Baseball Life

On his 11th birthday, Jackson is nervous about moving up to middle school where he knows he'll be bullied by older kids, so he makes his wish, "I don't want to grow up!" When his 12th birthday rolls around, he discovers his wish came true: he's still 11, and he's starting fifth grade (again). At first, this is the perfect life. Jackson is the smartest kid in his class, the best on his baseball team, and the star of the school band. But after a few years of being eleven, he realizes his life is passing him by.

Is there life after baseball? Starting from this simple question, The Wax Pack ends up with something much bigger and unexpected - a meditation on the loss of innocence and the gift of impermanence, for both Brad Balukjian and the former ballplayers he tracked down. To get a truly random sample of players, Balukjian followed this wildly absurd but fun-as-hell premise: he took a single pack of baseball cards from 1986 (the first year he collected cards), opened it, chewed the nearly 30-year-old gum inside, gagged, and then embarked on a quest to find all the players in the pack.

Don Zimmer had his first taste of baseball glory in 1948 as a member of a national champion American Legion team. He was drafted by the Brooklyn Dodgers, only to have his career—and life—threatened when he was beaned in a minor league game in 1953.

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.

Stephen Satlow is an eight-year-old boy living in Brooklyn, New York, which means he only cares about one thing - the Dodgers. Steve and his father spend hours reading the sports pages and listening to games on the radio. Aside from an occasional run-in with his teacher, life is pretty simple for Steve. But then Steve hears a rumor that an African-American family is moving to his all-Jewish neighborhood. It's 1948 and some of his neighbors are against it. Steve knows this is wrong. His hero, Jackie Robinson, broke the color barrier in baseball the year before.

When Joe Stoshack holds a baseball card, his hand starts to tingle. And if the card is old enough - like the rare Babe Ruth card his father gives him for his 12th birthday - Joe can travel back in time! One of baseball's greatest mysteries is whether or not the Babe actually called his fifth-inning home run in the 1932 World Series. With Joe's new card, he can solve that mystery once and for all. But when Joe and his father travel back in time, they find more than the answer to a baseball mystery.

Joe Stoshack has to write a report for school about a famous African-American who contributed to society. Joe chooses to write about legendary baseball player Jackie Robinson, who broke the color barrier in the 1940s. But unlike every other kid in his class, Joe has a special talent: with the help of old baseball cards, he can travel through time.

After facing a flamethrowing Little League hurler, 13-year-old “Stosh” Stoshack time-travels back to 1942 to join Satchel on an unforgettable road trip to the Negro League World Series. With nobody out and the series on the line, Stosh watches as Old Satch intentionally walks three straight batters, waves all but his catcher off the field, and then challenges the best hitter in baseball.

With his irreverant personality, laid-back approach, and penchant for the unexpected, Joe Maddon is a singular presence among Major League Baseball managers. Whether he's bringing clowns and live bear cubs to spring training or leading the Chicago Cubs to their first World Series victory in 108 years, Maddon is always one to watch. In Try Not to Suck, ESPN's Jesse Rogers and MLB.com's Bill Chastain fully explore Maddon's life and career, delving behind the scenes and dissecting that mystique which makes Maddon so popular with players and analysts alike.

Johnny Mize was one of the greatest hitters in baseball’s golden age of great hitters. Born and raised in tiny Demorest, Georgia, in the northeast Georgia mountains, Mize emerged from the heart of Dixie as a Bunyonesque slugger, a quiet but sharp-witted man from a broken home who became a professional player at seventeen, embarking on an extended tour of the expansive St. Louis Cardinals Minor League system.

Baseball is in the Schneider family blood. Each member of this family, from family founder Felix Schneider in the 1800s to Snider Flint in the present day, has a strong tie to the game and to Brooklyn. Through the years, this family has dodged bullets on a battlefield, pitched perfect games, and dealt with the devastating loss of family and the Brooklyn Dodgers. Nine innings - nine generations. One game - one family. Through it all, one thing remains true: The bonds of family are as strong as a love of the game.

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.

When journalist Terence Moore was 12 years old, he treasured his poster of Henry Aaron. Years later, Aaron would sign it for him. Later still, Moore would be named an honorary pallbearer at the home run king's funeral. Friends and family knew Aaron as quick-witted, hilarious, and fiercely opinionated beyond what was shown in public. With the encouragement of Aaron's family, Moore now shares this intimate perspective on the baseball legend, the culmination of decades of friendship and correspondence.

Josh feels like he's starting to make it big! Jaden, the school reporter, says he's going to take the baseball team to number one. Then his dad pulls him off the field and signs him up with Coach Rocky Valentine's youth championship team, the Titans. He says Josh has what it takes to be a baseball great and the Titans will help him get there. Now Josh is gulping down Rocky's "Super Stax" milkshakes to build muscle and trying to fit in with his new teammates.

Best-selling author Dan Gutman delights young listeners with the what-if appeal and gentle humor of his Baseball Card Adventures, featuring a time-travelling boy who loves baseball. When Stosh travels into the past to meet Roberto Clemente, a legendary ballplayer and a beloved humanitarian, he’s got only one goal - to warn Roberto not to get on the doomed plane that will end his life in a terrible crash.

No one sees baseball like Joe Maddon. He sees it through his trademark glasses and irrepressible wit. Raised in the “shot and beer” town of Hazleton, PA, and forged by 15 years in the minors, Maddon over 19 seasons in Tampa Bay, Chicago, and Anaheim has become one of the most successful, most colorful, and most quoted managers in Major League Baseball. He is a workplace culture expert, having engineered two of the most stunning turnarounds in the past quarter century.

They said it was the "Curse of the Bambino". They said "the bad guys won". Now one of baseball’s all-time good guys, New York Mets legend Mookie Wilson, tells his side of the story - from the ground ball through Bill Buckner’s legs that capped the miraculous 1986 World Series Game Six rally against the Boston Red Sox to the rise and fall of a team that boasted such outsize personalities as Darryl Strawberry, Keith Hernandez, Dwight Gooden, Gary Carter, Lenny Dykstra, and Davey Johnson.

John Feinstein is one of the most influential sportswriters of the last three decades. In his masterful new audiobook, Where Nobody Knows Your Name, Feinstein delivers a fascinating account of the mysterious proving ground of America’s national pastime, pulling back the veil on the minor leagues of baseball.

Acclaimed sportswriter Allen Barra exposes the uncanny parallels - and lifelong friendship - between two of the greatest baseball players ever to take the field. Culturally, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays were light-years apart. Yet they were nearly the same age and almost the same size, and they came to New York at the same time. They possessed virtually the same talents and played the same position. They were both products of generations of baseball-playing families, for whom the game was the only escape from a lifetime of brutal manual labor.

Jalen DeLuca loves baseball. He's playing for his summer travel team and trying to win a regular spot in the rotation. But Jalen's got more than talent on the field. He's a baseball genius who can analyze and predict almost exactly what any pitcher is going to do with his next pitch. He can't quite explain how he knows, he just does. His unique ability helped him to save the career of New York Yankee star baseman, James "JY" Yager, and now Jalen figures he'll be almost part of the team. Or will he?