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The Cactus League
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Vivienne Leheny, Malcolm Hillgartner, Will Ropp, James Patrick Cronin, full cast
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
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Publisher's summary
One of The Wall Street Journal's 10 New Books You Should Be Picking Up First In 2020 and one of The Millions' Most Anticipated Books of 2020
An explosive, character-driven odyssey through the world of baseball from Emily Nemens, the editor of The Paris Review
Jason Goodyear is the star outfielder for the Los Angeles Lions, stationed with the rest of his team in the punishingly hot Arizona desert for their annual spring training. Handsome, famous, and talented, Goodyear is nonetheless coming apart at the seams. And the coaches, writers, wives, girlfriends, petty criminals, and diehard fans following his every move are eager to find out why - as they hide secrets of their own.
Humming with the energy of a ballpark before the first pitch, Emily Nemens' The Cactus League unravels the tightly connected web of people behind a seemingly linear game. Narrated by a sportscaster, Goodyear’s story is interspersed with tales of Michael Taylor, a batting coach trying to stay relevant; Tamara Rowland, a resourceful spring-training paramour, looking for one last catch; Herb Allison, a legendary sports agent grappling with his decline; and a plethora of other richly drawn characters, all striving to be seen as the season approaches. It’s a journey that, like the Arizona desert, brims with both possibility and destruction.
Anchored by an expert knowledge of baseball’s inner workings, Emily Nemens's The Cactus League is a propulsive and deeply human debut that captures a strange desert world that is both exciting and unforgiving, where the most crucial games are the ones played off the field.
Critic reviews
"[A] quirky first novel . . . [The Cactus League] showcases a fascinating gallimaufry of characters who swirl around the edges of the springtime ritual . . . Nemens finds a kind of attenuated hope along with melancholy in these sharply etched character studies that “end not with ‘out three’ but ‘out maybe.’'" --Booklist (starred review)
"[An] insightful debut . . . each character is brought to life in convincing detail . . . this debut entertainingly illuminates people and problems usually overlooked in the sports pages." --Publishers Weekly
“Emily Nemens's magnificent debut is a masterwork of great empathy and detail, uncovering the realms of incredible pain and beauty enmeshed within every level of America's pastime. If you love baseball, you won't put it down, and if you don't love baseball, you might by the end.” --J. Ryan Stradal, author of The Lager Queen of Minnesota and Kitchens of the Great Midwest
"Narrated by a full cast, this audiobook follows a group of troubled souls who gather in Arizona for spring training with the Los Angeles Lions baseball team…. [T]he individual narrators' performances are strong. Each of them offers a fully realized character that has relatable flaws and ambitions on and off the field." —AudioFile Magazine
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Didn’t want it to end.
- By Christa on 12-20-22
By: Carl Deuker
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The Boys of Summer
- The Classic Narrative of Growing Up Within Shouting Distance of Ebbets Field, Covering the Jackie Robinson Dodgers, and What's Happened to Everybody Since
- By: Roger Kahn
- Narrated by: Phil Gigante
- Length: 15 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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This is a story about young men who learned to play baseball during the 1930s and 1940s, and then went on to play for one of the most exciting major-league ball clubs ever fielded, the team that broke the color barrier with Jackie Robinson. It is a story by and about a sportswriter who grew up near Ebbets Field, and who had the good fortune in the 1950s to cover the Dodgers for the Herald Tribune. This is the story about what happened to the team when their glory days were behind them.
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Classic book!
- By Christopher Arthur on 11-19-17
By: Roger Kahn
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Room 4 Rent
- By: Shey Stahl
- Narrated by: Parker Lang, Victoria Mei
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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In those 15 days since my husband died, I’ve met his girlfriend, who’s befriended me, and to top it all off, it turns out, infidelity wasn’t the only thing he’s guilty of. He hadn’t paid our bills in four months. Now I’m forced to rent out the room above our garage. But there’s a hitch. The guy that rents it? My one-night stand from the night I found out my deceased husband had been cheating on me. The problem? He’s a college baseball player. And let me tell you, sister. Cason Reins, his name should come with a surgeon general warning.
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Loved this story!
- By Lynn on 10-15-22
By: Shey Stahl
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Slow Getting Up
- A Story of NFL Survival from the Bottom of the Pile
- By: Nate Jackson
- Narrated by: Nate Jackson
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Nate Jackson’s Slow Getting Up is an unvarnished and uncensored memoir of everyday life in the most popular sports league in America - and the most damaging to its players - the National Football League. After playing college ball at a tiny Division III school, Jackson, a receiver, signed as a free agent with the San Francisco 49ers, before moving to the Denver Broncos. For six seasons in the NFL as a Bronco, he alternated between the practice squad and the active roster, eventually winning a starting spot - a short, tenuous career emblematic of the average pro player.
