Sam Pickett never expected to settle in this dried-up shell of a town on the western edge of the world. He’s come here to hide from the violence and madness that have shattered his life, but what he finds is what he least expects. It seems that every inhabitant of this forgotten outpost has a story, a reason for taking a detour to this place—or a reason for staying.

A master storyteller at his best - the O. Henry Prize winner Stephen King delivers a generous collection of stories, several of them brand-new, featuring revelatory autobiographical comments on when, why, and how he came to write (or rewrite) each story. Magnificent, eerie, utterly compelling, these stories comprise one of King's finest gifts to his constant fan. "I made them especially for you," says King. "Feel free to examine them, but please be careful. The best of them have teeth."

A star-studded cast of readers present unabridged tales of horror and suspense from Stephen King's classic best-selling short story collection.

A former Augusta National caddie recounts the invaluable life lessons he learned from the late Freddie Bennett, the fabled club's legendary caddie master. Though he was born and raised in Augusta, Georgia, home of fabled Augusta National and The Masters, as a child Tripp Bowden was too young and too removed from the game of golf to realize what Augusta National really was, what it meant to his town and the world and the sport; its history, nostalgia, prestige and secrecy. But all that changed....

In 1947 St. Louis, Ms. Etta's is the place where a sinner can get all the boozy action he craves - that is until ladies' man Baltimore Floyd rolls into town and falls in the sack with the wrong woman.

A disastrous error on the field sends five lives into a tailspin in this award-nominated tale about love, life, and baseball. At Westish College, a small school on the shore of Lake Michigan, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for big league stardom. But when a routine throw goes disastrously off course, the fates of five people are upended. As the season counts down to its climactic final game, these five are forced to confront their deepest hopes, anxieties, and secrets. In the process they forge new bonds, and help one another find their true paths.

Reporting for his first day as a Boston Red Sox player, Mickey Rawlings discovers a faceless body in the empty stadium. When police name him as their suspect, he knows he must clear his name or give up baseball and his freedom. But nameless foes are trying to silence him with warnings that become increasingly dangerous. A member of the Society for American Baseball Research, Troy Soos creates delightfully authentic ballplayers and places them in believable, colorful settings.

Joe Stoshack may be an awkward kid, but he knows baseball - and baseball cards. Since he was seven, he has been collecting them. So when his mother tells him he can earn five dollars by cleaning out an old lady's attic, Joe dreams of the cards he can buy.

In 1940, at just 15 years old, small-town baseball star Gene Moore was signed to the Brooklyn Dodgers, who saw in him the potential to become one of the great catchers of all time. Before that could happen, though, WWII intervened. Gene's story, a surprising paean to the power and humanity of a game, is told here by his son, a first-time author who exhibits the confidence and pacing of a pro.

The Natural, Bernard Malamud's first novel, published in 1952, is also the first - and some would say still the best - novel ever written about baseball. In it Malamud, usually appreciated for his unerring portrayals of postwar Jewish life, took on very different material - the story of a superbly gifted "natural" at play in the fields of the old daylight baseball era - and invested it with the hardscrabble poetry, at once grand and altogether believable, that runs through all his best work.

In his third book on baseball, John Ritter takes the reader to Dillontown where, through a series of events, the fate of the town rests on the outcome of a baseball game. Tom and a newcomer, Cruz, convince a former Major-League Baseball player to coach the team. The team prepares for the big day by using unorthodox training methods. While the team wins the game, it still takes an unusual set of circumstances to save the town.

Upon its release, The Bullpen Gospels was a direct hit to the New York Times best seller list. With comparisons to Jim Boutons’s Ball Four, The Bullpen Gospels is slated to be a classic of the genre.

When Sylvester Coddmyer III meets a mysterious character named George Baruth, he goes from being a terrible hitter to the boy who only hits homers! But how will he answer some of the difficult questions that people start asking about his amazing new talent?

It was 1986, and the New York Mets won 108 regular-season games and the World Series, capturing the hearts (and other assorted body parts) of fans everywhere. But their greatness on the field was nearly eclipsed by how bad they were off it. Led by the indomitable Keith Hernandez and the young dynamic duo of Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry, along with the gallant Scum Bunch, the Amazin's left a wide trail of wreckage in their wake-hotel rooms, charter planes, a bar in Houston, and most famously Bill Buckner and the hated Boston Red Sox.

Jalen DeLuca loves baseball. Unfortunately his dad can't afford to keep him on the travel team. His dad runs a diner and makes enough to cover the bills, but there isn't enough to cover any extras. So Jalen decides to take matters into his own hands, and he sneaks into the home of the New York Yankees' star second baseman, James Yager, and steals a couple of balls from his personal batting cage. He knows that if he can sell them, he'll be able to keep himself on the team.

