When he does venture into the big leagues, Schulian gives us the underdogs and the human touches, from Bill Veeck peg-legging toward retirement as the game's last maverick team owner, to musings on Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe at Christmas, to Studs Terkel's reflections on baseball."--BOOK JACKET.

Navigating what at she calls the " extravagantly rich world of nonfiction," renowned readers' advisor (RA) Wyatt builds readers' advisory bridges from fiction to compelling and increasingly popular nonfiction to encompass the library's entire collection. She focuses on eight popular categories: history, true crime, true adventure, science, memoir, food/cooking, travel, and sports. Within each, she explains the scope, popularity, style, major authors and works, and the subject's position in readers' advisory interviews. Wyatt addresses who is reading nonfiction and why, while providing RAs with the tools and language to incorporate nonfiction into discussions that point readers to what to read next. In easy-to-follow steps, Wyatt Explains the hows and whys of offering fiction and nonfiction suggestions together Illustrates ways to get up to speed fast in nonfiction Shows how to lead readers to a variety of books using her "read-around" and "reading map" strategies Provides tools to build nonfiction subject guides for the collection This hands-on guide includes nonfiction bibliography, key authors, benchmark books with annotations, and core collections. It is destined to become the nonfiction 'bible' for readers' advisory and collection development, helping librarians, library workers, and patrons select great reading from the entire library collection!

There was a time when no town was too small to field a professional baseball team. In 1949, the high point for the minor leagues, there were 59 leagues and 464 cities with teams, two-thirds of them in so-called bush leagues classified as C and D. Most of the players were strangers outside the towns where they played, but some achieved hero status and enthralled local fans as much as the stars in the majors. Left on Base in the Bush Leagues: Legends, Near Greats, and Unknowns in the Minors profiles some of the most fascinating characters from baseball’s golden era. It includes the stories of players such as Ron Necciai, the only pitcher in history to strike out 27 batters in a single game; Joe Brovia, one of the most feared hitters to ever play in the Pacific Coast League (PCL), who had to wait 15 years for a shot in the majors; and Pat Stasey, a mellow Irishman who “Cubanized” minor league baseball in Texas and New Mexico, helping to bring down the walls of segregation. Compelling and timeless, their stories touch on many issues that still affect the sport today. Left on Base in the Bush Leagues provides an entertaining glimpse into a time when baseball was a game and the players were regular guys who often held second jobs off the field. Featuring hundreds of personal interviews with the players, their teammates, managers, and opponents, this bookcreates a colorful tapestry of the minor leagues during the 1950s and 60s.

During the 1956 baseball season in the city of Los Angeles, Mickey Mantle’s pursuit of Babe Ruth’s single-season home run record was matched only by the day-to-day drama of Steve Bilko’s exploits in the Pacific Coast League. While Mantle was winning the Triple Crown in the American League, Bilko was doing the same in the highest of all the minor leagues with the Los Angeles Angels. He led the league hitters in eight categories, and the Angels romped to the pennant. Bilko hit one mighty home run after another to earn Minor League Player of the Year honors and inspire the team’s nickname, “The Bilko Athletic Club.” The Bilko Athletic Club tells the story of the 1956 Los Angeles Angels, a team of castoffs and kids built around Steve Bilko, a bulky, beer-loving basher of home runs.Author Gaylon H. White provides an intimate portrait of life in minor league baseball in the 1950s and gives readers a glimpse inside the heads and hearts of the players as they experience the same doubts and frustrations many face in the pursuit of a dream. The Angels’ unforgettable season unfolds through stories told by the players themselves, as they racked up runs and rolled to a 107-61 won-loss record, finishing sixteen games ahead of their closest competitor. Featuring in-depth interviews with Steve Bilko and twenty-five of his ’56 Angels teammates, The Bilko Athletic Club also includes several photos and is highlighted by never-before-told anecdotes. A fascinating account of a season to remember, The Bilko Athletic Club will take fans and historians of the national pastime back to the golden era of baseball.

In Lasting Yankee Stadium Memories, editor Alex Belth of BronxBanterBlog.com collects personal essays by some of the most well-known and respected voices in sportswriting and entertainment today. In these revealing, sometimes hilarious, oft-touching essays, the contributors recount their favorite moments inside the most famed of all American stadiums. The book also includes a special chapter on the new Yankee Stadium. Contributors include: Bob Costas (NBC, HBO) • Richard Ben Cramer • Pete Hamill • Tony Kornheiser (ESPN) • Tom Boswell (Washington Post) • Dave Kindred (Washington Post) • Leigh Montville (Sports Illustrated) • William Nack (Sports Illustrated) • Joe Posnanski (Sports Illustrated) • Jane Leavy • Pat Jordan • Maury Allen (New York Post) • Bob Klapisch (Bergen Record) • Tyler Kepner (New York Times) • Allen Barra (Wall Street Journal) • Marty Appel • Jeff Pearlman • Alan Schwarz (New York Times) • Charles Pierce (Boston Globe) • Steve Rushin (Sports Illustrated) • Nathan Ward • Mike Vaccaro (New York Post) • Rob Neyer (ESPN.com) • Ken Rosenthal (ESPN) • Scott Raab (Esquire) • Luis Guzman

Stanley Woodward (1895-1964) was a veteran sports writer, newspaperman, and sports editor of the New York Herald Tribune; indeed, some believe he was the greatest of all sports editors. Paper Tiger is his lively and vivid account of his life as an athlete, sailor, war correspondent, and metropolitan journalist. Whether discussing his war experiences, the world of sports, or the tough and exciting world of newspaper life, Woodward speaks with a rare directness. When he doesn't like something or someone, he makes no bones about it. Yet, despite all of his often acerbic comments, we always have the feeling that the author's honesty is matched by his fairness. Partisan he may be; vindictive and sour he is not. Although Paper Tiger will appeal especially to sports fans, anyone who wants to know the inside story of newspaper life will find it a fascinating book. In his phenomenal career, Stanley Woodward wrote a number of sports books, including Sports Page and Stanley Woodward's Football. He is the winner of three E. P. Dutton awards for sports writing. John Schulian is the author of Writers' Fighters and Other Sweet Scientists and Twilight of the Long-ball Gods: Dispatches from the Disappearing Heart of Baseball, available in a Bison Books edition.

This anthology gathers selected papers from the 2007 and 2008 meetings of the Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture, the long-running academic conference held annually at the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Essays included employ the national pastime to comment on issues transcending the playing field, and are divided into six sections: "Cultural Perspectives on the Game," "Literary Baseball," "Baseball at the Movies," "Minority Standard Bearers," "New Leagues," and "The Business of Baseball."