Baseball’s most outspoken fireballer brings the high heat—calling out the hacks, cheats, and ridiculous rules that have tarnished the game—and pitches a-plus stuff on how to make baseball pure, fun, and damn near perfect. Baseball has an image problem. The chorus of nonbelievers gets louder every year, and the Major Leagues have made an art of tuning them out. Enter Joe Kelly: a walking, talking, fast-ball-throwing embodiment of why baseball matters. He and his All-Star team of athletes and celebrities have some things to say about what’s gone wrong with our once great game and how to fix it. A Damn Near Perfect Game is the loudest insider’s exposé of the laws and culture of Major League Baseball since Jim Bouton’s classic Ball Four. From Kelly’s perspective as a two-time World Series champion and baseball’s most memeable player according to ESPN, he takes readers on a house-cleaning tour of the clubhouse, the field of play, the bullpen, the front office, the commissioner’s office, and a ballplayer’s restricted life off the field. Kelly has something to say about baseball’s rule changes (pitch clocks, limiting defensive shifts, the designated hitter); hacks (overused analytics, sign-stealing); stale promotion to new fans; and encouraging players’ emotions (let them fight, bat-flip, and talk sh*t!). Plus, he details how he aired his complaints in an illuminating meeting with commissioner Rob Manfred. And to show what happens when baseball has some piss and vinegar, Kelly gives the inside scoop on his legendary exploits—starting a bench-clearing brawl with the Yankees’ Tyler Austin, his famous “pouty face” scene when calling out the notorious sign-stealing Houston Astros, and wearing a mariachi jacket to visit the White House with his World Series champion LA Dodgers.

From writer BRIAN AZZARELLO and artist, EDUARDO RISSO--the Eisner Award-winning creative team behind the crime classic, 100 Bullets--comes a brutal new series that puts a horror twist on a classic gangster tale! Set deep in Appalachia during Prohibition, MOONSHINE tells the story of Lou Pirlo, a city-slick "torpedo" sent from New York City to negotiate a deal with the best moonshiner in West Virginia, Hiram Holt. Lou figures it a milk run, but what he doesn't figure is that Holt's just as cunning and ruthless as any NYC crime boss. Not only will Holt do anything for his illicit booze operation, he'll stop at nothing to protect a much darker, bloodier family secret. Collects issues 1-6

An inspiring, national bestselling memoir from a Red Sox hero and MVP of the 2007 World Series. In 2007, Red Sox third baseman Mike Lowell triumphed over a lifetime of adversity when he led the world’s most zealously followed baseball team to the promised land—their second World Series title in four years. But there was much more to the story than what happened that October night. From the hardships of his childhood in Puerto Rico, to the ups and downs of his baseball career, to his battle with testicular cancer, this is the story of man who overcame every challenge pitched at him to become one of the best third basemen in baseball—and a true role model for millions. “Lowell’s story . . . [is] told in his own occasionally salty, but always sincere voice . . . quite candid.” —The Hartford Courant “Mike Lowell is such an honest man, a man who plays the game hard, and plays the game right, the whole time.”—Manny Ramirez, Red Sox outfielder

The inside stories from baseball's legendary beat writers

Production histories, reviews, gameplay details, and more Video games from many companies and platforms, placed in context with games today Numerous quotes about the games from industry professionals