In 1940, at just 15 years old, small-town baseball star Gene Moore was signed to the Brooklyn Dodgers, who saw in him the potential to become one of the great catchers of all time. Before that could happen, though, WWII intervened. Gene's story, a surprising paean to the power and humanity of a game, is told here by his son, a first-time author who exhibits the confidence and pacing of a pro.

The Natural, Bernard Malamud's first novel, published in 1952, is also the first - and some would say still the best - novel ever written about baseball. In it Malamud, usually appreciated for his unerring portrayals of postwar Jewish life, took on very different material - the story of a superbly gifted "natural" at play in the fields of the old daylight baseball era - and invested it with the hardscrabble poetry, at once grand and altogether believable, that runs through all his best work.

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.

It was 1986, and the New York Mets won 108 regular-season games and the World Series, capturing the hearts (and other assorted body parts) of fans everywhere. But their greatness on the field was nearly eclipsed by how bad they were off it. Led by the indomitable Keith Hernandez and the young dynamic duo of Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry, along with the gallant Scum Bunch, the Amazin's left a wide trail of wreckage in their wake-hotel rooms, charter planes, a bar in Houston, and most famously Bill Buckner and the hated Boston Red Sox.

In the pageantry of baseball, one select group is virtually unknown in the outside world, derided by fans, faced with split-second choices that spell victory or defeat. These men are up-close observers of the action, privy to inside jokes, blood feuds, benches-clearing brawls, and managers’ expletive-filled tirades. In this wonderful memoir, Hall of Fame umpire Doug Harvey takes us within baseball as you’ve never seen it, with unforgettable inside stories of baseball greats such as Willie Mays, Sandy Koufax, and Whitey Herzog.

He was the biggest man baseball has ever produced. Babe Ruth transcended the sport that brought him fame, money, and adulation, moving beyond the limits of baselines and outfield fences into the mainstream of American life. In this extraordinary biography, Creamer uncovers the complex and captivating man behind the legend.

In 1971, a small-town high school baseball team from rural Illinois playing with hand-me-down uniforms and peace signs on their hats defied convention and the odds. Led by an English teacher with no coaching experience, the Macon Ironmen emerged from a field of 370 teams to become the smallest school in Illinois history to make the state final, a distinction that still stands. There, sporting long hair, and warming up to "Jesus Christ Superstar", the Ironmen would play a dramatic game that would change their lives forever.

Blue Collar Comedy star Bill Engvall is just a guy. He's been one his whole life. He can't help it; he was born that way. And that makes him an expert on the subject. For the record, here's the official definition of a guy: a person who doesn't think before he speaks. He can't. He's not that deep. Because a guy has only three basic needs: eating, sleeping, and sex. That's it. Just a Guy chronicles a lifetime in pursuit of those needs.

For Rich Cohen and millions of other fans, the Chicago Cubs have always been more than a team: they've been the protagonists of a King Arthur epic, in search of the Holy Grail that is winning the World Series. A chronicle of the last few miraculous seasons as experienced through the prism of Cubs history, The Chicago Cubs tracks the famous curse, which was placed on the team in 1945 by the infamous owner of the Billy Goat Tavern, who was ejected from Wrigley Field when he tried to bring his goat into the grandstand for the fifth game of the World Series.

George Plimpton was perhaps best known for Paper Lion, the book that set the bar for participatory sports journalism. With his characteristic wit, Plimpton recounts his experiences in talking his way into training camp with the Detroit Lions, practicing with the team, and taking snaps behind center. His breezy style captures the pressures and tensions rookies confront, the hijinks that pervade when 60 high-strung guys live together in close quarters, and a host of football rites and rituals.

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.

On April 18, 1981, a ball game sprang eternal. What began as a modestly attended minor-league game between the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings became not only the longest ever played in baseball history, but something else entirely. The first pitch was thrown after dusk on Holy Saturday, and for the next eight hours the night seemed to suspend its participants between their collective pasts and futures, between their collective sorrows and joys....

Danny's tall and skinny. Even though he's not "built", his arms are long enough to give his pitch a power so fierce that any college scout would sign him on the spot. Ninety-five-mile-an-hour fastball, but the boy's not even on a team. Every time he gets up on the mound, he loses it. Ball ends up so far out of the strike zone it's laughable. But at his private school, they don't expect much else from him. Danny's brown. Half-Mexican brown....

When their hard-drinking but loving father dies in a car accident, teenage brothers Kyle and Klint Hayes face a bleak prospect: leaving their Pennsylvania hometown for an uncertain life in Arizona with the mother who ran out on them years ago. But in a strange twist of fate, their town's matriarch, an eccentric, wealthy old woman whose family once owned the county coal mines, hears the boys' story and takes them in.

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.