The 1940s were years of change in the world of baseball. Minor league free agents were introduced to the game in 1940 by Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis; Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941 and player after player left to join the war effort with players both below and well above draft age completing the rosters; 1946 marked the first time that two National League teams, the St. Louis Cardinals and Brooklyn Dodgers, were tied for first place, forcing a best two-out-of three series; 1947 brought racial integration, with Jackie Robinson taking the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers; and the American League saw its own tie for first place in 1948 between the Cleveland Indians and Boston Red Sox, which was played out in a one-game playoff. This work focuses on 27 players of the 1940s, guys--like Gene Thompson, Elmer Valo, Damon Phillips, Joe Cleary, and Cliff Chambers--who witnessed these changes and firsts personally. The players interviewed for this work had different experiences in the major leagues--some experienced long careers and benefited from the changes while others did not--and they come from diverse backgrounds as well.

This is a followup volume to the acclaimed Voices from the Negro Leagues, (McFarland, 1998; softcover 2005) which features interviews with 52 former Negro League players from the 1920s to 1960s. Interviewed in this new volume are Bobby Robinson, Double Duty Radcliffe, Red Lindsay, Pullman Porter, Earl Wilson, Sr., Percy Reed, Joe Burt Scott, Willie Simms, Bo Campbell, Big Train Dudley, Mex Johnson, Buck O'Neil, Herbert Barnhill, Bernard Fernandez, Dick Powell, Jimmy Barnes, Charlie Biot, Monk Favors, Alton King, Buster Haywood, Casey Jones, Hickey Redd, Tommy Sampson, John Gibbons, Schoolboy Gulley, Schoolboy Kimbrough, Briefcase Simpson, Doc Dennis, Ralph Johnson, Lefty LaMarque, Junior Miller, Tex Williams, Baby Face Peatros, Big Jim McCurine, Eddie Williams, Zipper Zapp, Billy Fender, Dave Pope, Bill Powell, Marvin Price, Bob Scott, Dirk Gibbons, Hoss Ritchey, Lefty Bo Maddix, Hank Presswood, Mickey Stubblefield, Josh Gibson, Jr., Bobo Henderson, Fancy Dan Porter, Jumpin Johnny Wilson, Quack Brown, Granny Gladstone, Hoppy Hopkins, Carl Long, Jim Robinson, Juan Armenteros, Peanut Johnson, Eddie Reed, Ricky Maroto, Peachhead Mitchell, Ted Rasberry, Pedro Sierra, Jim Cobbin, Dick Scruggs, Sonny Webb and Tommy Taylor. Rare personal photographs and complete-as-possible statistics supplement the interviews.

In the mid-1940s, the post-war United States was a prosperous country, and baseball had its own share of this prosperity. An expanding minor league led to unprecedented competition for young baseball talent. The ill-conceived idea of a signing bonus quickly introduced an element of financial competition into the sport of baseball, much to the discomfort of many minor league teams. Unable to compete with major league teams, the minor leagues pressed for restrictions on the bonuses paid to players. Bonus rules--the first enacted in 1946 and the second implemented in 1953--attempted unsuccessfully to curb ever-rising bonuses and limit the damage this policy ultimately did to both teams and players. Containing 24 interviews, this volume focuses on players signed under the strict bonus rule of 1953-1957, which required that players signed to a bonus of $4,000 or more remain on the big league roster for two full seasons before being sent to the minor leagues. Organized chronologically, these interviews explore the lives and careers of the bonus babies with emphasis on their early big-league experience and its effect on their careers. Players interviewed in this volume include Harmon Killebrew, Reno Bertoia, Tommy Qualters, Jim Pyburn, John DeMerit, Von McDaniel, Don Pavletich, Mel Roach, Steve Boros, Dick Schofield, Jim Derrington, Mike McCormick, Jim Pagliaroni, Paul Giel, Buddy Pritchard, Jerry Walker, Jim Brady, Wayne Causey, Lindy McDaniel, Jim Small, Don Kaiser, Tommy Carroll, Jerry Kindall and Frank Zupo. An appendix provides a complete chronological listing of players signed under the bonus rule of 1953-1957. The work is also indexed.