Baseball is a strange sport: it consists of long periods in which little seems to be happening, punctuated by high-energy outbursts of rapid fire activity. Because of this, despite ever greater profits, Major League Baseball is bent on finding ways to shorten games, and to tailor baseball to today's shorter attention spans. But for the true fan, baseball is always compelling to watch -and intellectually fascinating. It's superficially slow-pace is an opportunity to participate in the distinctive thinking practice that defines the game. If baseball is boring, it's boring the way philosophy is boring: not because there isn't a lot going on, but because the challenge baseball poses is making sense of it all. In this deeply entertaining book, philosopher and baseball fan Alva Noë explores the many unexpected ways in which baseball is truly a philosophical kind of game. For example, he ponders how observers of baseball are less interested in what happens, than in who is responsible for what happens; every action receives praise or blame. To put it another way, in baseball - as in the law - we decide what happened based on who is responsible for what happened. Noe also explains the curious activity of keeping score: a score card is not merely a record of the game, like a video recording; it is an account of the game. Baseball requires that true fans try to tell the story of the game, in real time, as it unfolds, and thus actively participate in its creation. Some argue that baseball is fundamentally a game about numbers. Noe's wide-ranging, thoughtful observations show that, to the contrary, baseball is not only a window on language, culture, and the nature of human action, but is intertwined with deep and fundamental human truths. The book ranges from the nature of umpiring and the role of instant replay, to the nature of the strike zone, from the rampant use of surgery to controversy surrounding performance enhancing drugs. Throughout, Noe's observations are surprising and provocative. Infinite Baseball is a book for the true baseball fan.

With over half-a-million copies sold worldwide, come see why readers and authors alike all call this, "an unforgettable story that will stay with you for years," by New York Times Bestselling Author, J. Sterling. He's a game she never intended to play. And she's the game changer he never knew he needed. The Perfect Game tells the story of college juniors, Cassie Andrews & Jack Carter. When Cassie meets rising baseball hopeful Jack, she is determined to steer clear of him and his typical cocky attitude. But Jack has other things on his mind... like getting Cassie to give him the time of day. They're both damaged, filled with mistrust and guarded before they find one another (and themselves) in this emotional journey about love and forgiveness. Strap yourselves for a ride that will not only break your heart, but put it back together. Sometimes life gets ugly before it gets beautiful.

Dale Scott's career as a professional baseball umpire spanned nearly forty years, including thirty-three in the Major Leagues, from 1985 to 2017. He worked exactly a thousand games behind the plate, calling balls and strikes at the pinnacle of his profession, working in every Major League Baseball stadium, and interacting with dozens of other top-flight umpires, colorful managers, and hundreds of players, from future Hall of Famers to one-game wonders. Scott has enough stories about his career on the field to fill a dozen books, and there are plenty of those stories here. He's not interested in settling scores, but throughout the book he's honest about managers and players, some of whom weren't always perfect gentlemen. But what makes Scott's book truly different is his unique perspective as the only umpire in the history of professional baseball to come out as gay during his career. Granted, that was after decades of remaining in the closet, and Scott writes vividly and movingly about having to "play the game": maintaining a facade of straightness while privately becoming his true self and building a lasting relationship with his future husband. He navigated this obstacle course at a time when his MLB career was just taking off--and when North America was consumed by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Scott's story isn't only about his leading a sort of double life, then opening himself up to the world and discovering a new generosity of spirit. It's also a baseball story, filled with insights and memorable anecdotes that come so naturally from someone who spent decades among the world's greatest baseball players, managers, and games. Scott's story is fascinating both for his umpiring career and for his being a pioneer for LGBTQ people within baseball and across sports.

Title Quests: A Complete History of the National Football League’s Championship Series is a retelling of a fascinating series of championship NFL Football contests that have seen scores ranging from 7–0 to 73–0, dark suspicions of underworld interference, a game played just inshore from a roiling Gulf of Mexico hurricane, featuring teams with names such as the Boston Redskins, Chicago Cardinals, and Cleveland Rams. These games have been played in blizzards, downpours, and deserts, interrupted by power failures, featuring brothers versus brothers, witnessing wild comebacks and collapses, with a team winning the title in its very first year in the league, and marking the birth and death of dynasties. Expect the unexpected.

Quests is a retelling of a fascinating series of championship NFL Football contests that have seen scores ranging from 7–0 to 73–0, dark suspicions of Underworld interference, a game played just inshore from a roiling Gulf of Mexico hurricane, featured teams with such names as the Boston Redskins, Chicago Cardinals and Cleveland Rams, played in blizzards, downpours and deserts been interrupted by a power failure featured brothers versus brothers, seen wild comebacks and wild collapses, a team that won the title it’s very first year in the league, and the birth and death of dynasties. Expect the Unexpected.