robinson's own candid, hard-hitting account of what it took to become the first black man in history to play in the major leagues. I Never Had It Made recalls Robinson’s early years and influences: his time at UCLA, where he became the school’s first four-letter athlete; his army stint during World War II, when he challenged Jim Crow laws and narrowly escaped court martial; his years of frustration, on and off the field, with the Negro Leagues; and finally that fateful day when Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers proposed what became known as the “Noble Experiment”—Robinson would step up to bat to integrate and revolutionize baseball. More than a sports story, I Never Had It Made also reveals the highs and lows of Robinson’s life after baseball. He recounts his political aspirations and civil rights activism; his friendships with Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, William Buckley, Jr., and Nelson Rockefeller; and his troubled relationship with his son, Jackie, Jr. It endures as an inspiring story of a man whose heroism extended well beyond the playing field. “Affecting and candid . . . I Never Had It Made offers compelling testimony about the realities of being Black in America from an author who long ago became more a monument than a man, and his memoir is an illuminating meditation on racism not only in the national pastime but in the nation itself.” —The New York Times “A disturbing and enlightening self-portrait by one of America’s genuine heroes.” —Publishers Weekly “An important book that should be widely read.” —The New York Times Book Review

Every baseball player from little league to the big leagues knows it is illegal to steal signs, yet every major league team assigns someone to do just that. Baseball thrives on trickery and deception. But as our oldest major team sport, its larcenous legacy goes much deeper than the field of play. In LARCENY AND OLD LEATHER: THE MISCHIEVOUS LEGACY OF MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL, Eldon Ham—sports lawyer, professor, and author—traces the game’s lesser-known, roguish past. His wry chapters, filled with anecdotes and statistics, expose both the hidden and the obvious cheating occurring throughout baseball’s history, from corked bats and spitballs to betting and media hyperbole. Here is a book for both seasoned baseball fans and neophytes who’d like to get a look at the game that evolved into an industry. Babe Ruth, Sammy Sosa, Pete Rose, and many other lesser known players make their appearance in this fascinating history, as Ham seeks not only to chronicle the legacy of deception inherent within the game, but also to explore why it is, and how it is, that this deception is exactly what makes baseball the most endearing of American games.

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The extraordinary life of Jackie Robinson is illuminated as never before in this full-scale biography by Arnold Rampersad, who was chosen by Jack's widow, Rachel, to tell her husband's story, and was given unprecedented access to his private papers. We are brought closer than we have ever been to the great ballplayer, a man of courage and quality who became a pivotal figure in the areas of race and civil rights. Born in the rural South, the son of a sharecropper, Robinson was reared in southern California. We see him blossom there as a student-athlete as he struggled against poverty and racism to uphold the beliefs instilled in him by his mother--faith in family, education, America, and God. We follow Robinson through World War II, when, in the first wave of racial integration in the armed forces, he was commissioned as an officer, then court-martialed after refusing to move to the back of a bus. After he plays in the Negro National League, we watch the opening of an all-American drama as, late in 1945, Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers recognized Jack as the right player to break baseball's color barrier--and the game was forever changed. Jack's never-before-published letters open up his relationship with his family, especially his wife, Rachel, whom he married just as his perilous venture of integrating baseball began. Her memories are a major resource of the narrative as we learn about the severe harassment Robinson endured from teammates and opponents alike; about death threats and exclusion; about joy and remarkable success. We watch his courageous response to abuse, first as a stoic endurer, then as a fighter who epitomized courage and defiance. We see his growing friendship with white players like Pee Wee Reese and the black teammates who followed in his footsteps, and his embrace by Brooklyn's fans. We follow his blazing career: 1947, Rookie of the Year; 1949, Most Valuable Player; six pennants in ten seasons, and 1962, induction into the Hall of Fame. But sports were merely one aspect of his life. We see his business ventures, his leading role in the community, his early support of Martin Luther King Jr., his commitment to the civil rights movement at a crucial stage in its evolution; his controversial associations with Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Humphrey, Goldwater, Nelson Rockefeller, and Malcolm X. Rampersad's magnificent biography leaves us with an indelible image of a principled man who was passionate in his loyalties and opinions: a baseball player who could focus a crowd's attention as no one before or since; an activist at the crossroads of his people's struggle; a dedicated family man whose last years were plagued by illness and tragedy, and who died prematurely at fifty-two. He was a pathfinder, an American hero, and he now has the biography he deserves.