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Almost unlistenable...AND I'M A DENVER DIEHARD!
- By JROD2133 on 07-02-14
By: Nate Jackson
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The Last Best League, 10th Anniversary Edition
- One Summer, One Season, One Dream
- By: Jim Collins
- Narrated by: Jim Collins
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Every summer, in ten small towns across Cape Cod, the finest college baseball players in the country gather in hopes of making it to "The Show." The hopes are justifiably high: The Cape Cod Baseball League is the best amateur league in the world, producing one out of every six major league players. Over the last decade, baseball's hard truths became evident for the Chatham stars who went on to play professionally, and the final chapter of their story can now be written.
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Jim Collins: Great American Storyteller
- By M. Leavell on 07-01-14
By: Jim Collins
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When a Stranger Comes to Town
- By: Michael Koryta
- Narrated by: Cindy Kay, Janina Edwards, Fajer Al-Kaisi, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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It's been said that all great literature boils down to one of two stories—a man takes a journey, or a stranger comes to town. While mystery writers have been successfully using both approaches for generations, there's something undeniably alluring in the nature of a stranger: the uninvited guest, the unacquainted neighbor, the fish out of water. In the newest collection of stories by the Mystery Writers of America, each author weaves a fresh tale surrounding the eerie feeling that comes when a stranger enters our midst, featuring stories by prolific mystery writers.
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The narrators are outstanding here.
- By Jennifer Baratta She/Her on 05-16-21
By: Michael Koryta
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Love and Theft
- A Novel
- By: Stan Parish
- Narrated by: Angelo Di Loreto
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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When Alex and Diane meet, there are instant, undeniable sparks. Both are single parents living in wealthy suburbia: independent, highly competent, and seemingly settled in their comfortable lives. She runs a successful catering business. He's a detail-oriented, rough-hewn thief who robs banks, casinos, and jewelry stores. They're immediately drawn to each other, but neither realizes initially that their lives have overlapped once before, under dangerous circumstances. Soon their shared history and burgeoning relationship will threaten everything they love.
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At the top of my list of favorites
- By Victor V. Cachia on 09-29-20
By: Stan Parish
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Dr. J Unabridged
- The Autobiography
- By: Julius Erving, Karl Taro Greenfeld
- Narrated by: Julius Erving
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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With his flights of improvisation around the basket and his towering afro, Julius Erving became one of the most charismatic (and revolutionary) players basketball has ever known. But while the public has long revered this cultural icon, few have ever known of the double life of Julius Erving. Dr. J traces the inner lives of the nearly perfect player and the imperfect man - and how he has come to terms with both.
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I may overrate it, but I’m a hoops junkie!
- By @JWTheBlueprint on 01-29-14
By: Julius Erving, and others
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Missing Links
- By: Rick Reilly
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Missing Links is the story of four middle-class buddies who live outside Boston and play golf together at Ponkaquogue Municipal Golf Links and Deli, not so fondly known as Ponky. An 18-hole garbage dump with hazards that include a concrete river surrounded by a chain-link fence and the pillars of the elevated train that runs through the course, it is reputed to be the worst golf course in America.
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"F" word is pervalent in the story...
- By Todd and Gabriela on 09-04-11
By: Rick Reilly
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The Last Boy
- Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood
- By: Jane Leavy
- Narrated by: Jane Leavy, John Bedford Lloyd
- Length: 17 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Drawing on more than 500 interviews with friends and family, teammates, and opponents, she delivers the definitive account of Mantle's life, mining the mythology of The Mick for the true story of a luminous and illustrious talent with an achingly damaged soul.
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The Man Behind the Myth
- By Ray on 11-12-10
By: Jane Leavy
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The Residue Years
- By: Mitchell S. Jackson
- Narrated by: Corey Allen
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Mitchell S. Jackson grew up black in a neglected neighborhood in America’s whitest city, Portland, Oregon. In the ’90s, those streets and beyond had fallen under the shadow of crack cocaine and its familiar mayhem. In his commanding autobiographical novel, Mitchell writes what it was to come of age in that time and place, with a break-out voice that’s nothing less than extraordinary. The Residue Years switches between the perspectives of a young man, Champ, and his mother, Grace.
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Dense in cultural details
- By Angel on 12-04-15
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This Dark Road to Mercy
- A Novel
- By: Wiley Cash
- Narrated by: Jenna Lamia, Erik Bergmann, Scott Sowers
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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This Dark Road to Mercy is a tale of love and atonement, blood and vengeance, a story that involves two young sisters, a wayward father, and an enemy determined to see him pay for his sins. When their mother dies unexpectedly, twelve-year-old Easter Quillby and her six-year-old sister, Ruby, are shuffled into the foster care system in Gastonia, North Carolina, a little town not far from the Appalachian Mountains. But just as they settle into their new life, their errant father, Wade, an ex-minor-league baseball player whom they haven't seen in years, suddenly reappears and steals them away in the middle of the night.