The 1957 Brooklyn Dodgers were past their prime but still boasted a powerful roster with iconic names like Pee Wee Reese, Gil Hodges, Carl Furillo, Duke Snider, Roy Campanella, Don Newcombe, Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. They did not achieve greatness--they finished third in the National League--but did achieve legendary status as the last of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and marked the end of a fantastic era of baseball, when the New York Yankees, the New York Giants, and the Dodgers were the epicenter of the game's Golden Age. Baseball would never be quite the same. Documenting the fabled team's final season in New York, this book focuses on the games, the player's stories and the down-to-the-wire struggle by Brooklynites and politicians to keep the club from relocating to Los Angeles in 1958. Detailed biographies of each player and coach, and manager Walter Alston are included.

This book continues the riches of two highly praised previous volumes, Voices from the Negro Leagues interesting...solid--MultiCultural Review) and The Negro Leagues Revisited (wonderful--Booklist/RBB; voluminous...top-notch--Public Library Quarterly). The players interviewed in this new book of interviews are Bill Bethea, John Scoop Brown, Paul Casanova, Jim Colzie, Bunny Davis, Ross Davis, Clifford DuBose, Lionel Evelyn, Hubert Glenn, Herald Beebop Gordon, Raymond Haggins, J.C. Hartman, Joe Henry, Carl Holden, Vernell Jackson, Clarence Jenkins, Ernest Johnson, Thomas Johnson, Marvin Jones, Ezell King, Willie Lee, Larry LeGrande, William Little, Nathaniel McClinic, John Mitchell, Grady Montgomery, Bob Motley, Charley Pride, Mack Pride, Bill Sonny Randall, Henry Saverson, Eugene Scruggs, Willie Sheelor, Sam Taylor, Ron Teasley, James Way, Sam Williams, Walter Williams, and Willie Young. Photographs of the players and their teammates and complete-as-possible statistics supplement the interviews.

The San Francisco Seals were members of baseball's Pacific Coast League from 1903 until 1958. Arguably the most successful minor league franchise ever, the Seals held the minor league attendance record from 1946 until it was broken by Louisville in the 1980s, and remained independently owned until 1956. The Seals were also Joe DiMaggio's first team and many another major league star was on the team's roster on his climb up the ranks. This work is a collection of oral histories of players who took the field for the Seals from 1946 through 1957, just before the Giants came to San Francisco and when the Seals played their final game. Ferris Fain said of the 1946 Seals, "I just think that that was the best ballclub that I've ever played on, including major league. I mean, as a team." Frank Seward, Don Trower, Jack Brewer, Roy Nicely, Neill Sheridan, Joe Brovia, Bill Werle, Con Dempsey, Dario Lodigiani, Lou Burdette, Ed Cereghino, Bill Bradford, Reno Cheso, Nini Tornay, Jerry Zuvela, Leo Righetti, Jim Westlake, Ted Beard, Chuck Stevens, Bob DiPietro, Don Lenhardt, Riverboat Smith, Jack Spring, and Bert Thiel also reminisce about their careers with the Seals.

Preeminent baseball analyst Bill James and ESPN.com baseball columnist Rob Neyer compile information on pitches and their origins, nearly two thousand pitchers, and more in this comprehensive guide. Pitchers, the pitches they throw, and how they throw them—they’re the stuff of constant scrutiny, but there's never been anything like a comprehensive source for such information…until now. Bill James and Rob Neyer spent over a decade compiling the centerpiece of this book, the Pitcher Census, which lists specific information for nearly two thousand pitchers, ranging throughout the history of professional baseball. Their guide also includes a dictionary describing virtually every known pitch, biographies of great pitchers who have been overlooked, and top ten lists for fastballs, spitballs, and everything in between. James and Neyer also weigh in on the debate over pitcher abuse and durability, offer a formula for predicting the Cy Young Award winner, and reveal James’s Pitcher Codes. Learn about the origins and development of baseball’s most important pitches and more knuckleballers and submariners than you ever thought existed! Baseball’s action always starts with the pitchers. Begin to understand them and join in on entertaining debates while having a great deal of fun with the history of the game that captivates so many with this one-of-a-kind guide.