It is not known exactly when base ball first made its way down to the Carolinas, but it was being played in North and South Carolina at least as early as the Civil War. By the early years of the twentieth century, the game had become a dominant form of entertainment in both states--and has remained a part of many communities across the Carolinas ever since. This work is a collection of 25 nonfiction stories about baseball as it has been played in the Carolinas from its early days to the present. Contributors to this work include Marshall Adesman writing about his love for the Durham Athletic Park, David Beal remembering the last bus trip the Winston-Salem Warthogs made to play the Durham Bulls in 1997 before the Bulls became a Triple A team, Robert Gaunt writing about the All-American Girls Baseball League and its players in South Carolina, Thomas Perry telling the story of Shoeless Joe Jackson's start in baseball in the textile leagues, Parker Chesson relating the 1947 Albemarle League playoff, and Bijan Bayne chronicling black professional baseball in North Carolina from World War I to the Depression, just to name a few.

The glory of North Carolina baseball, past and present, is richly detailed in the Second Edition of Cradle of the Game: Baseball and Ballparks in North Carolina. The comprehensive volume explores minor-league and leading college ballparks large and small. It will entertain readers interested in Tar Heel state baseball history, and serve as a guide to visitors of today's ballparks.The Tar Heel State has a special place in the baseball world; it's a place where affiliated teams play at almost every level -- from rookie ball to Triple-A -- and college players complete in the NCAA and the Coastal Plain League. In Cradle of the Game, their stories are richly told, with a chapter devoted to each of the teams competing the state.

After the Civil War, the Yankee textile industry began a steady transfer south, bringing with it the tradition of a mill village, usually owned by the mill's owner, where the workers and their families lived. The new game of baseball quickly became a foundation of mill village life. A rich tradition of textile league baseball in South Carolina is here reconstructed from newspaper accounts and interviews with former players and fans. Players such as "Shoeless" Joe Jackson and Champ Osteen made their marks as "lintheads" in these semipro leagues. The fierce rivalries between competing mills and the impact of the teams on mill life are recounted. Appendices list club records and rosters for many of the teams from 1880 through 1955.

To most Americans, baseball is just a sport; but to those who own baseball teams--and those who play on them--our national pastime is much more than a game. In this book, Robert Burk traces the turbulent labor history of American baseball since 1921. His comprehensive, readable account details the many battles between owners and players that irrevocably altered the business of baseball. During what Burk calls baseball's "paternalistic era," from 1921 to the early 1960s, the sport's management rigidly maintained a system of racial segregation, established a network of southern-based farm teams that served as a captive source of cheap replacement labor, and crushed any attempts by players to create collective bargaining institutions. In the 1960s, however, the paternal order crumbled, eroded in part by the civil rights movement and the competition of television. As a consequence, in the "inflationary era" that followed, both players and umpires established effective unions that successfully pressed for higher pay, pensions, and greater occupational mobility--and then fought increasingly bitter struggles to hold on to these hard-won gains.

Carolina Baseball: Pressure Makes Diamonds is action-packed, filled with vibrant photos, taking readers on an incomparable ride through college baseball history. A must read for any baseball fan of any age. Pressure Makes Diamonds wizzes the reader through the University of South Carolina's rich 119-year baseball program, culminating with a powerful play-by-play account of the Gamecocks unparalleled back-to-back, national championship wins in 2010 and 2011! Pressure Makes Diamonds IS the heart and soul of what makes American college baseball so exhilarating!

America's national pastime has been marked from its inception by bitter struggles between owners and players over profit, power, and prestige. In this book, the first installment of a highly readable, comprehensive labor history of baseball, Robert Burk d

Baseball has joined America and Japan, even in times of strife, for over 150 years. After the "opening" of Japan by Commodore Perry, Sayuri Guthrie-Shimizu explains, baseball was introduced there by American employees of the Japanese government tasked with bringing Western knowledge and technology to the country, and Japanese students in the United States soon became avid players. In the early twentieth century, visiting Japanese warships fielded teams that played against American teams, and a Negro League team arranged tours to Japan. By the 1930s, professional baseball was organized in Japan where it continued to be played during and after World War II; it was even played in Japanese American internment camps in the United States during the war. From early on, Guthrie-Shimizu argues, baseball carried American values to Japan, and by the mid-twentieth century, the sport had become emblematic of Japan's modernization and of America's growing influence in the Pacific world. Guthrie-Shimizu contends that baseball provides unique insight into U.S.-Japanese relations during times of war and peace and, in fact, is central to understanding postwar reconciliation. In telling this often surprising history, Transpacific Field of Dreams shines a light on globalization's unlikely, and at times accidental, participants.

Draws on the experiences of the Baltimore Orioles to trace the development of the baseball business since 1950

Hundreds of major leaguers--including the Hall of Fame's Hank Greenburg, Johnny Mize, Rod Carew, Carl Yastrzemski and Joe Morgan--got their starts in North Carolina, where baseball has been a fixture in the state for nearly 100 years--in Charlotte and Durham (whose Bulls were in the 1988 film Bull Durham) as well as Red Springs and Snow Hill. Following an historical statewide overview, year by year summaries and histories are provided for each of the 72 towns, from Albemarle to Zebulon. Notable players and club records are listed for each year, and the causes for the rise and fall of baseball in the different towns are discussed. Biographies of 20 prominent minor leaguers are included, as is an appendix of nearly 2,000 major leaguers who played for a North Carolina team. The state's Negro League and textile league histories are also related.

Offering a fresh approach to the familiar concept of all-time baseball teams, this exhaustive work ranks more than 2,500 players by state of birth and includes both major league and Negro League athletes. Each chapter covers one state and opens with the all-time team, naming a top selection for each position followed by honorable mentions. Also included are all-time stat leaders in nine categories--games, hits, average, RBI, home runs, stolen bases, pitching wins, strikeouts and saves--a brief overview of the state's baseball history, notable player achievements, historic baseball places to see, potential future stars, a comprehensive list of player nicknames, and the state's all-time best player.