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Easter offers chance at redemption; but no spark
- By W Perry Hall on 01-31-14
By: Wiley Cash
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The Chicken Runs at Midnight
- A Daughter’s Message from Heaven That Changed a Father’s Heart and Won a World Series
- By: Tom Friend, Tim Kurkjian - foreword
- Narrated by: Ben Holland - foreword, Mark Schlicher
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Weaving baseball history with personal memoir, this book is one that will make you thrill to victory, believe in hope, stand up to cheer for what is good in peoples' lives. It's a powerful story of redemption and faith that reminds us that God can work in our lives even when we think it's too late to change - and sometimes he sends us signs from heaven if we only have eyes to see.
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not really a sport's fan
- By virginia loranger on 09-24-20
By: Tom Friend, and others
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Summer Hours
- A Novel
- By: Amy Mason Doan
- Narrated by: Ann Marie Gideon
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Becc was the good girl. A dedicated student. Aspiring reporter. Always where she was supposed to be. Until a secret affair with the charming Cal one summer in college cost her everything she held dear: her journalism dreams; her relationship with her best friend, Eric; and her carefully imagined future. Now, Becc’s past is back front and center as she travels up the scenic California coast to a wedding - with a man she hasn’t seen in a decade. As each mile flies by, Becc can’t help but feel the thrilling push and pull of memories.
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LOVED IT
- By Margaret on 04-30-20
By: Amy Mason Doan
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Lights Out Lucy
- A Music City Rollers Novel
- By: Elicia Hyder
- Narrated by: Callie Dalton
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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I can't say they didn't warn me. Right now, I realize: I probably should have listened. Because if there's anyone who has no business playing a sport that requires a helmet, pads, and a liability waiver, it's this girl. The same girl who once knocked herself out during a game of backyard baseball. I stepped up to the plate, pulled the bat back a little too far to swing, and clocked myself in the back of the skull. Boom. Lights Out Lucy. That's how I got my roller derby name. So yeah. Maybe I should have known better.
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Wonderfully smart laugh out loud story
- By RC18 on 05-16-18
By: Elicia Hyder
What listeners say about The Cactus League
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- alexandra
- 03-30-20
The Silent Season of a Hero
Just finished listening and I’m reminded of why I love sports and stories about sports. A good game reminds you that it’s not about the final score, but how the game was played.
I’m left reminded of Gay Talese’s essay on Joe DiMaggio and WWJDD: what would Joe DiMaggio do? Grateful.
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- Leslie Friedman
- 02-18-20
Thoroughly captivating!
I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of the Cactus League. Whether or not you’re a baseball fan, you’ll love this book. It’s not told from the perspective of an insider, but rather the perspective of multiple insiders. The agents, the owners, the coaches, the players, the groupies, the wives, etc, they all get their moment in the spotlight to talk about their lives lived alongside a favorite baseball team. A must read/listen!
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2 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 02-17-20
A great spring read
This is an interesting story told by many voices. I am waiting for the rest of the tale.
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- RueRue
- 08-01-20
Multi stories of life during spring training
I wish the author had connected the multiple vignettes and given those stories more of a conclusion. I became invested in these characters, and most their stories were left incomplete. Very frustrating, and the reason I rated it (3) stars instead of (4).
The multiple narrators were good.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Truth Speaker
- 04-16-21
Spell Binding Characters Tell a Story
... but I was disappointed that the ending came up so fast. Surprised that an author with such charm in personality studies didn’t want to give us more.
Still, worth the four star rating for the time before the book dropped off a cliff.
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- Amazon Customer
- 03-15-20
I'll never look at spring training the same way
I have been going to spring training for the past 12 years and love that part of being a fan. I feel like I have peeked behind the curtain, and seen the underbelly. I wish I had read this before this year's trip... I will definitely be looking through a different lense when I go next year! Good narration done by all.
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2 people found this helpful
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- david ortega
- 04-28-20
It’s a spring training read to get ready for a real baseball book
It’s not real baseball and there is even very little fake baseball. But it captures a lot of the mood or feelings on the edges of the game and it felt good.
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2 people found this helpful
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- BFA
- 03-16-20
Disappointing
Seems like a romance novel with sports flavor. Not at all what I expected. Some good characters, lots of “I understand baseball” facts and an attempt to connect with megahistory. Never does reconnect satisfactorily with opening scene.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 02-17-20
Cactus League
A very interesting look at baseball spring training. Many different characters intertwined. Unfortunately, it ended with so many things up in the air, it wasn't really an ending. The author just stopped writing.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Benjamin Hutchcraft
- 04-02-21
Audio vs Physical copy
This is a book that would definitely prefer to see the words to as at times it was hard to follow along with.
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